At my high school in Wisconsin (a relatively big school, 1500 kids in a town with about 10,000 people), we get Army recruiters. A lot of them. As in, every day, everywhere. Many teachers have Army posters up on the walls of their classroom. In our office, there's an abundance of fliers available. Let me state this: I have no problem with this. I have absolutely no problem with a government department coming to a government-funded school and informing kids about opportunities they have in joining the Army. I have absolutely NO problem with that.
Now that that's out of the way, let's move on to the godless liberal part of me.
I take a French class for 90 minutes every afternoon. Last week we got an interesting visit from someone we knew very well - a group of army recruiters, dress in their oddly pixelized camouflage. They gave to us a 90 minute presentation on opportunities in the Army.
No, let me rephrase that. They did not, in fact, come into my French class talking about going to boot camp, training to be a soldier, or anything like that. They were talking about recruiting kids who spoke foreign languages. Which, of course, makes sense, considering they're speaking to a foreign language class.
Here's the kicker: they specifically said that one of the major careers they're looking for - one that the presenter herself was engaged in - was wiretapping American phones. You know, for the good of all of us.
I raised my hand. Being what I would consider very respectful, I asked her how the Army could wiretap peoples' phones, and how they safeguarded the process to prevent abuse.
I didn't really get an answer. Instead, she took the time to hand off the question to anybody in the class willing to answer, promising to give an Army-branded water bottle to anyone who knew. Some kid answered, "Because they're not interested in what we're talking about, as long as you're not doing anything bad."
A water bottle flew in the air and the kid clapped his hands and laughed like an otter of some sort.
Let me reiterate. I have no problem with the Army coming and recruiting kids fresh out of high school. In fact, I have the utmost respect for everyone who signs up for the military. This is not only because of their service to myself and everyone else, but also for the admittedly more greedy reason of helping not reinstate the draft. But when Army recruiters come to high school classrooms, asking for young, impressionable students (and being a member of the student body, I can successfully say that a majority of high schoolers ARE, in fact, very impressionable, and, well, idiots) to help them spy on the American public without any sort of system set up to prevent abuse, without any system set up to prevent America from turning into even more of a police state, THAT I certainly have a problem with.
Oh, also, I got a water bottle because I knew that Tagalog was a language originating from the Philippines. It makes water taste plasticky.