Big Brother: Nosy Parker
Published January 28, 2005
Have you heard of the American Community Survey? It's the latest obnoxious attempt at Total Information Awareness by Big Brother...ahem, I mean "our government."
My parents got one of these forms. Among the questions you'd expect on a census form (how many people live in the house, etc), they've added some really obnoxious personal questions such as "What time did this person usually leave the house to go to work last week?"
(As my mother said: "What, so they know when to come and search the house?")
"What is this person's ancestry or ethnic origin?"
"Does this person speak a language other than English at home?"
"How well does this person speak English?"
Profile much? Who thinks the communities with "suspect" language speakers are going to get a little extra Federal attention, if you catch my drift? (Detroit's Arabic-speaking population, for example).
Here's the worst part:
The American Community Survey is conducted under the authority of Title 13, United States Code, Sections 141 and 193, and response is mandatory. According to Section 221, persons who do not respond shall be fined not more than $100. Title 18 U.S.C. Section 3571 and Section 3559, in effect amends Title 13 U.S.C. Section 221 by changing the fine for anyone over 18 years old who refuses or willfully neglects to complete the questionnaire or answer questions posed by census takers from a fine of not more than $100 to not more than $5,000.
So if you object to providing this kind of personal information, they can fine you up to $5000. Does that sound American to you? What about the right to not incriminate yourself? What if you're an illegal alien? Do you have to fill this out? And if you don't because you're afraid of getting caught, can they fine you? What if the way you earn a living is illegal? (And I'm not talking drug dealer, prostitute, etc...in some places, being an acupuncturist is illegal. Being a naturopath is illegal.) Do you lie? Do you choose not to answer? Sure, they say the information they collect isn't shared with anyone else, but I believe that about as much as I believe anything coming out of the current Administration, i.e. not at all.
This country gets scarier every single day. Each new item like this erodes our right to privacy, and it's time we fight back.
update: I'm not the only one who thinks it's a bad idea
- Big Brother: Nosy Parker
- Published: January 28, 2005
- Type:
- Section: Politics
- Filed Under: Politics: Law and Rights
- Writer: Shannon Okey
- Shannon Okey's BC Writer page
- Shannon Okey's personal site
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Comments on this articleComments
I'm not saying it's new, or that it's particularly difficult to fill out. I am saying it's offensive to answer questions about information the government has no right to routinely request from us. If you read the "update" link, and some of the others out there (a person who objected to the survey posted his letter to the Bureau at http://www.survivalarts.com/archives/001095.html - scroll down a bit), you'll learn that the government is not supposed to be asking us these things more frequently than is stated -- for Congressional redistricting, etc.
First they overstep their bounds ("mission creep" ring a bell?), and then they go beyond the original intentions of the survey, and sooner rather than later, the government's selling out your info to private business. I'm not happy about that...and you know it's going to happen if it isn't already.
I don't think the government needs to know what language or languages I'm speaking at home, whether I have emotional problems that prevent me from getting a job (question #17), whether I have a second mortgage or home equity loan (question #23), whether I've given birth in the past 12 months (question #18), and so forth. It's none of their damn business.
If I go file for unemployment, then they can ask me where I was working and what I did. If I file for welfare, they can ask about any children I have. But until that time, the government doesn't need to know what goes on in my household -- or in anyone's.
I just got this survey, too. The founding fathers saw fit to limit the frequency and scope of the census; I'm not sure why our current government feels free to ignore those limits.
I'm trying to figure out how to answer question 12, "What is this person's ancestry or ethnic origin?" For question 6 "What is this person's race?" I answered "Some other race: HUMAN", which as far as I'm concerned, is the only correct answer. I suspect that's what I'll fill out for 12, too.
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(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/24807)
If this is what I think it is they do it in the aftermath of every census for a limited portion of the population. We were sampled in the last one as I recall, and while it was tedious to fill out I didn't find it all that intrusive. Some questions were peculiar and hard to answer, but as far as I could tell nothing ever came of it all, though I imagine the results are all compiled somewhere for viewing.
Dave