Slashdot Mirror
Will Your Answers To the Census Stay Private?
Hugh Pickens writes "James Bovard writes in the Christian Science Monitor that Americans are told that information gathered in the census will never be used against them and the House of Representatives, in a Census Awareness Month resolution passed March 3, proclaimed that 'the data obtained from the census are protected under United States privacy laws.' Unfortunately, thousands of Americans who trusted the Census Bureau in the past lost their freedom as a result. In the 1940 Census, the Census Bureau loudly assured people that their responses would be kept confidential. Within four days of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Census Bureau had produced a report listing the Japanese-American population in each county on the West Coast. The Census Bureau's report helped the US Army round up more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans for concentration camps (later renamed 'internment centers'). In 2003-04, the Census Bureau provided the Department of Homeland Security with a massive cache of information on how many Arab Americans lived in each ZIP Code around the nation, and which country they originated from — information that could have made it far easier to carry out the type of mass roundup that some conservatives advocated. 'Instead of viewing census critics as conspiracy theorists, the nation's political leaders should recognize how their policies have undermined public faith in government,' writes Bovard. 'All the census really needs to know is how many people live at each address. Citizens should refuse to answer any census question except for the number of residents.'"
I no longer expect any privacy from my government. I want it, and I think it's fucked up that I don't have it...but I no longer expect it.
What the hell has happend to us as a country? Has it always been this fucked and we just have the means to know about it now? Or were things truly better back int he day?
Living With a Nerd
What bullshit. The privacy protections regarding census answers were put in place AFTER the Japanese internment camps as a RESPONSE. This summary reads as is those protections were disregarded in that roundup, and then darkly speculates on what could have been after 9/11, if those privacy protections had been disregarded.
Slashdot isn't far from freerepublic these days, in political leaning or critical thinking.
To give a hypothetical example, it would be like if you were a neilsen family but refused to fill out info about the tv shows that you liked and then complained when they got canceled.
Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
-Ayn Rand
What does this say about America? Read this for a good overview of technology's intertwined relationship with the failings of geopolitical advancement of privacy. Basic summary: it isn't technologies fault for privacy lost, its the people who regulate it.
To quote:
"The attacks of 9-11 challenged our country in new ways. But perhaps the biggest challenge was whether we would safeguard both our country and our Constitutional heritage or whether we would have weak leaders who were unable to protect the country without sacrificing our freedoms. Regrettably, we found that our political leaders lacked the ability to uphold our laws. For electronic surveillance, they pushed aside the judiciary and asserted the President's authority to intercept the private communications of American citizens within the United States. Even with the broad powers of the Patriot Act, the White House grew impatient and colluded with the telephone companies to disclose private customer records without legal basis or judicial review."
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Human is a species.
"Conservatives" wanted to round up arabs? Do you have a single shred of proof for this or are you basically a Truther or Birther at heart, with nothing but paranoia to offer us?
No-one wanted to "round up arabs" since that would have been stupid and done nothing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Same here. But he said not to answer the race question because liberals value minority lives over white lives.
Developers: We can use your help.
As an urban planner, I can say in all honesty that eliminating things like race from the census would be devastating to research processes. There is a lot of super valuable information in the census data when it comes to identifying trends and demographics, and types of services required for certain types of residents, etc. It is terrible that personally identifiable census data has been used in the past to round people up, or create "watch" lists of sorts, but understand that many many other groups and agencies use non-personally identifiable information gained from the census forms to actually do some good for communities. A ridiculous amount of stuff that urban planners do in GIS is with census data, and without it, or with significant amounts of errors, it becomes useless and entirely possible that planning decisions will be made with bad information.
I think the submitter is worrying about the wrong thing.
The answers could have remained private (as in remained within the Government), but the Japanese-Americans still rounded up.
It's not great comfort when the general public, criminals and Corporations don't have access to your census info, but the Government still kicks in your door at 3am and bundles you away just because you happened to have filled in the "race" field with the "wrong race of the day".
Race: Pikes Peak Hill Climb :).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exdUD02JryI
This is the third census I've participated in as an adult, and the fourth for which I was old enough to pay attention to the media/hype around it. And in each and every one, wingnuts from all over the political spectrum have crawled out from under their respective rocks and foamed at the mouth over the government intrusion into private lives.
Give it rest guys. Your claims don't stand up to a moments dispassionate scrutiny. The interment camps were nearly seventy years ago. We've learned since then.
