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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.'"
White Male, 30
I don't have anything to worry about right?
And the fact that Glenn Beck has said the same thing makes me feel dirty. Ugh.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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
I got the census papers. Besides the obvious: what's your name, race and address there are no other questions. I can lie about race if I wanted to because it's saying which race you consider yourself to be part of. I'm not a US citizen, yet I consider myself part of one of the races on the list. If you're afraid you're going to be corralled up, you could do the same thing, say you are "Other" or whatever is closest to your skin color (African-American/Negro (yes that's one of the options on there) for anyone not-white and not-native american)
All other questions (SSN, birth date, birth place) are not part of the census so if anyone asks they are not acting on behalf of the census office.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
[ x ] Gun Owner.
If he's smart enough and fast enough.
The real question is, does it matter? Ok, so census data is kept secure. What about every other form you've filled out that asks the same questions, or similar questions. Or just plain ol Google datamining?
What difference does it make if this data over here is locked up tight when this same data over here is plastered all over the interwebs?
Of course the government could abuse that information, but what is the record like? Besides 1940, are there any other situations where the data was used to locate an individual? The 2003 situation mentioned is not an abuse. Providing demographic information is standard operating procedure for the Census Bureau, and a lot of good can be done with that information.
So if 1940 is the only case of census information being used to locate individuals, I'd say their record is pretty good.
Perhaps in 1790 that's all the census needed to know (that and how may slaves you owned), but it's a far different situation now. Socioeconomic and ethnic data is important in determining the types of services various areas need and plays an important part in know just who an "American" really is. As an aside, the census had nothing to do with the Japanese internment during WWII. At most it made calculating the number of Japanese-Americans easier, allowing the round up to be more accurate. Maybe. Given how easy it is to separate people by obvious ethnic ancestry, the round up would have occurred any way. Besides which, it's not as if either of scenarios mentioned in the OP actually provided anything more than numbers. They didn't provide addresses, names, or any actual personal information. Merely the number who marked a certain ethnicity in a certain county. So yes, these people are still just paranoid.
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.
They say that they won't release your information for something like 85 years, but they do release aggregate data. In the 2000 census, there were complaints that it was possible to determine individual answers from the aggregate data because they were releasing data for very small areas. I think it was by Zip+4, which narrows typically narrows it down to fewer than ten houses.
For me, I'm not concerned about the privacy, but I take offense at being asked to identify as being of a specific race. Whatever happened to the Great American Melting Pot?
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
But:
1) Saying that census data will 'never be used against you' and 'are protected by US privacy laws' is nowhere near the same thing.
2) The NY Times article about Arab Americans in each ZIP code was using publicly available data from the census. As with medical records, the data used by DHS was deidentified.
So in the end, I have faith that the answers I give will stay private, though I understand that information that identify me as a community will be available - that's one of the points of the census!
Hey, would that mean every time they vote themselves another raise I get one too? Sign me up!
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
"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
I didn't give them any information to leak or misuse. The constitutional purpose of the census is to count people, not to figure out who rents vs. who owns their homes, or what their age/race distribution is. So that's what I gave them. A complete and accurate count of the people living in my home.
Per Title 13, they could fine me $100 for failing to complete the form. I don't think that'll happen, but it's worth $100 to me to stand on the principle.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
But the thing about America is that we FIX problems when we realize that we made a mistake.
After World War II, American realized what a horrible thing we did with the Census and we changed the laws.
Now, it is illegal for information from the Census to be given to any other government agency. Specifically:
Immigration is NOT allowed to get the information.
The Internal Revenue Service is NOT allowed to get the information.
FBI and local cops are NOT allowed to get the information.
I myself am always a bit paranoid about giving out information, but the promisses the US government has given are about as extreme as it is possible to get. It is true that governments can ignore their own laws. But if you won't trust the US government after it wewnt that far to fix the problem you are worried about, then you should leave this country.
Because if you are concerned about them rounding you up in the future after they change the laws, then you should be more concerned about them rounding you up TODAY for failing to obey the existing laws
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
So if 1940 is the only case of census information being used to locate individuals, I'd say their record is pretty good.
