Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 23:59:37 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <200106080359.XAA19635@mattababy.mit.edu>
From: belmonte@mit.edu (Matthew Belmonte)
To: CapuanoHR8@aol.com
Subject: support HR 1597

Dear Representative Capuano

I hope that you'll support HR 1597, a bill to repeal the Military Selective
Service Act.  Selective Service registration is an invasion of privacy that has
become utterly unnecessary to national security.  As long ago as 1993, the 
Pentagon's `Report to the President and Congress: A Review of the Continued
Requirement for Draft Registration' cited the successes of the all-volunteer
military and concluded that `[P]eacetime draft registration could be suspended
without irreparable damage to national security.'  Today's military relies more
on technology and training than on unskilled labour, and as a result it's
doubtful that any conscripts could be processed and put to work in time to make
a difference on the battlefield.  The United States should follow the lead of
other developed nations, and do away with the draft and the bureaucracy that
supports it.