Census? (Privacy Issue)greenspun.com : LUSENET : Countryside : One Thread |
Well this is the first time we got a cencus form , what a shock .Yes I agree there should be one to divide OUR money to needy areas.I was a fool .Our privacy is protected by law "title 13" this same law requires us to fill it out .I would not mind The # and ages even sexes of the people living in the household.But tell me why they need our names , birthdays , and addresses? The Goverment has not told the truth many times before so why should we believe them now?I also understand some people got a long form with all kind of ?'s.I was just wondering how everyone else feels?
-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), March 21, 2000
Patty,I guess a lot of folks are upset right now about what they perceive to be very intrusive questions.
I was at my aunt's a couple of weeks ago (she lives in Oregon) and her version was very abbreviated. Our is pages and pages and pages, although I haven't looked at it yet. Seems odd that there's different versions if it's supposed to be for the *national* census. Is this other stuff for the states? Counties? What?
-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), March 21, 2000.
Do you really want to know? We got the long form. Some of the questions ask: What kind of plumbing is in your house-heating, phone service. How old is your house? How long have you lived in you house, apt., cost of property. How many bedrooms do you have? How many rooms- your don't have to count balconies? How long does it take you to get to and from work? What time do you leave for work? Main duties of your job. How you get to work? How many people ride to work with you? If you don't work, How long since you did? Have you turned down work? How many languages are spoken in you house? How much money do you make from selling produce? How much retirement, social secutity, welfare, etc. do you receive? Annual Income? If you rent it's worse for landowner. Names ages etc. of everyone in your household. Are you raising your grandchildren? Your education, down to the last grade attended. Just not your race, but you ethnic background. If you're "natural born" or adopted or step. And then there's the military questions. There's more, but I think I've had enough.. someone heard on the radio say there's a $100 fine if you don't fill yours out. He said he had his $100 ready. I thought the price for freedom would be higher.
-- Cindy (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), March 21, 2000.
I have been waiting for someone to post this topic!!!! We got the long form and find it VERY intrusive. THEY will have a very good data base on us. I see no reason why the gov. needs to know such things as how long does it take you to get to work and what time do you leave!! Carrying it a bit far I believe. I also wonder how they decide to send which form to who? They say it is random?? I'm sure if you did not fill out the form and paid the $100 fine there would be other repercussions. Land of the free?????
-- barbara (barbaraj@mis.net), March 21, 2000.
Actually, the correct spelling is cenSus. If you would take the time to look at the original census forms, they always had names, addresses, and ages, from the start. Of course they did not have mail addresses in the early days, but they had tract and parcel and other data so you can, by comparing land records with the census records, fairly accurately see where people lived. Also, the early questions asked about literacy and they had race, too except it was color, and if persons were slaves or freemen.In searching for heirs to a piece of land, the old census records were invaluable to me. I have found a university library where all the available ones (some got burnt during the Civil War) are on microfilm and with their aid (and a lot of squinting) I was able, because of the race and age and name information, to track families and their descendants and, from their locations in the different jurisdictions, to go to the circuit courts in the areas and find their marriage records (showing parents names) and find wills or partition suits (not so hard when a person has disappeared from one census to the next, you can assume he/shie might be dead, so you only have to look through ten years of records. If the library has also newspapers on microfilm, you can even find the obituary and there you will find not only the date of death but also corroborating data such as name of wife which hopefully matches name on corresponding census record.
Also, now the social security death records are available on disk, and you can search them and match them (the old ones of course) with the census records. These public records are invaluable for all sorts of research besides genealogical research.
Citizens of this country who are here legally know that they need to stand up and be counted. Illegal aliens, I suppose, would not wish to do so, or persons who had something to hide.
Some of the Census questions are strange, I agree, no doubt about it. How many bathrooms? But then, some folks do not have indoor bathrooms. If you are not paranoid and looking for evil intent, perhaps you could assume the intent is good? In some areas, plans are being made to convert to indoor bathrooms, or to replace roof water collection into cisterns with "city" water.
