[Excerpt from Selective Service System FY 2025 Annual Performance Report and FY 2026-2027 Annual Performance Plan.]
Note: Most of this Web site describes the “self-registration” system which remains in effect through 2026. “Automatic” draft registration is scheduled to be implemented in December 2026.
[Excerpt from Selective Service System FY 2025 Annual Performance Report and FY 2026-2027 Annual Performance Plan.]
The law ending the requirement for “self-registration” and address reporting by young men, and instead requiring the Selective Service System (SSS) to try to identify, locate, and register potential draftees automatically was enacted 18 December 2025 as Section 535 of the National Defense [sic] Authorization Act for Fiscal year 2026, P.L. 119-60. This provision takes effect one year after its enactment.
That means that by 18 December 2026 the SSS needs to put in place the legal, regulatory, and technical framework to be ready to start trying to register potential draftees “automatically”. Proposed regulations for “automatic” draft registration are currently under review by the White House, but that’s only one of many needed steps in the process. If the SSS isn’t going to be ready for “automatic” registration by December 2026, the agency will need to go back to Congress to ask for a law (or a provision in some other law, such as the NDAA for FY 2027) postponing the effective date of the change in the Military Selective Service Act (MSSA) — or ignore the deadline set by Congress.
The SSS has made no public comment on its plans, and has not yet responded to a FOIA request I made in January 2026 for its plans and timeline for implementation of “automatic” registration. So far as I can tell, the SSS has not made a public statement or responded to an email or voicemail message from any reporter since the “automatic” registration law was enacted more than six months ago. Presumably, some senior SSS official or someone at the White House has realized that visible moves toward an unpopular draft in the middle of an unpopular war with Iran will fan the flames of opposition to its war policies., and that anything the SSS could say would call more attention to an issue the White House wants to avoid: the SSS is (as it is required to do) planning, preparing, and maintaining readiness to activate a military draft.
Here’s what the SSS will need to do during 2026, if the SSS is going to comply with the law (which it often hasn’t, especially with respect to collection, use, and sharing of personal data):
No funding for the transition to “automatic” draft registration was included in the SSS budget for FY 2026. According to the budget justification submitted by the SSS for FY 2026, “This budget proposal does not envision or include requests for funding for any new mission requirements that may come from any other legislation now under consideration.”
During FY 2026 and FY 2027, the SSS will need to continue the current self-registration program while gearing up for “automatic” registration. The SSS budget request for FY 2027 describes implementation of “automatic” registration as one of the top priorities for the agency, but includes no line item or breakdown of expected start-up or operational costs of “automatic” registration, and only a 3% (approximately $1 million) increase in total funding for the SSS.
The SSS is funded as an “independent” agency, not as part of the Department of Defense, so its funding is considered by Congress as part of the annual appropriations package for “Financial Services and General Government”. This annual bill is marked up by the respective subcommittees of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, and not by the Armed Services Committees. This could provide an opportunity for oversight of SSS plans, and for critics of “automatic” registration and members of Congress who aren’t on the Armed Services Committees to raise questions about the cost and feasibility of the SSS plans and budget request.
The House version of the FY 2027 appropriations bill including $31 million for the SSS (essentially unchanged from FY 2026) was reported to the full House on 24 April 2026, after two days of hearings at which, so far as I can tell, no questions were raised about Selective Service.
Meanwhile, there’s still a chance to repeal the MSSA entirely in 2026, before the attempt at “automatic” registration begins. The Selective Service Repeal Act was reintroduced in the Senate on 14 May 2026 as S. 4537, and could also be included or proposed as an amendment to the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2027.
The House version of the NDAA for FY 2027 was approved by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) on 4 June 2026. The only provision proposed or adopted as part of the HASC version of the NDAA related to Selective Service would prohibit the SSS from registering dead people for the draft, thus requiring the SSS to include the Social Security Administration’s “Master Death File” in its data sources for “automatic” registration. There was no discussion or debate on this proposal, which was adopted by the HASC by voice vote as part of an en bloc package of amendment. The sponsor of this amendment, Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), has not responded to oour request for comment or an explanation of his proposal. Does Rep. Van Orden have some reason to think that a lot of dead people are or would be registered for the draft? Why is possible registration of dead people his first priority with respect to Selective Service?