1940 is a case where census information was used to round up an entire ethnic population and relocate them and strip them of all belongings despite assurances that census information would remain "private", which I'd say pretty much destroys any credibility of such assurances forever.
Of all the people counted by the Census over the last century (not including re-counts of same people), that's a pretty intolerable percentage of lives wrecked by abuse of Census data over the last century.
"Stroke of a pen, law of the land. Pretty cool."
"Power corrupts, absolute power is kind of neat."
- people who actually had such power.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Census data always becomes public... According to this census data becomes public after 72 years. This is an invaluable resource to those tracing their genealogy. I will be filling out my form fully, but then I'm not an illegal immigrant or a terrorist. I could see why someone in those groups would not want to fill it out. But filling them out provides valuable data today for all kinds of things, from predicting how many students will enroll in your public schools to how many representatives you'll have in local, state, and federal elections.
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
I understand privacy concerns, but I also understand the valuable ways this information is used. Things like trying to figure out the best place to locate infrastructure like schools and VA hospitals. I remember this "debate" from 10 years ago. Now, while you're passively rebelling against your evil government think about what answers you choose to omit from the census and how easily available that info already is.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
"The data, from the 2000 census, had already been made public on the agency's Internet site...But the Census Bureau director acknowledged at the meeting that by tabulating and handing over the data...the agency had undermined public trust..."
So let me get this straight. The data was publicly available, and the Bureau was getting in heat for... sorting it?
A six year old story about an eight year old NOTHING.
I routinely waste five minutes of time, but this block I particularly regret.
Census data is akin to medical records. You want your person information to remain confidential generally speaking but aggregated together, it's not hard to argue that such data could be used to benefit research and therefore benefit mankind. However confidentiality to one's family is probably less important. For example if your family has a history of heart conditions, you'd rather like to know that, even if Grandpa so and so never told you.
Having access to census data when trying to even research your family tree is critical. While genealogy isn't as much of a benefit to mankind as medicine, it at least means something to me at a personal level. I'm very very glad that old census records are available.
I completely agree that census data just like medical records is open to abuse. Profiling of any race is just plain wrong and the government should never have allowed that and those that did it should have been caught and prosecuted.
Compare and contrast these "concentration camps" with the Nazi version of "concentration camps".
Ah, so we're to compare and contrast "stripped of all worldly possessions and incarcerated for no wrongdoing whatsoever", vs. "stripped of all worldly possessions and incarcerated for no wrongdoing whatsoever, plus torture & death". OK, so one is bad and the other is worse - that does not relieve the former of being bad.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
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.
So if he is too slow then what, the central office will report ths? [ x ] Gun user.
And remember this when they say the information is "protected by law": Laws can be changed. (Yeah, I know that sounds obvious, but how many foolish people are assuaged by being told "don't worry, your privacy is protected by law.") They're just words on paper, the government changes them all the time, and most of the time it just breaks them without even bothering to change them.
Want to protect your privacy? Don't share information. Once it's out there, it's out there.
Liberty in your lifetime
In the instructions with the census form it says that the information on the form cannot be used in a court of law. However, at the same time it says that completing the form is required by law.
So the obvious question is, if the form cannot be used as evidence, how can they prove that I did not complete it?
Either the law is not enforceable, or they are lying when they say it cannot be used as evidence.
Proverbs 21:19
Since we're facing a real possibility of insurrection from the tea party secessionists, let's encourage them to refuse to answer the ethnicity question on the census. Then we can do a sort for all those who've failed to answer that question, and march 'em to the FEMA camps!
Is Beck a double agent?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
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.
Yeah, we did a lot of crazy things in the 40's. Misuse of census data, treatment of japanese americans, tuskegee airmen.
What the @ssholes who are spouting this propaganda forget is there ARE privacy laws in place to prevent misuse of data.
It IS illegal to do now in ways it WASN'T then.
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!
Skin color is about as much use as eye color or hair color, except to racists.
