The US doesn't have any real privacy laws like the ones you seem to be thinking of, I don't think. For instance, it's not illegal for me to pull your name and address out of a phonebook and sell that info to a marketing company. In fact, compiling, buying, and selling valid mailing address lists is a big industry here. That's one of the reasons Sam has a disclaimer on RinkChat saying that he'll only use your email address for administrative purposes and not sell it to other companies looking for valid email addresses to spam--because a lot of people are afraid to put in their email (or snail mail) address anywhere for fear of just that. And if he didn't have the disclaimer, it'd be perfectly within his rights to compile a list of all of our email addresses and sell it to a spamhouse, as far as I know.

If you subscribe to a magazine here in the US, it's a fair bet some marketing company bought your address (along with a list of a jillion others) from the magazine publisher a long time ago and has been using it to send you third class junk mail ever since.

This particular issue is about a Federal law *mandating* that schools hand over student's names, addresses, and phone numbers to the military. I find that idea a little troubling, but the fact is if you're a male between the ages of 18 to 25 and you're not registered with Selective Service (basically, so Uncle Sam knows who you are and where you are in case he ever decides he needs you) you're in violation of the law anyway. Women, right now (as far as I know) are not required to register with Selective Service but are allowed to serve in the military, so there might be an issue there.

It also appears that the law has an opt-out clause, much like many websites do (hidden somewhere in the fine print, next to some pre-checked box) saying that you can decide not to have your (or your child's, as the case may be) information sent to recruiters. So although I think it's a power-play by the government to try to get people to sign up for the military, I think the fact that you can opt-out of it makes it far less odious than it would otherwise be.

-- Dave