Why are they tracking every American household by GPS?

I was "mapped" recently as well. So, our names are already associated with our addresses, at least those of us who own our homes or are on the lease if it's a rental. Now they've got GPS coordinates associated with our addresses, and as such, our names.

So now with a flip of a switch, or push of a button, Uncle Sam can now point one of his Spy satellites directly at my front door, see how many people I have over, read license plates on cars in my drive way, scan my home for "suspicious" heat sources (I'm an indoor gardener) or simply sick their drones on Unit 541's house.

I didn't like the guy who mapped me much either. He became belligerent when I asked him for identification associating him with the census bureau. Neighbor two doors down is a detective, and escorted him out of the neighborhood. The remaining houses on my street got away without being mapped, at least for now.

I am currently working for the Census in NW Georgia. We are using the GPS in our Hand Held Computers (HHCs) to provide the public with new updated maps of streets and roads. The GPS locating of your homes is mostly to provide census takers with an exact location of your home in the event you do not return the census form as required by law in the constitution. There are some people especially in rural areas that might have quarter mile or longer driveways, so that you would never see the residence from the road. The census workers that are currently out in the field should not be taking any personal information from you, no names, number of people in the residence or anything of that nature. All they are to be doing is verifying that your address is or is not on the address list. so that they can mail the forms early next year. I will be glad to answer any questions that any of you may have in this matter.

titorite

"My house is inside my property about 100 yards. When I opened my door the census taker was already clicking her PDA... By that time I knew I had made a mistake to open my door. She already had my Exact GPS co-ordinates of where my home was located on my property. "

yes, see

by doing that she must be breaking the law. it is not the same as someone in the old days checking off your address with a pencil.

lastpatriot: "I am currently working for the Census in NW Georgia. We are using the GPS in our Hand Held Computers (HHCs) to provide the public with new updated maps of streets and roads. The GPS locating of your homes is mostly to provide census takers with an exact location of your home in the event you do not return the census form as required by law in the constitution. There are some people especially in rural areas that might have quarter mile or longer driveways, so that you would never see the residence from the road. The census workers that are currently out in the field should not be taking any personal information from you, no names, number of people in the residence or anything of that nature. All they are to be doing is verifying that your address is or is not on the address list. so that they can mail the forms early next year. I will be glad to answer any questions that any of you may have in this matter. "

if you are such a census taker then how if you don't take name would you verify an address unless they send out the census to 'dear resident'? if so then how would they know who does or doesn't reply? Addresses don't change, people do. So as some have said that live on long driveway homes ...they still come right to the door a-knockin'. So why knock if all they wanted to do is make sure an address is the same (aka, the home didn't blow off in a dorothy from oz scene??). Of course they don't want to know who lives there or how many, why would they care? Besides you cannot have some census takers in some areas going to doors and some not going to doors and claim they are just coordinating addresses. If so, why are they hiring people to work in the long driveway areas and not give them at least a bike or a golfcart?

If we have any questions? sure I have one...

how can you honestly take home a paycheque from the new Nazi regime and sleep at night?


[edit on 5-5-2009 by suzque66]

reply to post by LastPatriot


LastPatriot,
if they are planning to mail these forms, why do they need gps data? the post office delivers mail to street addresses. or do they intend to switch over to gps coordinate for mailing the census? I bet then they will ask for an even bigger increase in postage because they will need all new equipment. no, i bet they intend to mail the questionnaires the old fashioned way. some people have a mailing address different from their street address. a vacation rental, for example. new people in and out every two or three days. mail is sent to the owner, not the front door of the vacation rental. or rahm emmanuel, whose home apparently is a charitable foundation and he receives his mail at the vacant lot next door (or something like that. it was very confusing). have they explained to you why you are gathering this info when the post office has already got the delivery of mail very much under control?

This is similar to the 3D over flights municipalities use. They take an image coming, over, and going from a plane so it can be compared to the last images (weeks,months,years ago) for any building improvements that do not have permits. The software even highlights significant changes in pink. They have been doing those since the late 90's. If you check out google maps they already have most of this info soI wonder why they need more specific data.

reply to post by suzque66


I can answer one of your questions. The census chic that taged me drove her SUV all the way up to my door.

Brave of her me thinks considering the type who live out here.

reply to post by cliffjumper68


they claim that nothing they collect as part of the census will be turned over to law enforcement or buildings or anybody else. actually i wonder if that refers to the gps data too. NOTHING is supposed to be individually identifiable until 72 years after the census. it's all supposed to be aggregated into statistical blocks.

I understand what you are saying, and it makes perfect sense, but suzque66 has posted excerpts and links to the laws that are supposed to regulate all this, and they aren't supposed to be using it for that or turning it over to anybody.