Beyond this, if a person has questions about the census, why not ask a person in authority who has accurate knowledge as to the reasoning behind the census, rather than just attacking it with hostility and suspicion? Why not look back at the old or original census records to see what questions were asked in the prior surveys of the American populace? Personally, I believe the framers of the latest census questions should have left the ability to read and educational questions in. Many of the persons in our prison populace do not have the ability to read. I should think this would be a key question in the present-day census, just as it was in the original ones.
-- Elizabeth Petofi (tengri@cstone.net), March 21, 2000.
WELL I am sorry everyone isn't perfect! Try typing with an 8 month old on your lap ,you might misspell a word or two.Or maybe she should be put in daycare so I can get some education and a real job!I don't have a problem with stand up and be counted! I have a problem with the gov. wanting to much info. If you are silly enough to think those records will remain private ,you probally still believe in the Easter Bunny too.You said in searching old CENSUS records ,'what happened to the private part ? Let's take a close look at the past ,how many times have closed records leaked out ?You probally trust all law enforcement too?You wouldn't if you lived in N.Y.C. and were black.3 unarmed people shot in 5 months.How about Waco , Ruby Ridge ? Shall I continue? Ooops I forgot do you think the states think kindly on all of us who live DIFFERENT than most ?How many cases of the state coming into private homes and telling parents what they must do and how to do it have you heard about ?Do they understand why some of us may not have or want indoor plumbing? or homeschool? or children having chores ? how we discipline our children ? The list goes on .I am not for child abuse or labor ,or any other weird stuff .I just want to raise and love my family as I see fit . The census has many good points,but allot of the information is not needed.Keep all the ?'s they have but leave out your names ,birthday and address. Wouldn't the town be enough.
-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), March 21, 2000.
Patty, I agree with you 100%. Wonder when they will ask how many times a day we go to the bathroom? Some people are so naive. And I think it was rather rude the above person picking on you for mispelling census. By the way, she also mispelled she a very simple word to spell I might add. Our government has not proven to me that they can be trusted.
-- barbara (barbaraj@mis.net), March 21, 2000.
I have no problem with the Census. Being active in genealogical research, I know how the information is protected from any recent census reports. No, I don't trust the government, and I suppose things could change, but so far it's been ok.
-- Yolanda Breidenbaugh (ybereiden@peoplepc.com), March 21, 2000.
Just thought I'd put my two cents in on this one. First of all, before there is any kind of fine that is going to be imposed, if you don't reply to the census you are going to receive a personal visit from a census taker. The census bureau is aiming for a 100% response rate this census because it is a millenium and they are going to send a person to help you fill it out. I know some of you are not going to be happy about that but that is what is going to happen. Secondly, the information submitted on census forms is not released to any law enforcement body whether it is the FBI, the local police or sheriff or the Immigration office. Believe what you will, it ain't gonna happen. When census data is finally released, it is at least 70 years old. For those of us who do geneology research, we can't get the census for 1950 or 1940 because it is still too new. While that can be frustrating for us, it is done to protect the people's privacy. The information in a census is used for a lot of purposes but it is not looked at for a particular person. Instead the information is dumped into categories for statistical use. For example, how many bathrooms you have will be added together with everyone else's bathroom information and the total bathrooms of everyone in your county will then be given to the people that are responsible for providing drinking water so they can plan water treatment plants and reservoirs, etc. They look at trends from the last census and it helps them plan if they need to build bigger reservoirs, etc. The commuting information is provided to the states to help them in planning future highways and roads, etc. The number of children and their ages is used to determine future school needs. This information is used to help the city, county, state and federal government plan for infrascture to meet our needs. They do not care that Jane and John Doe homeschool because they want to be in your business, they want to know from a total numbers perspective whether or not they should be building new schools or scaling back by looking at trends. Believe me, the people that get this information could care less what you are doing as a person. They aren't going to gossip about it to their neighbor, they just want to compile the data so that planning can be done.Don't get me wrong, my husband and I are very private people and we definitely don't like uninvited guests to show up at our door, but we also recognize in the society we have today with the infrastructure that is provided to us to live the way we do, i.e. roads that are pavement and not dirt, grocery stores that are close by, libraries that meet our needs, etc., we recognize that this stuff takes planning and the only way the governments can plan is to have an idea of the way people live and what their needs are going to be a few years down the pike.
