[JonA]

Originally Posted by Cory

The proposal makes references to "All US states, territories, and the District of Columbia” but none to Canada, Brazil, or England. What happens there? Do they not have to report child abuse?

Applying rules to only certain members of an organization is DISCRIMINATION.

Interestingly, I cannot find where FIRST states that it does not discriminate by race, creed, sex, sexual orientation...etc.

Should we submit ourselves to a background check that uses "public record and proprietary databases"(http://www.volunteerselect.com/)? What is in the proprietary database? Does it contain the fact that I am related to a person who protested the Vietnam War? Do I get a red flagged for that? How about for rolling through a stop sign or getting a speeding ticket? Or being arrested and not charged? What do I get red flagged for and is it relevant?

The U.S. Federal Government tried to start a "Classified" database that held information on all U.S. Citizens to determine if they were terrorists. Guess what happened when people found out about it? Politicians shot down the proposal and the agency backed down and shut it down.

I ran through the Flash demo fairly quickly and saw a lot of places where SSN’s are available to the user. So, do I trust the user(the team leader) with my personal information that could easily be used to steal my identity or that may be a convicted felon or child molester? Do I trust that the system will never be comprised and my Name, Birth Date, SSN, Address and other personal information will never be available to “Hackers?”

Oh yeah…parents are exempt…what? I know a number of parents that have children in high school that have a criminal record. So, I am safer with a parent that has killed people than with a Professor that has worked at a university for over 30 years and has a Nobel Peace Prize? Or how about an engineer that works for a company contracted to the DoD that has Top Secret clearance?

PRICE: the teams have to pay for the background checks?
At $8 / adult…well, let us see:
2 Public HS Teachers = $0
17 College Students = $136
4 College Professors = $32
6 Professional Engineers = $48
Total = $216

Our team’s current balance after paying for competitions and kit: -$200. Who will bare the burden of these fees? Not me, as a college student, I am happy to come up with $4 to eat for a day.

For the record, I was a Boy Scout. The BSA leaders were subjected to a similar if not this specific background check. I understand why they are done. I almost agree with the process, but why do they need to verify my SSN? Are they issuing me some sort of credit or are they part of the Social Security Administration?

I love FIRST Robotics. I loved working with FIRST Alumni to start a new team. I loved the whole process and am set to be a “team leader” this year. My fellow team founders and I have worked incredibly hard and have dedicated hundreds of thousands of hours in founding the team and working with the students. We have sacrificed good portions of our lives, our grades at our College and our health for the benefit of the team, the high school students and the ideals that FIRST was founded on. NO ONE can question our commitment or loyalty to our team and FIRST. Yet, I question if my commitment is strong enough to overcome the possibility that someone might steal my identity or the implication that is made by being red flagged by a proprietary database that could contain inaccurate data or data that does not apply to me being a threat to the high school students.

How many well-intentioned people will FIRST loose from this? I guess we will find out, but if mine and other peoples’ concerns are not addressed, I will be one of those people.

-Jon Anderson
Team 1064: co-founder, Engineering Student a the Milwaukee School of Engineering

P.S. I have neither criminal record nor anything to hide about my past.