Originally posted by earlywatcher
reply to post by suzque66

 

I had to skim the articles because the connection with ACORN worries me so much. I know they are partner with the census. Do they ever do things in a non-partisan manner? Everyone knows the white house wants to use the census for redistricting. is that ACORN's main focus? They are well known for strong arm tactics to get donations from people. that case just recently. why would you hire a group like this to help conduct the census?

I've never heard that acorn uses strong arm tactics. I'm not surprised by anything anymore so I don't have a hard time believing it but could you post some info about their strong arm tactics and where I might run into this problem? I like being prepared

suzque66: The census forms should be addressed "current resident", primarily because the government does not care what your name is, just your SSN. Exactly as you said addresses don't change people do, The people that lived in my house 10 years ago, had a totally different family structure than I do, therefore I will be filling out my form differently than they did. Also everyone also knows what a real estate boom we have had over the last 10 years, therefore there are whole subdivisions and neighborhoods that exist today that didn't exist 10 years ago. Also people not being as fortunate as you and I might be living in an old abandoned structure that other people would never even think about living in (seen this personally, 4 homeless men living in a abandoned farm house 75 yards from the road no signs of anyone living there, but to be counted we must be able to track where these people might stay, no address so GPS mapspots must be used) Also not everyone recieves mail at their place of residence (i.e. PO Box) must be able to locate those residences without mailing addresses. As far as giving Census personel transportation, I am reimbursed by the federal government for every mile I drive my personal vehicle. Personally, if I can read your house number from the street I will never step off the sidewalk or turn into your driveway, therefore never entering onto your property.

[edit on 5-5-2009 by LastPatriot]

[edit on 5-5-2009 by LastPatriot]

Originally posted by LastPatriot
...All they are to be doing is verifying that your address is or is not on the address list. so that they can mail the forms early next year. I will be glad to answer any questions that any of you may have in this matter.

And exactly how are GPS coordinates relevant to whether or not an address is, or is not on some list?

I don't doubt that you're working for the census bureau, but based on your post, it seems that even you may not be fully aware of what exactly it is you are actually doing for them.

reply to post by jfj123


Here's one example of what i think of as strong arm tactics:

A lawyer for a whistleblower on the activist group ACORN is prepared to tell a House panel Thursday that the group provided liberal causes with protest-for-hire services and coerced donations from the targets of demonstrations through a mob-style "protection" racket. ACORN called it the "muscle for the money" program, according to prepared testimony Pittsburgh lawyer Heather Heidelbaugh plans to deliver at a hearing of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties.

The "unofficial" program collected payments to organize protests. For example, the Service Employees International Union hired ACORN to harass the Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm. Other paid protests targeted Sherwin-Williams, H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt and Money Mart, according to the testimony. The protests then became a way to extract corporate donations. "The protesting was used to get companies to negotiate. The companies would pay money to get the protesting to stop," Ms. Heidelbaugh said, quoting Ms. Moncrief's court testimony. "In addition to calling this activity 'Muscle for the Money,' the insiders at ACORN called it 'protection.' "

more details in the article
Washington Times

Originally posted by Unit541

Originally posted by LastPatriot
...All they are to be doing is verifying that your address is or is not on the address list. so that they can mail the forms early next year. I will be glad to answer any questions that any of you may have in this matter.

And exactly how are GPS coordinates relevant to whether or not an address is, or is not on some list?

I don't doubt that you're working for the census bureau, but based on your post, it seems that even you may not be fully aware of what exactly it is you are actually doing for them.

As I have said before the GPS coordinates are the dummyproof method for Census workers to locate a residence when the form is not returned or when the residence has no formal mailing address as referenced by the squatters residence.

reply to post by earlywatcher


It's probably in part just to refine the co-ordinates, make them more accurate. When I tested mine the other night, it was already within 15' on publicly available data. It would have been far closer, I believe, if I had used a differential GPS beacon as well, as the Census Bureau is reported to be doing. I could have probably gotten it down to within inches. I'm not worried about that specifically, as they already have position information close enough on my house that I could whack 'em with a stick.

Some of the publicly available data, in particular some of the USGS stuff, has systematic errors in it of around 30 meters, I think. They're working to refine that, and this data COULD be used in that effort, but probably won't be. Sometimes, if you use the wrong map datum with the data you have, that error increases to around 200 meters. It's concievable that if the USGS were to get hold of this data, it could be used in a generalized way by the likes of Google earth to improve their accuracy. One way would be for USGS to use the Census Bureau's TIGER data to check the accuracy of their own stuff, after TIGER has been accurized by this data. That would be general, not directed toward individual whereabouts. Then, after it filtered from USGS to Google or TerraServer, it would improve the accuracy of locating, say, your mailbox or azalea bush, but wouldn't be directly linked to YOU, until someone looked up your address at WhoWhere and plugged that address into Google Earth.

