SELECT noprivacy FROM census, socialsecurity, irs

"The Congressional Budget Office, with the surprising help of some Congressional Republicans, is angling to get its hands on Census Bureau files," reports the New York Times today (free reg. req.). Here's the interesting thing. A staffer for Rep. Dan Miller (R-Fla.) told the NYT that there is no problem with doing a little cross-correlating of your census, Social Security, and IRS files: "The Census Bureau is the government, and Congress is the government." Last April, that same Dan Miller was blaming the Clinton adminstration for making the American people distrust their government through mishandling of sensitive files.

Comments

Make it reciprocal, at least?

[1010011010]

Can we at least get the same information and correlations for all officers of the government posted online? After all, if they think it's fine to correlate and snoop on us, it must be okay for use to correlate and snoop on them.

Or they could have kept their promise not to hand out the census data. Yeah. Right.



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Damn!

[wumingzi]

I felt it would be beneficial for my wife and kid to have more Chinese-language services in our neighborhood, so I told the Census there were five guys from Mainland China living in my basement.

Now I'm really in trouble.

Re:Damn!

[Greyfox]

The census people are going to be pissed at me. I told them I've got 87 mexicans and a rhesus monkey living at my house, but the IRS guys don't know anything about that. Maybe I should start claiming them as dependents (Can you claim a rhesus monkey as a dependent?) so that the records correlate...

Re:Redundant.

[FreeUser]

Aren't your IRS and Social Security files cross-corellated already?? I mean, they're both owned by the Federal Government, and you do put your social security number on your tax forms...

Yes, but now they want to cross reference this with your Census information. Not a big deal perhaps, if you were one of the lucky (like myself) who received the "short form," but a large number of people receive the "long form" questionaire which demands (under threat of legal action if you refuse) all kinds of personal information to which the government really isn't entitled.

Now that personal information will be correlated to your financial information, providing one-stop shopping for spooks, police, bureaucrats (who may just not like you because your dating their daughter/sister/girlfriend/wife), and any private person who has the right personal contacts to ask for the information illicitly.

It makes an already abysmal situation with respect to personal privacy that much more abysmal. Worse, it codifies the current trend of violating our privacy into law, which is exactly the opposite of what is needed.

For an example of a country with sane(r) privacy laws I refer you to Germany, which has made the trading of personal information illegal, even between government agencies. After getting used to having some personal privacy over there I have to say, returning to the United States was like a bucket of cold water in the face -- we have almost no privacy here, and now that status quo is about to take on the force of law and be eroded even further.

Not a happy development at all.

Paranoia considered underrated ...

[dodecahedron]

I got the census long form and was horrified at that they expected me to tell them. So I ignored it. After the third visit from the census person, I took pity on her and called the number listed on the card she left. I told her I was the brother of the man living there, and there was no one in residence, my brother being overseas. That was the end of it as far as they were concerned. If they just wanted to count me, then that would be one thing, but when they want to know how many toilets I have, am I Hispanic (and am I SURE I'm not Hispanic?), how much I earn, blah blah blah, they've gone over the line. This story just reinforces the wisdom of that decision. It's gotten so that if the government tells me one thing, my first inclination is to believe the exact opposite. And they wonder why.

Quit your bitching, and do something.

[Xerxes]

Write your MC (see http://www.house.gov/writerep/).

Or write Rep. Miller. Miller's site cleverly does not include his email address, but according to this site turned up by Google , Miller's email is miller13@mail.house.gov. Seems plausible, since he represents the 13th district in Florida. It won't be his personal email address, however. Ask him or his flacks to explain the apparent inconsistency in his two positions, as indicated by the links in the header. Note that http://www.house.gov/danmiller/census/faq.htm , the official FAQ of the Census Subcommittee, hosted by Miller's office, encourages people to divulge all the requested information to the Census, and states the following to assuage their privacy concerns:

5. Is the information I provide contained in my Census 2000 questionnaire private?

Yes. In fact, it is against the law for Census employees to disclose the information you provide. Information that is gathered and released by the Census Bureau is not connected with your household's address. By law, the Bureau cannot and will not share your households census information with the IRS, FBI, INS -- or any other government agency for that matter. There is no court of law that can subpoena this information, not even the President of the United States.