So please, bite the bullet, fill it out and send it in. No one cares what you, personally, are doing so they can use it for some ill purpose, they only want statistics, pure and simple.
Incidentally, the census has a website. Go visit at www.census.gov. Also, they are looking for census takers so if you want a chance to work in your own neighborhood and earn a little money for about eight weeks starting at the beginning of April, check it out. The money isn't bad and you'll get a chance to meet some of the people in your town. Let's look at this from a positive perspective instead of a negative one.
-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), March 21, 2000.
My first census experience was 30 (gulp) years ago. A bunch of us weirdos were living in a house, and I filled out our form. We had a lot of laughs filling out stuff like: head of the household, and some other silly things. A few weeks later there was a knock on our door, and yup, it was the census taker supervisor following up. It turned out to be my best friend's mom, and I was really embarrassed. Lesson: Don't mess with these census folk! ...Just a little levity for this serious thread...
-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), March 21, 2000.
I can understand the government wanting to know how many people there are, and maybe a couple other question, but what does you ethnic background-German French etc. have to do with it? Why do "they" need to know what time you leave for work, maybe you don't go straight to work a lot? And why do "they" care if you speak Spanish more than English? And most of all, why do "they" want to know how much you make selling produce from you garden? Most home gardners don't make enough to change the economic standards. Supposedly only authorized personel will see the records, but.. I won't go there.
-- Cindy (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), March 21, 2000.
Before you get warm fuzzies about answering the long form census read what has been posted over on Ed Yourdon's forum:http://pub5.ezboard.com/fyourdontimebomb2000.showMessage? topicID=1207.topic
Here is a link to one of the response about past abuses of the census:
http://www.toad.com/gnu/census.html
My husband who usually will answer most things (including giving out his SSN whenever he "needs" to) got extremely upset about the intrusive questions on the census. His response was that we would fill out the first page and send it in and pay any fine for not answering the rest of the questions. Personally, it is none of their business what time I went to work or how much time I missed last week.
-- beckie (sunshine_horses@yahoo.com), March 21, 2000.
Having worked for the Census dept. in the past, I can tell you with a fair degree of certainty that all they absolutely have to have is - How many people are there, age, sex, and preferably names. Everything else is icing, and they will not push for it if you insist on your privacy being respected.
-- Connie (Connie@lunehaven.com), March 21, 2000.
Its getting a little aggrevating to see a bitch session going on on every thread. The government already knows your social security number, the day you were born, your drivers liscence number, your weight (well at least the number I lied about) your hair color, your eye color, your finger print, your mom's maiden name, how much money you claim to make, how many kids you have etc.etc.etc. Are we really hiding? No, so fill out the census or cencus or whatever, so that our kids will have better schools, roads, day cares, government representation. Because of the mentality that somehow this is all to invasive, we live 25 minutes from two different colleges. We have to pay 500$ per semester for out of district fees, if we had true census reporting from the folks hiding in the woods out here, they would know that we have enough kids to make us in district, and also we would not just have finished a new high school that already is to small! And.....unless the forum is going to change to have spell check and grammar check, lets stop correcting everyone! Vicki
-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 21, 2000.