My main concern is that this appears to be an effort to associate individuals with a set of co-ordinates where they could reasonably be assumed to be found at some point during each day.

nenothtu out





[edit on 2009/5/5 by nenothtu]

Originally posted by LastPatriot
I am currently working for the Census in NW Georgia. We are using the GPS in our Hand Held Computers (HHCs) to provide the public with new updated maps of streets and roads.

Does that mean that they're telling you folks that you are updating the TIGER database with more accurate info? I've noticed in using it that some of it is drastically mismatched with some of the USGS data.

That would be the only justification I can think of for them telling you that you are 'providing the public with new, updated maps', which implies a public release of the basic GPS data, without the personal particulars. TIGER is publicly available GIS data, in several different sorts of layers (roads, water, power grids, municipal boundaries, etc) for those who don't know.

Edit: to add a couple of links to Census Bureau TIGER data, and show what it's used for. The raw data, by itself, is harmless. It's only when it gets associated with individuals that I get jittery.

TIGER Data rescources

Uses of the data by the Census Bureau

nenothtu out

[edit on 2009/5/5 by nenothtu]

reply to post by nenothtu


I have not heard anyone use the term TIGER database but during my training we were told that any our mapping was used to help develop new maps that would be made available to the public. Basically the way this works is that when we find a road that is not currently on our maps loaded into our GPS system we open an app on the HHC and map the new road utilizing a GPS ping as we travel the new road. I was very skeptical about the GPS mapping of individual homes when I started, but after having mapped houses for about 4 weeks now. I can tell you that the error on the GPS is pretty great. My experience has been that about 20-50 ft is the norm for error, This meaning that the spot that I am checking and the spot that is preloaded is always wrong. Also the Census has always mapped the home location, this is just the first time with GPS. In past years the workers just put a pen dot on the paper maps at your home location.

[edit on 5-5-2009 by LastPatriot]

Originally posted by LastPatriot
reply to post by nenothtu

 

I can tell you that the error on the GPS is pretty great. My experience has been that about 20-50 ft is the norm for error, This meaning that the spot that I am checking and the spot that is preloaded is always wrong. Also the Census has always mapped the home location, this is just the first time with GPS. In past years the workers just put a pen dot on the paper maps at your home location.

[edit on 5-5-2009 by LastPatriot]

20-50 ft? Hmm... Sounds about right, but depending on the number of satellites you are locked onto and if you use the Coast Guard's beacon system to provide for further accuracy you should actually be able to get that down to single digits at times. What concerns me though is with that great an error you could have people's homes overlap. Surely they'd want to get it more precise, but that's just my musing, not a comment on whats going on.

Of course if you are in a more urbanized area you are going to have less accuracy than the level I'm familiar with.

What interest me more is what you said the old method was. GIS has been an up and coming field for about 20 years now, and only after 9/11 was it's full potential seen by people outside of geospecialties. I wonder though if a full, detailed map of not just voting districts, but down to blocks could be made public. This is as close as anyone could get to publishing about us without giving away specific information, and would make targeted advertising a dream come true for advertisers (and a nightmare for the rest of us).

Something I just thought about concerning "painting" each front door with its GPS coordinates is that we don't know what more is being put down. I remember seeing on an earlier post that there were two waves through each neighborhood: a worker to get the rough data, and a supervisor to make sure it was ok. Now the worker is innocent, breaks the ice with people, acts like a big bullseye to them. The supervisor could take additional information that we may not be aware of (something I would do would be to check off what material the building is apparently made of, which would be a quick method to make sure the same house is still there later on during the census).

They're taking the GPS co-ordinates of every 'dwelling' or building in your not-so-United States so when the time comes they can send a little alien robot from the far future straight to your door, and when they issue the order , the little SOB will punch a hole through the door and eliminate anyone inside.
That way by taking the GPS co-ordinates they get the right house first time, as using a nuke is too messy and way to obvious in culling the population, where-as a little alien robot from the far future will have enough ammuntion to make it look like it was a murder / suicide of the entire household and therefore no questions asked..

Hello to all here.

Alex jons talks about GPS tracking in the US in this link:

www.youtube.com...

From part 2 seems to be the most info.

This is my first post....be kind.

( im at work, so have to keep it brief.)

I think DataWraith is more accurate in his comment than I ever was in mine.

I can envision that, yep yep.

Thanks, now I won't sleep tonight argggggggggg. lol

[edit on 6-5-2009 by suzque66]

My sister tested and was hired for 2010 Census. There are I think she said 4 phases involved in the Census. First phase is/was going around certain areas you are assigned and determining whether or not particular homes are occupied. They are doing this with with mini computers they carry, logging in the addresses and whether or not they are occupied. This info. will be used to mail the census forms out. For homes that don't respond that were logged in as occupied, Census workers will do a face to face interview, always with at least two people.

I really don't think there is anything sinister going on here.