The medical community would tend to disagree. Ethnicity is highly correlated to certain distributions of certain diseases within said ethnic group.
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.
that lives with his wife in Ponca City, Oklahoma? The one who has a degree in physics? The one who spent several years in Peru working for the Peace Corps? The one who planned to go to Mongolia (aka Red China) in 2009?
http://www.peacecorpswiki.org/Hugh_Pickens
Can you construct some sort of rudimentary lathe?
The US Census is for and should only be used for Congressional seats (congressional apportionment), electoral votes, and government program funding
US Law only requires that you enter the amount of people living at your residence. The census does NOT require you to enter anything beyond that. If you are dumb enough to enter your phone number, race or anything else and expect it not to be used against you in some way, then it is your own fault. Seriously, it's like signing up for a website online - they may ask you to enter personal information even though it is not required. You don't see me complaining about those websites asking for my phone number (or anything else that is personal,) and then getting mad when they call me. I deserve the invasion of privacy because I was stupid enough to provide them with my number in the first place. Instead I just don't enter my phone number. Most of the time they don't required that field in the first place; if it is required I would either make it up, or just not sign up.
People that think the government is not going to use this information in some manner are living in a hole. It's the government this is what they do, move on and stop being so naive and think before you blindly fill out anything, because trust me, it is going to be saved and sometime down the road it may, this is not me saying it will happen, but it MAY be used against you.
Be smart, enter the amount of people living at your place, and mail in your census. Problem solved.
Uncle Sam already knows this and much, much, much more about me.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
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.
You are aware that in this nation one race held another as slaves until the 1860s? And then continued to systematically exploit the same race?
That's two life-times ago. The Stephen-Colbert-color-blindness is cute, but utterly ignorant.
The Black Belt needs help. The slums of the inner-city need help. Some white areas (Appalachia in particular) need help. And at the end of the day, it's a national security issue.
The actual form can be seen online here.
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!
Will Your Answers To the Census Stay Private?
No.
--- Captain Obvious
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Different skin colors usually mean different race, which usually means minor differences in physiology, which may mean different types of medicine. If you think that's racist, then do so at risk of your own health.
Also, turns out different hair colors are best served by different types of hair products. Don't know about whether eye color makes any physiological difference, but I'd be surprised if it didn't.
Pretty much all external physical traits are related in some way to other physical traits, some of which may even influence the brain. Why is it that when that external physical trait happens to be skin color, people all of a sudden cry "racism"?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Per 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."
In other words, the government already has the power to ask what they want to ask in the Census. You people who want the Constitution to spell out in detail every activity the government might need to do crack me up. The Constitution is supposed to be an overall guide for running the government, not a detailed "here's how you do this" manual. If that was the case, nothing would ever get done because of the difficulty of passing amendments. Just as an example: the constitution only says that Congress shall "raise an Army". It doesn't say how big the Army should be, what can be done with the Army, how it can be equipped/armed, etc, etc. All that is (quite properly) left up to actual legislation. If we had to do figure all that out by passing constitutional amendments, the process of establishing the Army would take decades, would require the Constitution to balloon to millions of pages, and we'd have long ago been invaded by some other country with a form of government that actually works.
The idea that you can't do anything not explicitly spelled out in the Constitution is just dumb, and this was settled in law in like the freaking Jefferson administration (read about the Louisiana Purchase).
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.
Look like someone needs to actually read the section again:
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."
This end part of the section explicitly gives them the power to ask for other information as it is directed by law.
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.
My biggest problem with the census is that the government is actively trying to include illegal immigrants in the process. My issue with that is that I don't want them counted. They have no right to vote and thus should have no influence on the number of congresscritters each state gets.
This means that the congressman in California have a disproportionately small number of legal constituents whom they represent. It's pretty basic math.
I don't care if the illegal immigrants don't have representation. They are illegal and don't deserve it. Is it racism to say that all permanent residents of the country should be here legally? I don't think so.
I want to go to Canada but am restricted from doing so because of my criminal record. Hence, I don't go to Canada. I expect the same of everyone else in my own country.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
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.
