Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Get Off Our Country's Lawn

That may have been the planned war cry of the Selective Service Administration when it sent draft registry reminder notices to men born between 1893 and 1897, most of whom it would be tough to defeat, what with them being passed on and all.

The glitch happened through miscommunication of shared databases, the kind of thing that's not so mysterious. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation sent the proper records to the Selective Service for men born between 1993 and 1997 who have failed to register. Even though there is no draft, registration was reinstated by President Carter in 1980 and has been in effect ever since.

Whoever sent the information to the SSA didn't check to make sure that the third digit was a nine in all of the records, so the SSA just sent out the notices. People who received them who tried calling the agency to report a problem couldn't get an actual person on the line to alert agency personnel to the error.

So the glitch is understandable. The fact that there was no human being anywhere in the process checking the results of the computer's work, nor available to respond to error reports or questions, is what makes you shrug your shoulders and wonder really, just what these people should be allowed to be in charge of.

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