I am on my way out the door, but I had to address this. Some of us don't want the government having all the statistics you discribed Vicki. I personally don't believe in Public Schooling and think the system should be abolished. I certainly don't believe in government daycare because children belong with their parents. And I definitely don't want my money being taken to give to all these little causes. As far as I'm concerned If a parent doesn't want their child at home then they should pay their own hard earned money to educate them not mine. I have no trouble giving my money to those who I feel need it but I don't want to be forced to. I am seek for self-sufficiency not how much I can suck off the government. Every dollar that goes in my pocket from the government is taken from someone elses children to give it to me.Little Bit Farm
-- Little bit Farm (littlebit@calinet.com), March 21, 2000.
I did not know this was required to fill out the cenSus. is it? what if (like me) you live in a fifth wheel and don't own proerty? Do my husband and I have to be 'counted'? I am very concerned about the intrusivness of the questions. cannot they do this with out making it so personal? Also, I do not trust the government in any way shape or form, my information will be available to whatever agency wants it, or whoever will pay enough to get it. I am no trying to hide, but with the intrusive and overbearing governmenet we have, I protect myself as best I can (which is not good enough for true peace of mind).
-- Lisa (lgh@rmci.net), March 21, 2000.
Little Bits answer of, some of us don't want the government to know these things... Do you have a Social Security card? Do you have a birth certificate? A Drivers Liscence? Marriage Liscense? Did you attend school? College? Don't you want you children though homeschooled to attend college? Do you file income tax? How can the goverment not know you if you answered yes to any one of those questions. That was my point! The only thing I want the government to do for me is to pave our roads, improve our schools etc. Just because you homeschool and don't use daycare, you have to be able to look at the big picture and see how others need these things. Including your children, and my children someday. Vicki
-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 21, 2000.
Right now I'm rolling on the floor laughing--AND THEY SAID IT WOULD BE HARD TO RAISE AN ARMY" I don't want anything from my government except a lot of letters of resignation and twice as many apologies. Don't worry about my children--tat is not your concern or te present governments. I burned my cencus(love the spelling error) and if liberty costs 100 bucks--THE CHECK IS IN THE MAIL
-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), March 21, 2000.
Glad to finally hear from a male!!! Joel, I love it!!
-- barbara (barbaraj@mis.net), March 21, 2000.
I got the long form, which is sitting in the kitchen for now. It was hand delivered by a census worker, who knew my name and made sure I lived here before leaving it.Vicki, I don't want to be contentious, but you might want to check out the article in Utne Reader (magazine) by the Amish guy who talks about no birth certificates and giving up his driver's license. This isn't the route for me, but helped me to understand that point of view. It also has a whole section on privacy this issue. Parts of the magazine and a salon chat area are on-line.
I checked out the government census site and they have a wonderful full color brochure you can call up that says they have protected our privacy since 1950. Couldn't find any other info for prior to that,of course, and nothing came up when I tried to find out about fines/ refusing to fill it out.
-- Anne (HealthyTouch101@hotmail.com), March 21, 2000.
Lions and Tigers and Bears...Oh My !!!The Census form I got was a joke,in my opinion.All they asked was who lives in your house as of April 1,2000.Name, birthdate and Race. That's it.It did not even ask what you do for a living, never mind if you have a toliet.So, how are they going to figure out if my roads need fixing, or our water services need updating,, or if the country has too many white-collar workers who are unemployed???? The form said not to include family members who are away at college, in nursing homes, or incarcerated.Some fun my descendants (?correct spelling) are going to have when they come looking for information on us ! Gee, what did old Great-great-grandma Lesley DO for a living in the year 2000??? Apparently, nothing.I feel sooooooooooo represented by the Census.As far as I am concerned, the whole thing is a waste of time, and skewed information for the data clerks, since the form was not standardized for everyone. Ah well, my tax dollars at work again.At least they made the return envelopes free postage..must have been an oversite on someone's part.
-- Lesley Chasko (martchas@gateway.net), March 21, 2000.