The constitution authorizes the Federal government to conduct a decennial enumeration of the people, but it also forbids racial classification of the American People. The Census Bureau has allocated one-quarter of the space on this year's census form to questions about race and ethnicity, which if not unconstitutional, are clearly contrary to its spirit.
Question 9 on the census form asks "What is Person 1's race?" (and so on, for other members of the household).
I will answer Question 9 by checking the last option -- "Some other race" -- and writing in "American." It is a truthful answer but at the same time is a way for me as an ordinary citizens to object to unconstitutional racial classification schemes.
"American," was counted by the Census Bureau when it reported the results of the 2000 census. In fact, the number of people answering "American" grew from 12.4 million in the 1990 census to 20.2 million in 2000, "the largest numerical growth of any ancestry group," according to Wikipedia. "American" was the most common answer to that question on the 2000 census in four states and several hundred counties.
It is a violation of the law to lie or to not answer a question on the census form, that is why I will answer question 9 with "American". Some people maybe tempted to check an inapplicable box. But lying in this constitutionally mandated process is wrong. Really -- don't do it.
If you are not a member of an enrolled tribe, don't check Native American -- they won't count it.
Cutesy answers such as "human" or 100 Yard Dash will not be counted by the Census Bureau.
So remember: Question 9 -- "Some other race" -- "American". Pass it on.
If you are hassled about answering American by the census bureaucrats or the ACORN minion who comes to your door, you have legal support for your answer:
"In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American."
Justice Scalia, concurring in Adarand Constructors v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200 (1995).
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I am not at all seeing your point. How does A1S2 of the Constitution prohibit asking demographic information?
Did you forget to quote an extra clause which says "and don't ask about race, because that doesn't jive with my preconceived notions of what the Constitution should say, even though it doesn't"?
In context of Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3, the census is only to count free people (perhaps citizens) to allot representatives.
Wake me up when representatives are allotted by race or sex.
Irrelevant. As Madison said, "As a guide in expounding and applying the provisions of the Constitution, the debates and incidental decisions of the Convention can have no authoritative character...the legitimate meaning of the Instrument must be derived from the text itself; or if a key is to be sought elsewhere, it must be not in the opinions or intentions of the Body which planned & proposed the Constitution, but in the sense attached to it by the people in their respective State Conventions where it recd. all the authority which it possesses."
The doctrine that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the "original intent" of the framers is nonsense, since the "original intent" of the framers was that their intent not be used to interpret the Constitution.
Like the other Founders, Jefferson was a criminal, a terrorist insurgent who fought the lawful rule of the British crown. He was also a slave rapist, but that was legal at the time. Law ain't no guide to the right thing to do.
The feds are authorized to conduct an enumeration, not an interrogation. I will be filling in the number of people who live here, and crossing out all other questions; I'd like to see everyone else do the same. If the feds want other data, they can get it by anonymous surveys that give much more privacy protection than their assurances to "trust us."
When government or big business wants your info, it's always best to ask what's it's being collected for, and give only that which is needed to accomplish the legitimate goal. The checkout clerk at the market doesn't need my zipcode to complete our "I give you cash, you give me stuff" transaction, and so he doesn't get it. The feds don't need my family information or home ownership status to do the headcount to divy up Congresscritters, and so they don't get it.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The relevant question, rather, is how does it permit it? It authorizes an enumeration. That's a counting. It does not authorize more than that.
I'm willing to grant the feds a lot of leeway to tax, spend, and regulate commerce, under their Constitutional authority. But I don't see Constitutional authority, or a need, to interrogate people about their family or their lives under color of an enumeration to apportion Congressional representation. (If the feds want more demographic information, it can be gathered via anonymous surveys.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Wow. I want whatever census form you got.
I remember doing the census in 2000. It was a small booklet taking about a week of evenings to complete. I don't remember the questions off hand, but I do remember having to do a lot of research. There was a lot more there than the obvious questions of how many people at this address, how old are they, what are their ethnic origins.