The Senate version of the NDAA for FY 2027 was approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) in a closed session on 11 June 2026. The Senate version of the NDAA doesn’t include any provisions related to the SSS, although it would require the Department of Defense “to brief Congress every quarter on the status of planning for and implementation of… plans for responding to a major attack on the Homeland in the context of military operations in other areas of responsibility.”
“Automatic” registration was enacted with no public awareness, hearings, debate, or budget review. The chances for repeal of the MSSA may depend on how soon and how widely “automatic” draft registration is recognized as a data grab for DOGE as well as an enabler of more aggressive war planning and policies.
The law directing the SSS to try to register potential draftees “automatically” leaves most of the details to the SSS to establish through regulations. These SSS rules will need to be finalized by December 2026. Changes to the SSS regulations to provide for “automatic” registration are likely to be combined with a comprehensive update to the SSS regulations — the first in decades — which the SSS had already prepared and planned to issue in 2025, and possibly with updates to the regulations for the Health Care Personnel Delivery System (HCPDS), which were proposed in 1989, pursuant to a mandate from Congress, but have never been finalized.
The first step in rulemaking by a Federal agency such as the SSS is the drafting of a proposed rule by the agency. The proposed rule is then submitted to the White House “Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs” (OIRA) for its review. The SSS submitted proposed regulations for “automatic” registration to OIRA on 30 March 2026.
OIRA normally has up to 90 days to review a proposed rule, but that time limit can be extended at the request of either OIRA or the agency proposing the rule. Proposed regulations for “automatic” draft registration have been held up in review by the White House for more than 90 days, running down the clock for the SSS to complete the notice-and-comment administrative proceedings required before the change in the registration law takes effect.
The proposed rules are not yet public during the OIRA review or until they are published for comment in the Federal Register. Once OIRA completes its review of a proposed rule and sends it back to the agency (in this case, the SSS) with its comments, the Administrative Procedure Act generally requires publication of the proposed regulations as a “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” (NPRM) in the Federal Register, a window usually of at least 30 or 60 days for the public to submit comments on the proposal, and consideration of those comments by the agency before it publishes a final rule.
The NPRM for “automatic” draft registration could be published soon, or not for months.
The attempt to register potential draftees “automatically” will be a complex exercise in data collection, data sharing, and data matching between the SSS and other agencies.
Multiple elements of this process will require notice and comment and/or other approvals pursuant to the Privacy Act, Paperwork Reduction Act, and Computer Matching Act.
As discussed further below, the SSS has a history of disregard for statutory requirements for notice, comment, and approval of its data collection, use, and sharing. If the SSS fails to promulgate the required notices or obtain the required approvals for “automatic” registration, those failings may provide a basis for lawsuits against the SSS.
The Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. §552a) requires each Federal agency to publish a notice in the Federal Register (with an opportunity for public comment) including specific information about each of system of records about U.S. citizens or residents. The notice must include the sources, recipients, and uses of the data. Maintaining such a system of records without first publishing a complete notice is a crime on the part of the responsible agency officials or employees.
“Automatic” registration will require new sources of registration data from other agencies and therefore a revised Privacy Act notice.
Even before the start of “automatic” registration, the SSS gave DOGE access to the registration database in early 2025, and in late 2025 proposed sharing its registration data with more other agencies for immigration enforcement and other purposes.
Objections to that proposal were submitted by anti-militarist, civil liberties, and privacy organizations. It’s not clear whether those objections have been considered yet by the SSS.
The Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Data Officer for the SSS, Alma Cruz, who had joined the agency in early 2025, retired (or took early retirement in response to the offer made to all Federal employees) at the end of 2025, before the close of the comment period on the December 2025 Privacy Act notice. A successor (from within the SSS staff) was appointed in March 2026. There’s been no response to the comments or indication of whether they have been considered.
The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. §3501 et seq.) requires an agency to publish first a 60-day notice and then a 30-day notice in the Federal Register and then get approval from the Office of Management and Budget before collecting information from members of the public. The OMB approval number must be included on any form, Web site, or app through which information is collected.
