The New Census:An All-out assault on your privacy

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The federal government has quietly begun using an incredibly intrusive new census form called "The American Community Survey." Up to 1 million households a year will receive this form.

This new "census" form is 24-pages long, and demands that you lay bare every detail of your life, including how much you earn, what your home is worth, details of your health, when you leave for work, previous addresses, pregnancies, monies received from government, and on and on.

I say demand because you can be fined up to $1,000 for each of the 72 questions you don?t answer or which you answer "incorrectly." However, so far no one has been fined for not answering, nor are they likely to be if public resistance is strong.

The ways the government could use this information to harm you are mind-boggling. For instance, any financial discrepancy with IRS or Social Security records could result in your criminal prosecution. Knowing when you leave for work could enable police, acting under the Patriot Act, to secretly enter your home.

The American Community Survey also demands that you to report on the activities of relatives, employers and roommates. Joseph Stalin could hardly ask for more surveillance powers. You can download the survey at www.census.gov/acs/www/

NOTICE THE LAST PARAGRAPH?

I hope you will all post your feelings about this one. Specially those who are behind this and justify it.

[edit on 4-9-2006 by kinglizard]

You should of seen the 2006 Canadian questionaire. One in five households get the long form with 53 questions to answer.

I was seriously thinking of not answering to see what would happen. Thankfully, I got the short version this year. Basically, rank and serial number was all that was required. There were many concerns this year over the fact that some of the computer work was contracted out to the Canadian division of a US defence contractor. Statistics Canada Has Contracted Out Part of the 2006 Canadian Census to Lockheed Martin
.

Not many seem concerned about this?

C'mon, people.

And thanks, Gools, for your input.

I remember this issue well.

If I get one, I will refuse to respond beyond the most basic and appropriate questions.

Fine, indeed.

I was a manager for the 1990 Census and covered data collection for a sizeable portion of the northeast. I also use census demographic data daily in my work as a marketing analyst. There are legal provisions built into the census that prevents other agencies from accessing individual data. Could this be illegally circumvented within the government? Probably. But they can also access your bank records (including loan and mortgage applications), phone records, etc. so I'm not all that certain this is as big a deal as some would like to think. Individual census forms are protected by law for 72 years. The questions on the census form (the long form) are used to project population growth and infrastructure needs (schools, medical care, transportation, public service). The most granular that aggregated data is made available is at the block-group level. This corresponds to roughly 200-300 households depending upon the population density and diversity of the given area. Also, census data is collected every 10yrs and takes about 2yrs to compile so it isn't the freshest data on an individual basis anyways. And no, I'm not a government disinformation agent, NWO, or reptilian.

Why worry about the Census, has anyone helped fill out the applications for Social Security or Medicare in the last few years? My mother had to refile for some of her benefits a few months ago. As she lives with me there were more questions for me than there was for her. All of these question that were listed on the Census post are also in those applications. If you don't answer them all they can deny her benefits. I don't think that these questions are some kind of government plot to compile a database on all of us. I think they are a way for some of the government agencies to try to justify their existance and their budget. With that being said though, all of this stuff does go into a computer somewhere and the information is availible for misuse. Look at all of the hassle that was caused by the VA losing one laptop.

I will like to found out is the census will be delivered to the house with signature required at delivery.

Because if no signature is required . . . well . . . you know . . . it never made it to the mail box.

Can we claim invasion of privacy if we decided to send it back blank.

Can we claim the fifth amendment?

Is our name linked to the survey?

I think I am going to test the limits and send it back blank, because it invaded my privacy rights under the contstitution.

[edit on 2-9-2006 by marg6043]

There is some things I don't understand.

First, that article is dated "08-31-05", nobody noticed it then?

Second, I went to that U.S. Census Bureau site to look for the survey, but I found several.

What is the current survey, the 2005 one?

If that is the case, the 2003-2004 survey had the same questions.
The 2000-2002 survey had these questions that disappeared from the next years' surveys

15 At any time DURING THE PAST 12 MONTHS, were you or any member of this household enrolled in or receiving benefits from:
  a. free or reduced-price meals at school through the National School Lunch Program or the School Breakfast Program?
  b. the Federal home heating and cooling assistance program?

20 a. Is the rent on this house, apartment, or mobile home reduced because the Federal, state, or local government is paying part of the cost?
b. What government program provides this reduced rent?

21 Is this house, apartment, or mobile home in a public housing project; that is, is it part of a government housing project for persons with low income?

These questions were changed.

