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There are only two reasons given in the US Constitution for what we now call the census: determining the number of representatives needed for a given area, and directing federal taxes. Constitutionally there is but one legitimate question: how many people live in this residence? With the House of Representatives based upon population the first reason is obvious. But the second reason expired when the 16th Amendment to the Constitution introduced the infamous income tax.
Today, three columns of invasive questions across 28 pages are asked in the companion to this year’s census- the American Community Survey. Though the current census has been reduced to ‘just’ 10 questions, the old census ‘long form’ data is now being gathered via the ACS. In their words:
“The ongoing American Community Survey has replaced the decennial census long form in 2010 and thereafter by collecting long form-type information throughout the decade rather than once every 10 years.”
Washington DC’s violations of your privacy will now be continuous, rather than once per decade. [...] With respect to your personal life, the Feds want to know how many times you were married, the date of your last marriage, and if you have serious difficulty concentrating or bathing. At one point they even asked for the number of stillbirths or abortions you have had. Even your nosiest neighbor does not know these things.
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The American Community Survey conducting the census publishes a pamphlet called “50 Ways Census Data Are Used”. Only two of the ways this data is used are constitutional.
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Should one refuse to answer all unconstitutional questions, the punishment is a fine of up to $5,000. Some time ago they even threatened imprisonment.
ACS: On the form, they don’t even pretend that the information you give is “protected” so they can’t share it with RonSanto (or whoever, Cubs fans).
Name, age, address and race of every person, all in one easy-to-access database.
Here’s one stupid question:
“What is Person 3’s age and what is Person 3’s date of birth?” when the age can always be derived from the date of birth, why do you have to fill in both? Why are they wasting your time? Or are they subtly detecting cultural differences of people who increment their ages on January 1st or on their name day?
“Is Person 3 of Jewish origin?”
Well, actually they ask whether you’re Hispanic-Latino-Spanish. I wonder if Hitler had this tool in 1933? He probably didn’t care whether you were Sephardic or Ashkenazic, but the US Census Bureau cares whether you’re Puerto Rican or Cuban.
And then the next question is about race. You can’t be mixed race, you have to choose or name one. Yet Science tells us there is no such thing as race. Even an Atheist will be saying “OMG”. Aren’t these “race” and “origin” questions among the ones that people were supposed to leave behind when they emigrated to the Land of the Free?
America is such a litigious country, isn’t there a lawsuit yet?
The only thing that bothers me about the Census form is the question about race. Race is irrelevant for most of us, though I prefer the Indianapolis 500.
Without this vital information, how will the Democrats and Republicans ever properly gerrymander voting districts for Bob’s Sake?
#15. I’m not so much worried that a census worker as an individual might come to know a particular small datum. But let’s say that Homeland Security decided they really needed to know something about you, or about everybody. Do you think that the Census Bureau would long deny them or squawk about it? Especially when that information would be so easily accessible? Legislators might trump “Title 13″ with a notwithstanding clause, and who is to say that all informational transfer is legislated? Maybe it’s just Manifest Destiny that the needs of Homeland Security or DEA or IRS or FBI or CIA or the Coast Guard or … trump the Census Bureau. When it’s “National Security” versus “privacy rights” we already know which is going to be the winner.
This is an issue in other countries too, but:
a) the protection is stated on every piece of paper you’re asked to fill in (yeah, OK, I know it’s a crock, but at least it admits that citizens somehow have a right to be suspicious of information harvesters);
b) they don’t ask so many or so invasive questions;
c) your name and address are often anonymized;
d) the hierarchy of government agencies isn’t so obvious as it is in the USA;
e) those countries don’t claim to be The Land of the Free.
jbellies Homeland Security or DEA or IRS or FBI or CIA or the Coast Guard or … have much better ways to learn about suspects than looking at there census answers. Come on they could learn all of what was on the census
form in about a second with out looking at the form.
#22 “The only thing that bothers me about the Census form is the question about race.”
Isn’t that enough?