Boy ow boy do we all have a lot to say.Let me respond to a few things since I started this.But please forgive my spelling and grammer .I respect all of your opinions,as you should mine even if we don't agree .As far as this being a bitch session,I don't recall that term being used in any other thread sounds a little sexous to me!If you don't like a certain thread ,don't read it .Uncle Sam isn't twisiting your arm"YET".Also if some of you are right and the Gov. already knows most of what is being asked ,WHY THE HECK ARE THEY WASTING MY MONEY AGAIN! I dont have a problem with the census in general ,I just think are town or school district would do just as well as our names and addresses. By the way I would love spell and grammer check.By the way do you really think 70 years is long enough ? I don't remember anything about that in my booklet? I'm sorry but I don't believe even if our whole town sent in that we had no indoor plumbing or good wells ,that our town or gov. would put it in .There is not enough of us to make any money on .I;m also not worried about gossip and i'm not hiding anything"except stretch marks".As far as paving roads , its the worst thing they ever done for us .We have cars and trucks speading through now.Do we really want stores close by ?And last but not least ,my neighbor did call the census and they didn't know to much either .She was told to fill out what she wanted to.
-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), March 21, 2000.
The main purpose of the census is to establish a count so the apportionment of Represntatives to Congress can be determined. As with all the government, it has grown to meet other "needs".When the social security numbers were first given out the government assured the people that they would never be used as a national identification number and were only to be used for social security determinations. Try doing something without one now.
Income tax information was initially "guaranteed" to forever be only used by the federal government for income tax purposes. Now it is shared any state that asks, and is routinely used for nontax purposes.
There only needs to be a small change in the law and your confidential census of this year is next years public information.
There are many things that are given by the government to state and local governments based on the count in the census. Of course if the federal government would not take all that extra money in the first place there would be no need to send it back, after deducting a hefty administrative cost.
You lose voice in the government if you don't fill it out and you loose privacy(especially with the long forms) if you do. Sound like th ecurrent state of the American Government.
-- Michael M. McFall (mcfallm@aol.com), March 21, 2000.
I worked for the census in 1990, first as an enumerator, later as a field operations supervisor. The information is supposed to be private for 70 years. Don't you believe it. The census bureau SOLD the information collected, minus the names, to at least one city in Texas, and God only knows how many other cities for use in their city directories. Seems people were reluctant to fill out questionares for the cities. Of course, the information went house by house, address by address, and the city knew whose name the water and sewage bill was in, so guess what? They just added in the names from their records, and everyone else in town knew how much you made, how many lived in your house, their ages, etc. Do you really want every burgular and would-be murderer or child abductor to know this? I think not. If you tell them your social security number, just think how many people will have it for their use to apply for all kinds of credit in your name. After all, you will also be telling them your birthdate. If they are resourceful and really know how to use the internet, they can also find your drivers' license number. You could be bankrupt in nothing flat. I did not fill out anything except the number of people in the house, and my name and address. That is all they need. If the enumerator shows up, politely ask them to leave. If they persist, politely tell them they are trespassing, and if they do not leave, you will file charges. You have the right. The census department doesn't want to alienate people any further than they already have.Also, the census last time had long forms that were distributed to every 6th house like they are supposed to be distributed this time. Also, if you think these forms are invasive, you should see the MEDICAL census forms. They ask if you have hemorroids, birth marks (and if so, where), if you have had an abortion (if so, how many and when), if you have had a miscarriage (if so, how many and when), how many children you have had, and by how many different people, if you now have or have ever had venereal disease, if you use illegal drugs, have varicose veins, and HOW MANY BOWEL MOVEMENTS PER DAY!!! Several census workers quit when told to go out with the medical census.
You all can do what you want. I will only tell them what was required in the original census. In my opinion, anything beyond that is just prying.
As for the geneology question, I too have used old census records in search of my family tree. Of course, if those people along the line had kept records, I would have already known my family history. Record your own family history and hand it down to your own family and they won't need the census records.
-- Ann (silentrunner_now@hotmail.com), March 21, 2000.