2000-2002
28 a.Do all of the persons listed on pages 2 and 3 live at this address year round?
     b. Of the persons listed on pages 2 and 3, how many live somewhere else part of the year?
     c. Do you consider this house, apartment, or mobile home, that uses the address on the front cover, your –
      Primary residence?
      Vacation home?
      School residence?
      Work residence?
      Other – Specify

2005
25 a. Do you or any member of this household live or stay at this address year round?
     b. How many months a year do members of this household stay at this address?
     c. What is the main reason members of this household are staying at this address?
      This is their permanent address
      This is their seasonal or vacation address
      To be close to work
      To attend school or college
      Looking for permanent housing
      Other reason(s)– Specify

The 1999 survey has the same questions as the 2000-2002 survey.
The 1998 survey has a different layout, so it was much more difficult to compare and I just ignored it.

So, if you worried today because of the questions, why weren't you worried in the 1999 to 2004 period?

According to the article i posted, these are new provisions. I can only go by this article. It doesnt surprise me in the least-.....
Fines, and wanting information about friends and neighbors??

This appears to be an "addendum" of some kind.

A Bush type addendum.

According to Section 221, persons who do not respond shall be fined not more than $100. Title 18 U.S.C. Section 3571 and Section 3559, in effect amends Title 13 U.S.C. Section 221 by changing the fine for anyone over 18 years old who refuses or willfully neglects to complete the questionnaire or answer questions posed by census takers from a fine of not more than $100 to not more than $5,000.

(From The Horse's Mouth)

I did a skim through the Census' ACS website, didn't find anything about $1K per question, just the above information. Given that census data is used to parse out necessary local and regional budgets, I'd say $100--or even $5K--is reasonable. If half my city were to skip answering it, we'd be screwed out of budget for schools, roads, etc.

That's not all there is to it.

This is not just for the purpose of proper budgeting. Read the original post.

Oh, I did; I know there's more to it than that. But it's still part of it, kinda like congress sticking a pay raise in a bill to provide funding for the homeless.

I don't think they'd be sending anyone a ticket for refusing to fill out a form, or filling it out correctly. Like marg said above, there's no way to prove you even received it. Hell, maybe some punk kid raided your mailbox hoping for a nudie mag or something. If you get the survey--my understanding is that it's sent out at random to about 3 million households every year--forget it. They start getting on to you, you never received anything, no notice you were supposed to get it, nothing that looked like a survey or anything. How are they going to know any different?

Originally posted by MCory1
Like marg said above, there's no way to prove you even received it.

We had a similar census in Portugal in 2001, and we received it personally, there were some people working for the Portuguese census bureau that went door to door giving us the papers and helping people answer the questions. Then they said that we have some days to fill the survey and would be coming after those days to retrieve it.

But Portugal is a small country, in a country like the US I think this is not an option.

This is extortion!!!!!
Sorry but if i read such things
i'm glad not to live in the U.S.
And i think the worst is yet to come in the future.

Originally posted by ArMaP
...

But Portugal is a small country, in a country like the US I think this is not an option.

There are census takers that come door to door in some areas, but they're not going to walk through your house to make sure you filled out the questions correctly. They'll thumb through it maybe, probably check to make sure all of the required questions are answered, then move on. If there's obvious problems--say you claim 10 adults living in a studio apartment--they might ask about it, but even then, they're probably just going to move on to the next house.

I dunno, I want to be paranoid; I want to look at this as an invasion of privacy, and I'd like to think that, even if for the wrong reasons, someone thinks I'm important enough to waste their time on like this. But I'm not arrogant enough to see anything that makes me special enough to warrant someone else's attention. Someone wants to waste their time and hard disk space on the kind of water faucet I have, I say that's their problem. Maybe that's just the blatting of the sheeple inside me, but I think there's much bigger things to worry about, both on my end and the gov't's.

When I got the short census form in Canada, I put myself, wife, kid, cat, fish, nephews all down as saying they all were persons living in my household. I refused to write in all capital letters cause no legal fictions live at my house or are floating at sea and exisit in their own capacity. I wrote on the back of the census that the "crown", international bankers, Vatican, & CSIS are going to burn in hell. I also said no one at my house is under maritime or admiralty law jurisdiction ever! Then I wrote Lockheed Martin can die but crossed out die & put bite me.

A couple of weeks later they phoned me and asked me some questions. Like what languages FISH spoke, I said he was mute. Motley my cat spoke feline, I said I spoke latin. They are a bunch of "tards".

[edit on 3-9-2006 by BattleofBatoche]

THE NEW CENSUS

Check it out for yourselves.

OK, it wasn't any of those I saw, but those questions are used on the survey since 2000.

Why nobody said nothing since then?