Why are they tracking every American household by GPS?

One day a few weeks ago someone came to my front door but didn't knock or ring the bell. Upon noticing him I opened the door (hoping it was UPS with some exciting package). I found a young man writing down some stuff. Didn't pay too much attention. He said he was doing preparatory work for the census, but that he didn't need any info from me. handed me a printed piece of paper assuring me of privacy of data collected. While I choked back incredulous laughter at the very idea of privacy in this country these days, I was mostly relieved he wasn't asking for money and said, fine, and closed the door.

Since then I've heard from multiple sources that the purpose of this is

they must GPS mark the coordinates “within 40 ft of every front door” in America and they are supposed to complete that mission nation wide, within 90 days, by the end of July 2009. The workers were not told why they were GPS marking every front door. But a supervisor is sent out to follow them door-to-door, to make certain that no door is left unmarked. Every door will be marked by one employee, and then checked by a follow-up supervisor.

canada free press

I'm sure you've all see this news too (from the same article) that is less than reassuring.

ACORN signed on as a national partner with the U.S. Census Bureau in February 2009 to assist with the recruitment of the 1.4 million temporary workers needed to go door-to-door to count every person in the United States — currently believed to be more than 306 million people. But the count doesn’t take place until 2010… This is April 2009.

The conclusion drawn by most of the bloggers and news tidbits I've read is that this is a way to monitor each household. The more paranoid among them believe it will be used once martial law (please note the correct spelling) is instituted, we can be fitted with ankle bracelets of the type used to enforce house arrest, and tracked if we dare leave home, or maybe prevented from leaving home. maybe it's like one of these electronic dog fences. but i digress. the point is, the gps coordinates are or soon will be recorded for each household in america. while i don't quite buy into the ankle bracelet containment theory, it still seems pretty creepy. they have our addresses, what do they need gps coordinates for?

does anybody out there have other ideas about how this info will be used?

Creepy, I'm glad I'm in Canada! But who knows they may be doing that here too.. I think its none of their business and they should just give it up. My guess is that it has something to do with making sure that they don't miss anyone with whatever evil plans they have planned for us.

It could be used for a lot of things obviously. But I think it would be implemented for reasons such as tracking a pandemic (or an excuse of that kind) or even in the case of a massive country wide disaster event. If a nuclear bomb was dropped or planet x's s##t hits the fan, they would be able to track which area's were still there.

reply to post by earlywatcher


Can you scan or take a photo of the piece of paper he gave you and post it up for us to see?

Cheers!

To "track" something by GPS it has to be moving.

Do you live in a mobile home?

reply to post by Chadwickus


I'll see if I can find it. I make it a habit to never throw anything away except for things I might eventually wish I'd kept. Can't remember which category this fell into. It was maybe a 1/3 sheet of paper, printed on both sides. If I can find it I'll scan and post.

reply to post by nerbot


good point. the word "track" is used in all references I've read to this business. I personally do not live in a mobile home, and my actual house does not move. I do have a passport that is supposed to be chipped, so they could track me by that, when i leave home, though I normally carry it. don't know if they have chipped driver's licenses yet. that's usually with me. the would be able to tell if i was home, but really who cares? j

I think you have an excellent point. I don't see why they need these coordinates at all. they know how much money we make and what we read, what we watch on cable, what we say on the telephone and internet. what conceivable use is there for household GPS coordinates?

Could it just be busy work for ACORN? An excuse to pay them a few million dollars for re-stabilizing neighborhoods?

Everybody I know, including myself, have had these census people marking waypoints for our houses on their GPS units. I got the little paper also, and while I know I didnt throw it away, Im not positive where it is. I'll have to look around the house a bit and see if I can find it.

I was not welcoming at all to the lady that came to my house. In fact, my wife went out to talk to the lady, and by the time I was getting out of the bathroom, and stepping out to see what was going on, the lady was already taking my GPS coordinates. She said something like Hi Im from the US census, we're just mapping out locations, or something to that effect.

I scowled at the lady, and didnt say a word. She tried to hand me the paper, and I just glared at her, trying to figure out if Id get arrested if I grabbed the GPS and smashed it. My wife took the paper from the lady, and she turned around and quickly left, and I felt like a little of my freedom had just been taken.

I dont like it at all, and believe they should have to ask the property owner before taking their reading. Not asking for permission in my mind is an invasion of my privacy, no matter what theyre using the info for. PERIOD.

reply to post by earlywatcher


Yeah, daft isn't it!

btw....a piece of tin foil folded 3 or 4 times and slipped over the relevant page in your passport will render reading of the chip impossible (or v.difficult).

Destroying them is a no-no and could make you a target at an airport passport control, but protecting them from illegal reading is a sensible precaution.

re: credit card chips: hammer, blunt nail & whack! (or just get rid of them altogether!)

I guess the government is too lazy to look on Google Earth for GPS info.

