Part 2 of 2
This is Part 2 of a series by Arnie Alpert. Part 1 explains a recently adopted law fully automating the process by which young men are registered with Selective Service, the agency that would administer a military draft.
You can read Part 1 here: https://indepthnh.org/2026/04/21/federal-government-to-automatically-collect-draft-age-mens-data-who-knew/
By ARNIE ALPERT, InDepthNH.org
With the adoption by Congress of a new law automating the process by which young men register with the Selective Service System (SSS), critics of a military draft are warning about a potential return to conscription.
“Given threats and actions by the Trump administration to intervene militarily in an increasing number of places around the world, it is concerning that, at this time, steps are now being taken to grow the number of people who could be facing the threat of a future draft,” warns a statement endorsed by 43 anti-war and libertarian organizations at the end of March.
From 1980 until last December, young men were required to register with the Selective Service System (SSS) within 30 days of turning 18. Although the law was rarely enforced, a set of sanctions enabled the agency to compile a massive data base of men who would be subject to the draft if one were to be resumed.
Selective Service intends, by the end of the year, to take registration entirely out of the hands of potential draftees by scouring federal data bases for information about all men turning 18.
“This provision is not a draft, and it is not a step toward one,” insists U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander, D-NH, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the committee that drafts the annual defense policy bill. “Reinstating a draft would require a separate act of Congress, passed by the House, passed by the Senate, and signed by the President–and that is not happening.”
“Congress alone has the authority to restart conscription, and that is not currently under consideration,” said a spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Senator Shaheen believes America’s all-volunteer force remains integral to the health of our democracy,” the spokesperson said.
Of course, the current Commander in Chief has little regard for the will of Congress. He could just wake up one morning and ask Stephen Miller to craft an executive order for Selective Service to begin conscription. Lawsuits would no doubt follow, but there’s no saying how SSS or federal courts would ultimately respond.
Asked about the topic on March 8, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said, “It’s not part of the current plan right now, but the president, again, wisely keeps his options on the table.”
A History of Resistance
Non-compliance with draft registration carries a hefty penalty: 5 years in prison, or a fine of up to $250,000, or both. Likewise, it’s a felony with the same potential consequences to aid, abet, or counsel others to violate the draft law. However, as 1980s draft resister Ed Hasbrouck points out, no one has been indicted for violation of the Military Selective Service Act since 1986.
Those who might refuse to comply would be in keeping with a longstanding American tradition, argues Jerry Elmer, author of Conscription, Conscientious Objection, and Draft Resistance in American History.
Going back to the Civil War, as well as during the first and second world wars, resistance to conscription has been widespread. While many people may have heard about the anti-draft riots in New York in 1863, it is less well known that in the Confederacy, “draft refusal was the norm, not the exception,” Elmer states.
“On the eve of draft registration for World War I, spontaneous antidraft protests erupted in large cities and small towns across America, hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—of men illegally evaded the draft, and some who openly confronted and resisted the draft were sentenced to terms as long as fifty years or even death,” Elmer writes. “During the relatively quiet conformist period of the 1950s, thousands of men became conscientious objectors (more than during World War II), hundreds went to prison for publicly resisting the draft, and tens of thousands quietly (and illegally) declined to register.” The first known organized draft card burning took place in 1947, not during the Vietnam era.
Above, Labor leader Eugene V. Debs was sent to prison after delivering an anti-war speech in Canton OH in 1918.
SSS Plan is Not About the Current War
“Automated registration reduces bureaucracy while also reversing negative trends in compliance, resulting in additional military and national service recruitment leads,” SSS said in its annual report for 2024. “Moreover, this approach ensures that individuals who are required to register remain eligible for benefits linked to registration, such as government employment, workforce training, and student aid in many states.”
“The proposal for ‘automatic’ Selective Service registration originated within the SSS, not with the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress. It’s not a response to any military exigency,” says Hasbrouck. Rather, according to the joint statement of the draft law critics. it was proposed “because the previous method of relying on men to register themselves with the SSS has, over time, resulted in tens of millions of young men failing to register or report changes of address.”
According to internal documents Hasbrouck unearthed with FOIA requests, SSS staff began drawing up plans to automate registration in 2022. The idea was pitched to members of Congress in 2024, Hasbrouck said, and was included in the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2025. When House and Senate leaders met to reconcile their differing versions of the bill, the House language on registration was adopted. The final bill, also known as Public Law 119-60, was signed by President Trump on December 18.
At the time, the draft registration provision received little attention. Instead, media reports emphasized the bill’s $900 billion price tag, increases in pay for members of the armed forces, ending DEI initiatives, aid to Ukraine, and the rejection of Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bid to change his agency’s name from the Department of Defense to the Department of War.
Perhaps it’s the objective of Selective Service to remove non-registration as an option by attempting to automate the process. If so, Hasbrouck believes it won’t work. “The Feds don’t have the data,” he told me. “The attempt will fail.”
“’Automatic’ registration won’t produce an accurate or complete list of potential draftees,” says the statement signed by the draft law critics. “But it will increase the likelihood of war and violate the privacy of U.S. citizens and residents. Once implemented, an automatic registration system will deny young men, including conscientious objectors, the opportunity to indicate their opposition to being drafted by opting out of registration.”
Michael Ferber, a retired UNH professor who was a prominent draft resister during the Vietnam era, doesn’t object to bringing back the draft. “I would not oppose a draft if it included men and women (and others), with no deferments or exemptions except for extreme disabilities, and it was randomly applied,” he said. “Sons and daughters of Congresspeople and Presidents could not dodge it. COs could work in hospitals or the Peace Corps or something; maybe many others, non-pacifists, too. Then if another US war of aggression came along, we would have draft resistance, which was fairly effective during the Vietnam War. As David Harris used to say, the draft gives us a tool to end wars.”
In its latest annual “budget justification” report to Congress, SSS lists implementation of automatic registration as one of its strategic objectives for the year. Their plan says they will “execute automatic registration implementation by December 2026,” develop the means to mine and manage massive amounts of data, and end “manual compliance activities.”
“Any time data is pulled from government databases to build a registration list, it raises serious questions about data privacy,” commented Rep. Goodlander in an email. “I will continue to exercise aggressive oversight to ensure that data collected for Selective Service purposes is not misused, that constitutional protections are upheld, and that this system is never turned into a tool for surveillance.”
Hasbrouck has been campaigning for years for the SSS to be abolished, not reformed or made more efficient. “The availability of a draft as a ‘fallback’ enables planning for larger, longer wars without having to think about whether enough people are willing to fight them. Ending draft registration by repealing the Military Selective Service Act is a way to limit endless wars.”
“Our rights shouldn’t disappear in the name of war,” said NH Peace Action intern Hazel Armstrong-McEvoy. “We want a future built on peace, not one that quietly prepares us for devastation.”
Arnie Alpert spent decades as a community organizer/educator in NH movements for social justice and peace. Officially retired from the American Friends Service Committee since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements. You can reach him at arnie.alpert@indepthnh.org.