If you live in his District, write your local paper. Get them to ask him to explain the apparent inconsistency in his public statements. He's up for reelection. Make it an issue if you are a constituent.

You only have yourself to blame for your cynicism and inaction. Bitching on Slashdot won't change the world. At least not in politics. Slashdot is useful to let you know what's going on, but bitching here won't do much of anything except give you some catharsis.

Re:Okay... but why not?

[Xenu]

The FBI used Census Bureau information to help round up Japanese-Americans for internment during World War II.

I hope the Census Bureau tells Congress to go fuck themselves. Otherwise, they will lose all of their credibility.

Re:What's wrong with this?

[Col. Klink (retired)]

"Its" citizens? "ITS" citizens??? Fuck you. I don't belong to the government, the government belongs to me.

But if you must know, governments should not be able to track "its" citizens because of the history of government abuses. While the US decried to horrors of Nazi Germany rounding up the Jews, the US rounded up Japanese... with information from the Census.

Hitler didn't have anything like the detailed information on "his" citizens that the US has today. The Nazis kept records of suspected Jews in shoeboxes.

If a neo-fascist came to power in the US and decided to implement a final solution, having a nice cross referenced database like this would be invaluable.

You can't say "it can't happen here" when it already did once before.

Re:I'm sick of this

[1010011010]

Um, no.

Thanks for the informative post. The law is simply too complicated these days. Here's the text he linked to:

Talking about a "War Powers Act": Nasir v. Anderson (D NJ unpub 8/25/97); Daigle v. US (6th Cir unpub 1/29/96) 76 F2d 378(t); McCann v. Greenway (WD Mo 1997) 952 F.Supp 647; this myth is especially popular with a veterinarian, Gene Schroder, (sometimes spelled Schroeder, but I follow the spelling used in 800 P2d 1360), who evidently characterizes as the "War Powers Act" the National Banking Emergency Act of March 9, 1933, the first act signed by FDR, 48 Stat 1, which was mostly codified under title 12 (banking) and deals entirely with regulating banks and restricting the hoarding and exporting of currency and precious metals, contrary to various myths it has nothing to do with the flag, the military, the courts, or ordinary life; the statute apparently did not, by itself, commence a National Emergency and, if it did, that period was long over. A court decision, US v. Bishop (10th Cir 1977) 555 F2d 771, held that a Vietnam War perp's destruction of a power line in 1969 could not be especially punished under the Sabotage Act as having been committed during a time "of national emergency" as the only national emergency that could be argued was still in effect in 1969 was Truman's 1950 Proclamation arising from the Korean War. Almost immediately after the Bishop decision, Congress authorized a study into emergency powers legislation preparatory to new legislation to restrict the applications of states of emergency; the resulting study, the Report of the Senate Special Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency, Emergency Powers Statutes: Provision of federal law now in effect delegating to the executive extraordinary authority in time of national emergency, Sen.Rept. 93-549, 11/19/73, 607 pages; mostly a listing of statutory provisions that allowed the govt to skip certain procedural steps if during a declared state of national emergency. This report determined that, in 1973, there were still existent four declared states of emergency: Section 1 of the 1933 Act, which is (still in effect) now 12 USC sec. 95b (which only authorizes the issuance of new regs designed to facilitate 12 USC sec. 95a which restricts the exporting, hoarding, or melting of gold and other precious metals), Truman's 1950 proclamation about the Korean War, Nixon's 1970 proclamation about the postal service strike, and Nixon's 1971 proclamation about an economic emergency arising from the balance of trade deficit which including imposing an additional tariff on imports. As a result of this study, Congress enacted a few years later the National Emergencies Act, PL 94-412, 9/14/1976, 90 Stat 1255, codified at 50 USC sec. 1601, 1621, etc., which imposed a two year duration on any existing national emergencies and required that any future declaration of a national emergency must be reviewed by Congress at six month intervals. Subsequently, Congress amended the 1933 Act by enacting the War or National Emergency Act, PL 95-223, 12/28/77, 91 Stat 1625, which amended 12 USC sec. 95a to limit explicitly the President's capacity to impose the restrictions of the Trading with the Enemy Act and to issue regulations about international transactions involving money, credit or precious metals to "time of war" and not during a mere "period of national emergency" (striking that expression wherever it had appeared in the 1933 Act); in the accompanying committee report (Sen.Rpt. 95-466) it was explained that this 1977 law was in furtherance of the 1976 law on limiting national emergencies, and was deliberately intended to limit and terminate what it considered excessive Presidential use of the four old declared emergencies to manipulate the laws on international financial transactions. Altho militia mythology stresses that we are always in a declared state of emergency, it turns out that the emergency situations which still persist - and they do persist, according to occasional Presidential Executive Orders - relate directly to foreign events, such as Mideast terrorism, and are limited to such things as embargoes and the freezing of certain bank assets associated with a foreign adversary.