Looks to me that Obama is going to use ACORN's 'incredibly accurate' record keeping, aka make up false registration data, during the 2010 census to redraw critical district lines. This makes total sense with all the taxpayer money Obama gave ACORN in the Stimulus Bill. They proved their skills in falsifying official documents in the past 2 Federal elections, now they're going to be rewarded by their leader.

I have also been looking for some good sources on this..
if anyone has some video or interaction please post it here...

.. here's some newer ones also...

debatebothsides.com...
216.221.102.26...
www.iseek.com...

[edit on 3-5-2009 by Hashishian]

reply to post by nerbot


I don't so much want to become invisible because that would invite suspicion. and sadly, there's nothing to know about my life that would interest them anyway. I've fondly thought of how many agents might have died of boredom if they'd been surveilling me. I like the passport in tinfoil idea very much. it would be so much fun to pop it out in the open now and then then go dark for awhile. though the economy being what it is, i don't know that i will ever again be traveling abroad. and credit cards--heck, all they have to look at what I purchase to know everything. plus, don't know if you all realize it, but most cities are rife with cc-tv cameras. on stoplights, sides of buildings. sometimes you can find lists of where they are located in your city.

to quote the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, i'm mostly harmless. no need for tracking.

it makes no sense. there might be some splinter of usefulness if the GPS coordinates were recorded by the census taker itself, but why does it need to be done a year ahead of time? It must be something sinister and we must discover what it is.

reply to post by Hashishian


This is a really excellent article. One of the ones I'd read and forgotten about. Some good thoughts here. This data comprises a GPS grid of the front door of every household in America. so what's the use of that? i suppose some kind of database might have uses, and it's always easier to put numbers into a database rather than street addresses. probably faster for an application to map things out.

if they wanted to fire a missle at some people, they could address each missle very accurately to their front door. but really, wouldn't it be cheaper to drop one big one on the city? of if they wanted to take out individual households, send thin bombs in red netflix envelopes.

that reminds me. years ago I knew a mailman who said that they had to be very careful when welfare checks came out, to make sure people still lived in the location to which the checks were addressed to. so they checked them against the cable bills. he said virtually all welfare recipents had cable, and since the cable company keeps deadly track of these things, it was just a handy thing for mail carriers to use. they aleady know where we are. what's the point of the GPS?

they can also track us by our cell phones. so I suppose they could put an anchor point at the home GPS and then let the cell phone wander around and see where we are. Honestly it seems like overkill.

need more ideas; think OUTSIDE the box.

i am incredulous at this moment.

i passed over this thread three times today, dismissing it based my assessment of the title as ridiculous and paranoid.

i received one of these census notices tucked in my front door two days ago!


this is highly HIGHLY suspicious.


edit to add: IMO the thread title needs to be changed to reflect the direct impact on every american's life. something like: "US Census Bureau GPS paints every front door in America!"

[edit on 3-5-2009 by tgidkp]

The only reason I know for have the GPS coordinate of a building is for purposes of targeting.

The military does this kind of preparitory field work for missile guidance.

Perhaps skynet is nearing completion.

maybe they are preparing for a nationwide delivery....

of GPS guided munitions.



perhaps they are creating a virtual address book. that way when your time is up, they know where to find you.

reply to post by tgidkp


I appreciate your comments about the thread's title. I have only started a few threads on ATS and usually they get little to no attention. I thought I'd try something more paranoid to see if it helped. While it turned you off, it's gotten more attention than mine usually do. As I grow bolder and start more threads, I hope to learn to craft titles to be both accurate and fascinating without necessarily being paranoid.

maybe when TSHTF, they will station an ACORN member in each household to re-stabilize neighborhoods. GPS coordinates will make it easier to make the assignments.

paranoia alert*
maybe they have some kind of beam weapon that can be fine tuned, like the cable signal. you know how when the cable guy comes to hook you up? and he does his stuff and then he calls up somebody and gives them coordinates where to send the signal? or when you call your internet provider for support and they can "see" your signal on their equipment? well maybe it's something like that. some beam weapon can be sent directly to your GPS location to mess with you.

or
maybe they have some kind of detector that searches by GPS that can tell whether you are scared enough to suit them. if you don't score high enough on the fear meter you are probably a domestic terrorist and must be stopped.

I sincerely hope that none of these things are the reason. I'm still looking for that printed piece of paper.

reply to post by earlywatcher


I had the Census Bureau stop by my house in April. They asked how many people lived in my house and I told them. And that was all there was to it.

But, what was weird was, my co-workers and I rent a house outside of my home state, for work and everyday there would be notes on the door saying that the Census Bureau stoped by and it was very important to contact the office by calling the number on the paper. Well we never called them, due to work and forgetting.
We had a slow day, and we were cleaning our work vehicles, it was well after 7:00pm and sure enough someone pulls in our driveway. It was the Census Bureau. She was talking to my friend and he explained to her our situation about renting the house for work. She considered the house to be vacant. Yes, maybe because we rent it, but it's far from vacant.
That did'nt make any sense to me. And since then my creative imagination has gotten the best of me.
Makes me think of FEMA camps, and they are trying to make more accurate head counts.
Boy do I hope its my imagination!!