The Orwellian American Community Survey
Daniel Freedman|TheWeeklyStandard
The American Community Survey wasn’t around when Ronald Reagan declared that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” If it was, he’d probably agree that having a government representative knock on your door, try to threaten their way into your home, and demand that you give them very personal information is far more terrifying.
My nightmare started in January when I received the American Community Survey (ACS) form in the mail. The ACS is an extension of the U.S. Census that all households receive. While the U.S. Census form contains 10 questions and is sent out every 10 years, the ACS form contains 48 questions and is sent to 250,000 households each month on a rolling basis.
The ACS itself is a lesson in government overreach. Article 1 of the Constitution allows for a census every 10 years so that seating in Congress is proportional to state populations. Lawmakers gave the Commerce Department the power to ask more questions, and it took the power and ran, and ran, with it — ending up asking questions unrelated to districting. (ACS answers, according to its website, are to help “manage or evaluate federal and state government programs” — not to help with congressional seating.)
Thanks to you all for providing insight. I was contacted last November and was troubled about what to do. Based on your experiences, and finding courage in your actions, I sat on the thing for a few weeks. I received the various mailings (threats)and finally decided to return the form with my name, contact telephone number and the number of people living at the listed address. This I mailed about a month after I first got it.
The very next day, by chance, I received another identical form, which I have retained.
Then the phone calls started. BUT you gotta love technology. I programmed my home phone to block the calls. They called from a different number. I blocked it, too. They called from a third number. Nice try – blocked it. With caller i.d., we simply didn’t answer ANY call we did not recognize. No more calls in over two weeks.
I now await “the appearance.” Thanks again for the heads up.
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It is all very creepy but the resistance to the ACS began about 2007 and the drill is now well understood. There are three stages.
First there is there are two mailings. The information that is demanded is very personal; the racial, ethnic and language stuff is bad but it did inspire me to re-read Harlan’s dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson; but there is also the income information which is clearly neat way of discovering inconsistencies with your IRS Form 1040; and there is the health and mental illness stuff and the prison stuff and the veterans stuff; then there is the utility usage, the mortgage payments. All amounts are to be rounded to the nearest dollar.
So many people just throw it away.
Then the calls begin: The first couples of calls come from India and Canada, then various places in the US. They are like bill collectors. They call about five times a week into the evening and on weekends. They want to know if they are talking to the man or lady of the house or the resident and they threaten you with a $5,000 fine if you don’t comply. That usually goes on for a couple of weeks.
Finally, the agents visit your home. They often walk around the house and go to the back door as well as knocking on the front door. They try to get invited in. If you ignore them or shoo them away then they often try asking your neighbors for the information they want.
The whole thing takes about 90 days. Then they just go away.
One State ACLU, Ohio I think [search ACS and ACLU], advises that the Census Bureau cannot asses the $5,000 fine but rather has to ask the Department of Justice to file a complaint. The ACLU says DoJ has not brought a complaint against a Census resistor in more than 20 years. I did find one old case from the 1960 Census where the Second Circuit upheld a fine and short jail sentence for failing to comply with the Census. But that was the regular decennial census not the current ACS continuing survey. The ACLU’s statement is consistent with the experience of the resistance since 2007.
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I was contacted, that is sent an advisory letter addressed to “The Current Resident of XYZ address” from the Census Bureau, some 10-11 weeks ago (early August 2011) stating that I would be receiving the ACS questionnaire and that my participation was required. Four or five days later I received the questionnaire. After reviewing the questions in the form, I hit hit the ceiling due to the invasive, personal questions and decided NOT to participate. Two weeks later I received a reminder, which I disregarded based on my previous decision. This reminder was followed by an additional reminder two weeks later, followed by an additional questionnaire then another reminder. A few days after that reminder, a census taker started knocking on the door and leaving notes to contact her.
Long story short, the census taker made numerous attempts, day and night, to contact me leaving notes to the “current resident” at the xyz address. I pretty much avoided answering the door and left all notes and advertising, solicitations on the door. The census taker finally got my name and phone number and left a message. Tired of playing cat and mouse, I returned the call and left a message. I was called back the following day.
