Beware of
Census Takers Bearing Gifts
by Wendy
McElroy
The census form that arrives at every American household in mid-March is a massive violation of privacy rights. Moreover, it has little to do with the purposes for which the census was intended. The Constitution provides that representation in the House and direct taxation are to be apportioned among the States according to their "respective Numbers" -- excluding untaxed Indians and including slaves as 3/5ths of a human being. For these purposes, an Enumeration was to occur every ten years. The first census (1790) consisted of six questions: the name of the head of the family and the number of people in the household, broken down into the categories of 'free white male' 16 or older, 'free white male' under 16, 'free white female,' and 'slaves.'
Two centuries later, an estimated one in six households will receive a 'long' Census 2000 form with dozens of questions and subquestions. For example, "Last week did this person do ANY work for either pay or profit?"(Emphasis in original. A sample form is available at http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/pdf/d-61b.pdf.) "At what location...?" All "wages, salary, commissions, bonuses or tips" must be accounted for. Indeed, all income, including interest, dividends, rental income, and welfare must be listed. The form demands to know the value of your house and estate. Further, the long form inquires into the citizenship status of each person enumerated.
Compliance is mandatory.
Thus far, census controversy has revolved around two issues. First, all forms require people to be identified by race and this raises the specter of discrimination. Second, the Clinton Administration wishes to combine conventional counting methods with probability sampling. Democrats claim that inner-city blacks, other minorities and immigrants - groups from which they derive support - are under-enumerated. Republicans counter that sampling violates the Constitution. They argue that, if bureaucrats are allowed to create 'virtual' people, then the census will be used to justify massive funding of the inner city at the expense of other areas. Moreover, Democrats could use the census to increase their representation in the House.
Two important issues are being lost: 1) privacy rights and 2) the original intention of the census.
The Census Bureau assuages anxiety about privacy by making it illegal to disclose information from all but ancient census forms. This allegedly prevents data from being shared with other agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service or Immigration and Naturalization. Alas, Government assurances have a short shelf life. The original Social Security cards explicitly stated that they were not for identification purposes. Today, the SSN is virtually a national I.D. card. The government is constructing a huge national database with the goal of including every American. It is criminally naïve to assume that bureaucrats can resist the temptation of dipping into the rich information on census forms.
Why has the census form - even one in six -- expanded? The justification: Census 2000 data will be used to distribute approximately 150 to 180 billion tax-dollars for items such as schools and highways. Thus, each state will push hard for compliance in order to boost their funding. This is the gift that census takers bear. The price is privacy.
How did the census evolve from its modest roots into a weapon of social engineering? At the beginning of the 19th century, statisticians began to urge the federal government to expand the type of data collected. The 1850 census was the first to collect "social statistics" such as wages and the value of property. The 1940 census has been called "the first contemporary census." The foregoing captures some of the dates, but not the spirit that has transformed the American census. The spirit lies in growth of the American government over two centuries into a Leviathan state that intrudes into every aspect of daily life and tries to skim every dollar produced.
What if you simply tear up the form? By early April, the Census Bureau will probably mail replacement forms to non-responding households. In late April to June, census takers will personally knock on such doors. Although this is intimidating, non-compliance in the past has gone virtually unpunished.
Census 2000 may be different. The government has 'proudly' declared it to be "the largest peace-time operation" it has undertaken. This is not peace. The census is a declaration of war on American privacy.