And after taking the time to complete and return the census form, I still got a phone call to answer all the questions a second time.
I haven't opened the form for 2010 yet, but I'll make this wager.
When I get home tonight, I'll open my census form. If contains only the 10 questions you list above, I'll post a link to youtube for the video of me eating my census form.
I mentioned neither Republicans nor Democrats. Progressivism, both big- and -small p versions, cuts across party lines: Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican, Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat.
However, you're simply wrong about the major parties and the Civil Rights Act. Democrat LBJ pushed the 1964 Civil Rights act through Congress, after Democrat JFK introduced it, and a majority of both Democratic and Republican Representatives and Senators voted for it. The split was strictly a North-South one. ("South", here, being states once under the control of the terrorist group that styled itself the "Confederate States of America".)
Both Southern Democrats and Southern Republicans were opposed to it, and Northern Democrats and Northern Republicans, in favor. (Though a slightly greater percentage of Southern Republicans opposed the bill, and a slightly smaller percentage of Northern Republicans supported it, than geographically comparable Democrats.)
I invite you to check your facts before you accuse someone of "Fail!" Because now you look like a total ass.
You need to stop getting your history from Glen Beck, friend. The Progressive Era -- big P -- was from the 1890s to the 1920s, it didn't come into being in the '20s. And if you want to label Theodore Roosevelt a commie, well, good luck with that.
I just love the way that right-wing loons have started lumping communists and fascists together, despite the fact that one of the primary attributes of fascism was anti-communism -- fascism was the right's counter-move to the Russian Revolution. It's almost as much fun as the way they complain about people talking about class warfare, while promoting the actual practice of that warfare.
And if you think socialism necessarily implies a powerful central government, you need to read this. (And also have a look at this.) State socialism is not the only form of socialism.
It's capitalism that requires a strong government, to create and defend artificial property rights. Many socialists believe in a small government -- Marx himself, wrong as he was about so much, believed that under his philosophy the state would eventually wither away, unneeded.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
In the end, the first U.S. Congress decided on one central principal of that first census: VERIFIABILITY. Each household would be associated with a specific district or ward. Each household would be identified by the name of its head of household. Each household would be thus be able to be visited by Census Bureau verifiers who could verify that the census as reported by the local judicial district was actually accurate. If the roster you got back from the 3rd Ward of Virginia said there was a Howard Mathers in district 3 who had one male, one female, and two children living in his household, you could go to district 3, ask around for Howard Mathers, and verify that he actually had four people living in his household.
The 1850 Census occurred at a time when representation was especially important because the South had already made secession threats and was threatening to inflate their Census counts in order to gain more representation in Congress. In addition, the population had grown such that it was possible for there to be two heads of households with the same name in a judicial district. So the 1850 Census was the first to require not only the name of the head of household, but the names and ages of all members of a household too, which allowed Census workers to uniquely identify which of the households headed by Howard Mathers that they were actually talking to. Census Bureau checkers could then come behind and not only locate the Howard Mathers who had five children listed below his name (as vs. the childless Howard Mathers), but if Howard replied that he only had four children, they could verify which of the children was missing and ask, "What about Jeffie?" At which point Howard says, "Never heard of him", or Howard says, "Oh, yeah, I forgot, he hadn't moved out yet then," or Howard says, "He was living with Aunt Mahoney over in the 5th ward at the time" and the verifier can then update the count accordingly.
So that, in a nutshell, is why the Census has asked for at least the name of the head of household ever since the very first census in 1790 -- it's all about verifiability.
Disclaimer: I worked for the Census Bureau as a contract verifier in 1995 during the Census Test that was validating the forms and procedures to be used during the 2000 Census. And yes, I did find inaccurate data in places, generally from people the original census takers could not find or the original census takers misread an address and put one family at an address they didn't live at while missing the family who actually lived in that address. Verifiability allowed us to correct these errors. Without verifiability, you're stuck with the same nonsense that is computerized electronic voting, where you can never validate that the data actually corresponds to real physical people rather than just being an artifact of computer bugs or hacking...
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