Bottom line – I advised the census taker that I complied with the census in 2010 and nothing more was required. I was advised thst this survey was different and they needed the info to “support my community”. (RIGHT!) I then stated that my “personal information” was private and would not provide ANY personal information and insisted that she respect my implied rights of privacy in the first, fouth, fifth and forteenth amendments of the constitution. NO PROBLEM! – So, the only questions I answered were those about the house and housing that are already in public record. The Census taker was VERY respectful of my privacy and collected only the info I was willing to provide. I was not proded or threatened for anything further.
Be advised that these census takers are obligated to keep trying to make contact until they actually do.
Furthermore, this is a rolling survey by address, not by name. I found out that the survey addresses are randomly selected by neighborhood and, sooner or later, everyone in the neighborhood will recieve one. Ten years from the date the address is first surveyed, another survey will be sent to the same address, irrelevant of the “current resident”.
Even though there is the perceived threat of legal consequences as threated in the legal authority cited in the survey and others documents provided in the mailings, I do not think the census bureau has any intention of exercising any of that authority.
As of Oct. 18 2011, I could find noFederal Case Law regarding the ACS. I don’t think the CB wants create a huge problem for themselves by taking someone to court to get a judgment to make a point. Getting the ACL involved in a class action against the intrusive, envasive, personal questions in the survey is the last thing they want. Hence, the lack of Federal Case law (judgements for the census bureau regarding the ACS).
How you decide to handle this survey is certainly up to you.
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Posted by Talisker 4/04/2010 at:
http://www.aipnews.com/talk/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=13210&posts=1
(scroll to end of this excellent detailed article, on topic, worth reading)
So you have to decide what to do for yourself. But – if I were to respond to an inquiry from a census worker, as far as I can tell just silently handing them a card which said something like the following should be enough to establish a legal rebuttal of the unspoken presumption they’re exhibiting by showing up in the first place:
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I hereby rebut your Title 13, Section 141 presumption of authority for personal information collection for Census 2011, due to the following apparent Title 13 violations:
• §6(c) restrictions on process;
• §195 restrictions on Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 & Amendment 14, Section 2 process;
• §241 failure of request process;
• §301(a), §303 & §307 lack of authorization to collect information;
• §302 lack of authorization for Chapter 5 or Chapter 7 implementing regulations;
• And, your apparent personal violation of Chapter 1, Subchapter II, §23(c) restrictions on presumptions of Chapter 9 authority.
• THEREFORE: I hereby retain of all of my rights and privileges under the 4th and 5th Amendments, and respectfully decline to respond to any questions.
—————————————–
It’s time to stand tall, fellow Americans…
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This survey purports to be about helping the community plan for schools, hospitals, roads, etc. It is a lie. Another example of gov’t's overreach. Our community already knows how many people live here. They do not need to know the information asked in this survey(?). I agree with Jeff.
It is not for low income people. It is intrusive, unAmerican, unnecessary and just another way for the gov’t to know everything about you and your household. What difference does how much interest income I rec’d in the last year make to a survey for schools, roads, etc? They just have to look at our roads and they know they need redone. This is a total repudiation of America and our rights as citizens.
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How do I get out of filling out this stupid thing. It is very invasive!
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I think that this is more for low income
and people that are on government assistants programs
to see who makes what amount and how and where
they live. Very intrusive questions!
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I’ve received a couple of these now. Been trying to research it a little bit, I even sent an e-mail to the ACLU. No help, received a form reply. These questions are intrusive and I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I don’t think I’ll fill it out, but I don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on fines. From what I’ve read these are probably empty threats. Anyone out there been fined for not filling this out or the census?
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I received one of these surveys last week. The questions are intrusive and obnoxious and are tantamount to an interrogation. In a free society we should not expect to be coerced and harassed into divulging personal information to the government. If census enumerators show up a my door, I will ask them to present me with a warrant and read me my rights, otherwise I have nothing to say except that 4 people live here and they should leave. I will threaten to have them cited for trespassing if they don’t.
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MWFH's Reply:
February 1st, 2011 at 10:25 pm
You are the first person to respond to this article, or admit that this census form was received. I haven’t done a whole lot of research into this matter, but definitely concur with your assessment on it’s egregious nature. Because of time limitations, it bars me from doing a detailed follow up. However, if you’re interested, send me something. K.M. Editor, MWFH’s.
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