I suppose one could write in “American” as answers to the Origin and Race questions, but there would be a lurking worry that one’s house might be surrounded by an automatic-weapon-toting SWAT team in the quiet of the night for offering flippant yea un-American answers. And they’d know where you live.
#23 GetSmart:
“Without this vital information, how will the Democrats and Republicans ever properly gerrymander voting districts for Bob’s Sake?”
THANK YOU. I can’t believe it took this far into the thread for someone to point this out.
““Without this vital information, how will the Democrats and Republicans ever properly gerrymander voting districts for Bob’s Sake?”
THANK YOU. I can’t believe it took this far into the thread for someone to point this out.”
You use voter registration data for gerrymandering, not census data. (Geeeze, am I the only one here from Chicago?) You use census data to write New York Times and Washington Post editorials.
But this data is so useful to social scientists.
I just got notified via snail mail that I will be receiving one of these Obaminations. Since it is illegal for me to not to fill it out what should I do? I think I might just lie.
Obaminations? ever its been going on every 10 years sense 1790 Obama by law has to host this 1 of the 23 so far Censuses why would you call it a Obaminations?
silly man
#28 DBR:
OK, well, I’m opposed to gerrymandering AND editorials from the NYT and WashPost.
so there!
@Howard Beal
Can’t you just enjoy the word play? Don’t get so hung up on politics.
But if you want to talk politics I think that Obama is Bush III but at least Obama can speak without me cringing.
# 33 Improbus said, “…at least Obama can speak without me cringing.”
Are you kidding? Obama is the worst. He stammers like Elmer Fudd and ends up saying nothing of import. When he reads prepared material, he’s easier to listen to but then he tries to impart unneeded solemnity to everything he says. Oh, and he thinks he has a marvelous sense of humor. He doesn’t.
@Animby
You got me there. The fact is I don’t watch the nightly propaganda broadcasts so all I have to go on are major televised addresses. Touche.
I am tired of this tin foil hat anti-census paranoia.
Just answer the damn thing and move on. It’s no big deal.
>> Animby said, on May 22nd, 2010 at 6:16 pm
>> Are you kidding? Obama is the worst. He stammers like Elmer Fudd
Damn straight! That George Bush, he speaked good.
#33 Improbus
Obama is Bush IV, Clinton was Bush II.
#34 Animby
Really? I thought he read well originally (playing the same character every time off course) but he seems to be deteriorating slowly and stumbling over the tele-prompter now. It is almost like he is getting the same medicine as Reagan (after office), Thatcher (after office) and Bush seemed to be given (mostly joking).
#36 Greg Allen
Tin foil hat? We call them anti-loving government haters now, get with the propaganda.
No.
>> Tin foil hat? We call them anti-loving government haters now, get with the propaganda.
“anti-loving government haters” ?? — it’s a funny title but the double-negative is throwing me off.
All I’m saying is that these anti-census people are paranoid nut jobs.
These kind of goofballs used to be on the nutcase fringe but now they are in Congress and in big-paying jobs on TV!
People have been watching way WAY too many “Evil Government Conspiracy” movies and TV shows. For one example, town, city, county, state and federal governments spend billions of dollars every year on things like reservoirs and sewage treatment plants and it can be very helpful (and save boatloads of money — your hard-earned taxpayer dollars, by the way) if they have a good idea of where the most need is.
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# 24 jbellies:
“… But let’s say that Homeland Security decided they really needed to know something about you, or about everybody. Do you think that the Census Bureau would long deny them or squawk about it? …”
Yes, I do. The Census Bureau has 230 years of history, tradition and practice behind it — I think they might actually sneer at a newcomer like DHS. I have _never_ heard of census data being compromised in all that long history. If I had, I might not dismiss this article so contemptuously.
The article asks whether the census and/or the ACS are “constitutional.” Sure, the Constitution, along with Supreme Court decisions and ratified treaties, is the Supreme Law of the Land, but it’s not the _only_ law. The Constitution keeps telling Congress right and left that it may make laws, and one of them authorized the ACS. I notice that nowhere does the Constitution ban murder, fraud or theft. Does that mean laws against these things are unconstitutional? No.
“Paranoia runs deep…”