Ann,What the )(&*(^$_ are the medical census forms?????? I have never heard of them! Thanks for your reply.
-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), March 21, 2000.
The census can be useful! I added a few sticks of kindling and it worked fine when I started the fire a few days ago.
-- Marci (ajourend@libby.org), March 22, 2000.
Fill out your census "It's good for day care and bla bla bla". Tell me just where in the Constitution does it say that the government had the power granted to it in order to do these things in the first place. If a community needs these things, then don't you think the community would know that it needed it. It should be the community that does something about it. More would get done that way. Less prying would go on if eveyone would quit crying to the government to fix this or that. The government's sole job it to 'protect us from foriegn invasion'! So why in the !@#$%^&&* do they need all that information. Count head for representation and that is it! When you call the cops at 2 am because a small child is on your steps and the cop threatens a neighbor to rat on you for something, anything at all so that they can take you off to jail or they will take you neighbor off to jail... you will have a different view of how nice the govenment / cops are. Next time ...
-- mad as %%^^&* (libry@gvtc.com), March 22, 2000.
Medical census forms are hand delivered. They are supposed to "represent" the health of the nation as a whole.
-- Ann (silentrunner_now@hotmail.com), March 22, 2000.
The reason the census directions say to not count relatives that are at college, institutions, incarcerated, etc. is because they count the census at those institutions separately and they don't want people double counted. My geneology research has included trying to find by grandfather in an orphanage. I had to go to that orphanage to look for his name in their census. I also have a relative who was in an institution for the blind. That is where I have to look for them in my search. This would be the case for prisons, etc. It's not that your relatives won't be able to find family members, they will just have to find them in the place they were living at the time of the census.
-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), March 23, 2000.
Colleen, the census is a great help for genealogy research. I've done some myself. BUT, that is not it's intended purpose.
-- barbara (barbaraj@mis.net), March 23, 2000.
This Forum is terribly important!Well, here I go again!!! THE only thing they are CONSTITUTIONALLY allowed to ask is how many people are living there and if they are all citizens of the united States of America (original capitalization and lower case)...I have given it a lot of thought and talked to a poor girl named Mindy who proved to me that public education will teach people to read albeit not so gracefully as to secure a job in broadcasting. When I asked if she could please tell me what the Costitution has to say about the census, she hadn't a clue. "US Code Title13 says we may ask questions to develop statistics..." US Code title 13 also says that the questions they ask must be approved by the Congress three years prior to the asking of said questions....Mindy didn't know that. When the same US code gives the RIGHT to the military and the Police to use chemical and biological weapons on it's citizens we have to ask what kind of monstrosity have we allowed to legislate itself into being???? I will check and post the code tile and numbers on this and if you access the Cornell Law web site you can search the US Code til your sick to your stomach. Regarding the division of the spoils to different local economies; they didn't ask me if I wanted any of their rot in my census form. Also regarding the Social Security issue, it is the biggest swindle ever imposed on a people at large and if you think there is any security in it at all you are sorely mistaken. What it has done is given people less incentive to think for themselves and a willingness to shirk their personal responsibilities and pass the buck to society at large. Also, it has brought about less familial resposibility. I am sure that I can invest my 15% better than some bureaucracy. Why do we think the "government" can do better than ourselves? I'm with Joel on this. I want resignations, apologies.... self- determination, FREEDOM, no more pandering to our desires for a false sense of security, and I want the Federal Government to behave like they are supposed to and stop trying to find out what time I usually leave for work in the morning!(Yes, I work off of my homestead, but I won't tell you when I go!) The really amusing thing I see in the "please, answer your census" responses is that all of the purported benefits that may come our way are from the people who are stealing our money from us in unconstitutional methods and then going "look, we took your money and if you want it back you better do what we want you to!" My census form is being recycled. If they come asking I will tell them how many people live here und das ist alles.
-- Doreen Davenport (livinginskin@yahoo.com), March 23, 2000.