The SSS has been collecting information for decades through its “Request for Status Information Letter” (online form, printed form), but has never requested or received approval from OMB for this form, and the form does not display an OMB control number, making it flagrantly illegal.
The “automatic” registration law allows the SSS to demand information from a registrant if it is needed to complete their “automatic” [sic] registration. The new forms and/or Web pages to be used for this purpose will need to be published for comment and will then need OMB approval. Because of the two required notice-and-comment periods, this process takes at least three months.
The Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-503) requires advance notice in the Federal Register, a Privacy Impact Assessment, due-process procedures for individuals who are denied benefits on the basis of data matching, and an annual cost-benefit review and report to Congress for each data-matching program by a Federal agency that is used to determine eligibility for, or compliance with, any Federal benefit program.
The SSS has argued that this law didn’t apply to any of its activities, at least prior to the attempt at “automatic” registration. As of the enactment of the automatic registration law at the end of 2025, none of the Computer Matching Act notices required annually for each matching program had been published by the SSS in the Federal Register since 2017.
New and expanded computer matching programs will be central to the attempt to register potential draftees “automatically”. These programs will be subject to the Computer Matching Act. It remains to be seen whether the SSS will continue to ignore this law even as it dramatically expands its computer matching programs.
Except for hosting the registration database on rented commercial cloud servers, the SSS has carried out most of its core functions in-house. But The transition to “automatic” registration will require new functions, some of which might be outsourced to private contractors. For example, data aggregation, mining, and matching to construct a list of potential draftees and their postal mailing addresses from multiple data sources might be outsourced to a contractor such as e.g. Palantir. And the transition to “automatic” registration may prompt a reassessment of whether to outsource other SSS functions, as was discussed in the notice for an SSS “industry day” for poetntial contractors in March 2026.
As of June 2026, no information has been made public as to which functions the SSS plans to outsource, and no bid solicitations specifically related to “automatic” registration have been publicly posted.
Here are the most recent SSS requests for proposals from prospective contractors:
At least one local draft board for each county (or not more than five less-populous counties) would be needed if a draft is activated. But many draft board members have died, retired, resigned, or had their terms expire without having replacements appointed. Many draft boards lack a quorum and would not be able to operate until new members were recruited, appointed, and trained.
In March or April 2025, shortly after I obtained and published the full list of draft board members and reported on the numerous vacancies, the SSS suspended recruitment and appointment of new draft board members pending a “reassessment” of the system of draft boards. Since then, the number of vacancies and of boards that lack a quorum has grown.
Draft boards are mandated by law, so any changes to the program would require action by Congress. But no new regulations or legislation related to draft boards has been proposed.
Readiness for a draft, as mandated by Congress, will require either changes to the law to allow fewer or smaller boards (or abolish them altogether), or appointment and training of thousands of new draft board members to fill the current vacancies.
The SSS has been silent as to its plans for draft boards. In the meantime, researching and reporting on the current local boards in your area and their members is one of the best ways to raise local awareness of the SSS and its ongoing planning and preparation for a draft.
Dozens of states have laws making registration with the SSS a condition for issuance of drivers licenses or state IDs, enrollment in state colleges and universities, state-financed student aid, or state and local government jobs. Some of these laws affect only those state residents of registration age; some apply for life.
Which of these laws will still apply after the requirement to register with the SSS ends, and to whom they apply, will depend on the precise language used in state statutes. Do they apply to those individuals who are or were required to “register”, or to those required to “be registered”? Will they still apply to those who didn’t register during the time when it was required? Until they reach age 26? Or for life?
Changing Federal law won’t automatically change any of these state laws. If states don’t change these laws, there could be years of confusion and denial of eligibility for state programs on the basis of past nonregistration with the SSS. States may misunderstand or mis-apply these laws once self-registration ends, or may neglect to update their procedures to take account of the change in Federal law.
The Selective Service Repeal Act would “preempt” all of these state laws. Otherwise, it will be necessary to repeal them state by state to protect the rights of past nonregistrants.
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This page published or republished here 22 January 2026; most recently modified 3 July 2026. This site is maintained by Edward Hasbrouck. Corrections, contributions (articles, graphics, photos, videos, links, etc.), and feedback are welcomed.