Honestly, I can't see any other reason for collection of this data. The government should be 100% color blind. Why collect race data unless you plan to give one race(doesn't matter which) preferential treatment? If you don't plan on providing differential services based on race, why would you care what my race is?
Someone explain this to me. Please.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Useful to whom? The racists who care about skin color in Washington?
Skin color is about as much use as eye color or hair color, except to racists.
So much for Martin Luther King's wanting to be judged on the content of the character instead of the color of your skin.
Medical researchers who would like to know the demographics of an area and how they affect various health issues
Demographers who research race/ethnicity and a whole host of things
i could go on, but you've clearly got an axe to grind.
Keep tilting at windmills.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
Then they can do their own damned study and spend their own money to do it rather than piggyback on a Federally mandated study.
Then they can do their own damned study and spend their own money to do it rather than piggyback on a Federally mandated study.
umm...i thought techies hated re-inventing the wheel?
Have you actually read the 10 questions?
Questions 1, 2, 5, and 10 are all simply checks to make sure that the respondent really did, indeed, list all residents of the household (which isn't straightforward in all cases -- think roommates at college, for example).
Questions 6, 7, and 9 have all been asked since either 1790 or 1800 and are basic profiling questions. Don't like it? Complain to the almighty Founding Fathers. Question 8 (are you Hispanic) is necessary to make question 7 (race) make sense in a modern world.
Question 3 (your phone number) is to allow easy follow-up; if you don't include it, I don't think the bureau will care unless there's something they can't understand with your report (illegible handwriting, most likely), in which case they'll have to knock on your door to fix it (which costs far, far more of your tax dollars than a phone call).
Question 4, which has been asked since 1890, is the only one that I agree isn't really necessary.
The ten minutes the Census Bureau says this form will take is a gross exaggeration. Two is more like it -- far more than it took me to write this response or you to complain about it.
The US Census is for and should only be used for Congressional seats (congressional apportionment), electoral votes, and government program funding
Says who? The US Constitution thats who says what the US Census is for.
Article 1, Section 2: "The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct."
You want more data collected and used in different ways? Change the Constitution.
The Constitution doesn't work that way. It doesn't prohibit them asking for more information, and other clauses imply that so long as it isn't prohibited expressly or implicitly then there is no problem as long as it serves a legitimate government purpose.
being able to anticipate how diseases might affect the population certainly falls under a legitimate government purpose.
Just because the American Libertarian Party tells you incorrect information about the constitution doesn't make that information correct.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
I wonder how the Founding Father's interpreted that? Well, let's see the questions that Thomas Jefferson asked on his 1790 census.
From here: http://www.gengateway.com/census/1790_census.htm. Hmm. I suspect Thomas Jefferson may have had a better idea of what the Constitution meant than the libertarian fanatics who suggest breaking the law (it is illegal not to answer every question on the Census, and wastes taxpayer money as they to hire more people to come to people's doors and find stuff out).
Just for comparison purposes, let's take a look at the 2010 short-form census that the vast majority of people are receiving.
, like the age and DoB one, are from the 1800 census. Others, like the naming question, are a later addition because it was found that asking for names helped people list the correct number of people. But all in all, it's pretty much the same census the Founding Father's took. You're also missing the "in such manner as they shall by law direct" clause. Sure sounds to me like Congress can direct the Census people to ask more and different questions according to the Constitution.
The census data is absolutely useless to medical researchers. "Black" doesn't describe anything about an individuals genetic code other than melanin content. The genetic variation among "black" people is as great or even greater than the genetic variation between any given black person and white people. "Asian" is used by the census generally to describe anybody from about Pakistan eastward, lumping Indians with Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese, all of which are very distinct from each other. And what constitutes "black" and "white" today, anyway? Is Tiger Woods black, asian, or what? Are his kids black or white? Do you want to bring back the old "one drop" test, so if any of your ancestors are black, you are deemed black? Demographers are among those who continue to insist that we define our society by skin color, so I don't feel much need to help them out. I also put American for race.
They can ask, you don't have to answer - by the 4th and 5th amendments. The only authority is for an enumeration. Look it up, you will find it means counting.
I believe you don't know how to read the Constitution. 10th amendment and article 1 section 8. It's a limited government with enumerated powers. If it were unlimited, god help us all.