... I have a question for you, though; why do executive orders reference previous executive orders about the "emergency," extend it, and also reference section 5b of Title 50? The 1976 law did not repeal Title 50, or end all of the "emergencies" declared under its aegis, or nullify the executive orders that are based on it. Granted that congress requires renewal of the emergencies now, but it's always renewed. The end result if the same -- sweeping power for the President.

Do you have a list of all current national ermegencies you can post for us? Perhaps with references to EOs that mention them?

Thanks!

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It is reciprocal

[Wellspring]

Can we at least get the same information and correlations for all officers of the government posted online? After all, if they think it's fine to correlate and snoop on us, it must be okay for use to correlate and snoop on them. Or they could have kept their promise not to hand out the census data. Yeah. Right.

Actually, for the most part, this is already the case. Congressional and executive salaries, including non-government salaries, are all publicly declared and reported. You can request all this stuff-- it is public record, and occasionally published in the newspapers if it has some shred of juiciness to it.

Campaign contributors are the same way. Try to donate five bucks to a candidate-- you'll have to enter personal information to allow them to comply with campaign finance laws-- and much is published by the Federal Elections Commission.

Anyway, the whole point of the Census-- the reason it is in the constitution-- is to give government agencies, especially Congress, the information they need to determine the effects of different public policies. For instance, if the Congressional Budget Office wants to determine what the effects of a tax increase will be-- who it will hit and by how much, and what the effects on revenue will be, they need that information. The Census makes government (theoretically) more science and less guesswork. There's still plenty of opinion to politics, but solid numbers helps people.

That's one reason why libertarians and conservatives don't like how huge government has become. It has touched so many areas of our personal lives that it has to collect invasive information about us. Free healthcare for everyone? Well, we need to know if you qualify. Diane Feinstein, for instance, supported a plan to have a national ID card/database. The plan was rescinded when Congress changed parties.

You can't support a bigger government (as Nader, Gore and Feinstein do) without supporting measures to give government the authority to gather the personal information it needs to support a larger government.

Census Bureau policy - from a "census peon"

[The Rizz]

I worked for the census doing the door-to-door questionaires this summer, and find this proposal to be quite troublesome - and interestingly enough, possibly completely illegal.

When I was working for them, I was assured time and again that no information I collected would be given out in any way that could ever, under any circumstance, identify any individual. We were told that anyone working for the Census Bureau who gave out any information we collected could be fined thousands of dollars and thrown in jail for several years.

We were told that all the information beyond the "number of people who live here" questions were used for statistical purposes - finding out the average income of households in certain areas, finding out how long most people took to drive to work, etc.

Many people I met going door to door would never have given me the information they did if I hadn't assured them that the law stated that nobody from outside the Census Bureau would get any of this information. I would hate to find out now that although I was telling the truth at the time, I could now, retroactively, be made to have been lying to them.

One interesting thing about it, though, is that part of the procedure of the job was to give everyone I talked to a notice telling them that everything they told me was completely confidential, and informing them of their rights in the matter.
My question about the legality of this would be whether the Census Bureau, by ensuring people of that right through the notices I handed them before asking any questions, had entered into a contract of sorts? Or, since many people gave the information only because they were told it was confidential, would it constitute fraud?

In any case, if this change in law goes through, it will most probably destroy the census - the only reason 90% of the people I talked to told me anything was because they beleived the information was confidential. Take that beleif away, and I doubt many will give anything beyond name, rank, and seriel number.