For any who are interested, I went to the website listed under Green's posts about the census "survey" and found these in particular regarding the census;

In addition to sections 8 and 9, which basically outline what the Census Secretary can and can't do with the census information, I found these very intersting;

Title 12, Section 221 (a) Whoever, being over eighteen years of age, refuses or willfully neglects, when requested by the Secretary, or by any other authorized officer or employee of the Dept. of Commerce or bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of the Secretary or authorized officer, to answer to the best of his knowledge, any of the questions on any schedule submitted to him in connection with any census or survey provided for by the Subchapters I, II, IV, and V of chapter 5 of this title, applying to himself or to the family to which he belongs or is related, or to the farm or farms of which he or his family is the occupant, shall be fined not more than $100.

(b) Whoever, when answering questions described in subsection (a) of this section, and under the conditions or circumstances described in such subsection, willfully gives any answer that is false, shall be fined not more than $500.

(c) Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, no person shall be compelled to disclose relative to his religious beliefs or to membership in a religious body.

Section 224 Failure to answer questions affecting companies, businesses, religious bodies, and other organizations; false answers

Whoever, being the owner, official agent, person in charge, or assistant to the person in charge, of any company, business, institution, establishment, religious body, or organization of any nature whatsoever, neglects or refuses, when requested by the Secretary or other authorized officer or employee of the Dept. of Commerce or bureau or agency thereof, to answer completely and correctly to the best of his knowledge all questions realting to his company, business (etc--I shortened all that for the sake of my fingers!!) or to records or statistics in his official custody, contained on any census or other shcedule or questionnaire prepared and submitted to him under the authority of this title, shall be fined not more than $500 and if he willfully gives a false answer to any such question, he shall be fined not more than $10,000.

Section 241 Evidence

When ay request for information made by the Secretary or other authorized officer or employee of the Dept of Commerce (etc etc, my editing) is made by registered or certified mail or telegram, the return receipt therefor or other written receipt therof shall be prima facie evidence of an official request in any prosecution under such section.

Please ignore any spelling errors--it's late. Firstly, I would like to point out that in 221 (c), individuals don't have to answer questions of religious nature, but religious organizations apparently do under 224. Guess I"m a dummy, but that sure doesn't sound right to me. Second, if you get some sort of certified letter from them, requiring your signature and having a return receipt attatched, DON'T ACCEPT IT AND DON'T SIGN IT, because then, under 241, it's evidence against you. There was a lot more, most of which outlined what can and can't be done by the Secretary, other agencies, and interestingly enough, by census employees. One other thing--I have heard that there is a clause at the bottom of the census forms that says something to the effect that if you don't respond, there is a $500 fine. Now, according to the above sections, non-response is only a $100 fine, while falsifying is a $500 fine. If the clause at the bottom of the form threatens a $500 fine, seems to me like they're trying to intimidate, eh?

-- Hannah Maria Holly (hannahholly@hotmail.com), December 09, 2000

Answers

OOPS!! I screwed up. It should be Title 13, not Title 12. Told y'all it was late!

-- Hannah Maria Holly (hannahholly@hotmail.com), December 09, 2000.

Since the militia group known as the Posse Comitatus is also a religion than you can "by law" refuse to answer any questions put before you. However, law is a relative term, it only applies to you if it doesn't conflict with the governments right to screw you royal. Good Luck ! Always be prepared to back beliefs with bullits !(since ballots need to be recounted)

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), December 09, 2000.

Thanks Hannah Maria. I definitely would not have signed for anything from the census. The letter I got was just plain old first class mail and actually sounded much less threatening than the census man. I see no reason to tell them anything.

What strikes me as curious is they just finished the census, so why do they need a "supplemental" census to update already? At any rate, this is now either the fifth or sixth time I have been visited or harrassed by a census employee since the mess started last spring. I guess we must be awfully interesting to them, although I cannot for the life of me understand why unless it is because we really are not that well off and still are not on any of the umpteen federal or state programs. Maybe they think we are drug dealers or something. I can assure them that if I were, I'd live better than this!! LOL

Thanks again.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), December 09, 2000.