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.'"

Comments

first post?

[2obvious4u]

White Male, 30
I don't have anything to worry about right?

You know what's really sad?

[Pojut]

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?

Re:You know what's really sad?

[Itninja]

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?

Yes. Yes it has. As have all countries, everywhere, since the dawn of man. The only real difference now is information flows faster than ever before in history. So the general populace is aware of all the f'ed up stuff much, much faster. In the past it could take months, if not years or even decades, for this information to reach the ears of the people.

Re:You know what's really sad?

[truthsearch]

I agree. I think we actually had more privacy in the past only from a practical point of view. Before computers, and back when the government couldn't afford massive buildings full of employees, it was simply impossible or impractical to gather much data to be used against us. Today you can have one guy in the CIA decide to gather/analyze data and have thousands of people immediately help.

So I think privacy rules have gotten stronger, but technology and government size have made privacy weaker.

There are no other questions

[guruevi]

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.

Re:There are no other questions

[C0R1D4N]

There is no longer a short form and long form. Now there is only one form, which is pretty much what the short form was. The long form has been replaced by the American Community Survey which goes out to roughly 3 million random people I think every year though it may be every other year. FWIW the census is a huge boon to our descendants for genealogical purposes. My mother is a professional genealogist and makes great use of the older census data to help people find their great great grandparents and whatnot.

Sure it could happen...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Just the number of residents?

[Thinine]

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.

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Ridiculous

[DIplomatic]

Refusing to fill out the Census is ridiculous. It is in your own best interest to let the local and national govt. know as much about the people they represent as possible. If they don't know facts about, say, the social and financial background of their constituents, how can they govern effectively?

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.

Who advocated rounding up the arab population?

[SuperKendall]

"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.

Sometimes your census data is used for good...

[someones1]

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.

Useful to whom? The racists who care about skin?

[centauratlas]

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.

Re:Useful to whom? The racists who care about skin

[LordKazan]

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.

Re:I agree

[LordKazan]

Ever heard of a white person with Sickle-Cell Anemia? (yes i know it can happen, not very likely)
How about a black person with melanoma? (yes i know it can happen, not very likely)

Just because you don't know the beneficial to harmless uses of the data doesn't mean it must be "omg bad!".

Re:Useful to whom? The racists who care about skin

[Wyatt Earp]

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.

Re:Useful to whom? The racists who care about skin

[Mr. Slippery]

Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act. Democrats were for continued segregation

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.

If you mean "progressive" (small "p") as in describing an individuals' attitude or outlook, then yes. If you mean Progressives, as in the movement that's been around since the '20s and counts Socialists and Communists as ideological brothers then you, sir, are incorrect.

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.

The rest of your post is a class-warfare mini-rant along with the "social justice" and "economic justice" buzzwords that Progressives use as cover for the fact that what they propose is socialist/communist/fascist-style redistribution of wealth by a powerful central government.

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.