Industry Figure Tom Chappell

On top of reports that the Selective Service has been restaffing draft boards across the country, here’s an item from the News Briefs section at the front of this month’s Communications of the ACM, the flagship magazine of the Association for Computing Machinery:

The U.S. government, despite denials to the contrary, is making its first moves toward a military-style draft of citizens with special skills in computers and foreign languages, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The Selective Service System, an independent federal agency, has begun creating the procedures and policies to conduct such a targeted draft in the event military officials ask Congress to authorize it and lawmakers agree. Agency spokesperson Richard Flahavan insists a targeted registration and draft is strictly in the planning stage: “The whole thing is driven by what appears to be the more pressing and relevant need today, that is, the deficit in language and computer experts.” The agency already has in place a special system to register and draft health care personnel ages 20 to 44 in more than 60 specialties if necessary in a crisis. Flahaven says the agency will expand the system to quickly register and draft computer specialists and linguists should the need arise.

Communications of the ACM
Volume 47, Number 6 (2004), Pages 9-10