Did anyone else receive one of these? According to their web site, US Code Title 13, sections Section 141 and Section 193 your response is required by law.
In reality, those sections outline that The Secretary (who is presumably defined elsewhere) can take surveys as a part of their census process. It is Section 221 that requires you to respond:
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 Department 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…
That’s just a crock.
Oh, sure, census information is useful and all that. It’s just the principal of it. I guess I’ll have to ask the nice lady who came to my door for some evidence that she is an authorized officer or employee of the Deparment of Commerce, or a bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of The Secretary.
Heck, I’d pay the $100 if it weren’t for Title 18, Section 3571 (allegedly Section 3559 as well, but that seems to deal with imprisonment and not monetary fines). With it on the books, the “not greater than $100” fine becomes “not greater than $5000” fine. That really blows.
Comments
718 responses to “American Community Survey”
Michael,
Ever think that a person can be eligible for a progam and not want to participate in that program? Along come the ACS trolling for people to scoop up into programs. The less the gov does the better things would be. I would rather be uninsured than have a government mandated program. While you may need and use the data, so do lots of other agencies. The social program excuse is part of the ruse used to gather private info. How about doing an outreach to give people skills rather than a handout. The ACS is the quickest way toward the establishment of a nanny state. I don’t want to be surveyed, studied, screened or anything else. The CB has no business collecting this info with a manditory survey. If people want to volunteer the info, fine.
Michael,
I can understand the value of the survey. These are my objections about the survey:
each survey form is identifiable via a bar code
survey forms ask for names and birthdates
forms ask about details of income (not just a general range)
other things like commute times to work etc.
mental problems if any
marital history
The list goes on and on
– and this growing list of questions leads me to believe that more questions will be added in the future pertaining to medical history, sexual preference, religion and so on.
ALL this data is trackable back to particular people thru the survey form bar code
The survey is sent to “randomly” selected addresses (quite strange in that I got the log form in 89 or 90, and again in 2000 (after i had moved to the current address). getting selected 3 times in a row through a random selection process is not quite plausible to me.
Not all citizens get this survey, AND they CLAIM it is MANDATORY – its applying rules to a subset of the population – which in my opinion is wrong.
This is why I won’t answer the survey.
joe
I just found this page, and it’s very interesting to me. I work at a non-profit dedicated to helping women and children in the south gain access to food stamps, health care, etc, and we use frequently use this type of data, and specifically data from the American Community Survey and CPS supplements to write grant proposals or various health reports. For instance, we might apply for a grant to do work on food stamp outreach and refer to this survey and say, in this particular county, 11% of people are on food stamps with an additional 20% eligible, and we can determine that based on the survey responses people provide.
Let me cut straight to the chase & assuage all your concerns. I just went thru the gamut of emotions expressed herein, and it sucks.
THE GOOD NEWS IS:
When this D.C. lackey finally does show up at your door, ask for their card (if you do not answer the door, they will leave it anyway, along with a BS paper reminding you of the `law’.
Nonetheless, call them from a pay fone the next day, and they will do the survey from their laptop. I completed the survey, and gave “NO INFORMATION” responses to 99.9% of the questions. They take it ALL, & you are done in 5 mins.
Once completed, they are satisfied & you have gotten rid of them from your life, and made a deserving mockery of the entire farce.
Power to the People,
J
Our reps have been seduced by knowing the demographic they serve so they can pander rather than represent their voters. The ACLU only cares that the CB not ask about religion, everything else is fair game. There are various special interest groups driving the ACS intrusion. The CB is targeting Katrina victims (to follow relocation preferences) and hispanics( pushed by hispanic lobby groups to provide additional services.) A marriage and family study group has pushed for the marital history questions and another group wants to study college graduates who are not working in their field of study. The CB has its “rapid response team” for squelching any unfavorable stories in the media and to convince public officials how necessary it is to have our cooperation. Behavioral and social scientists have lobbied hard to have the CB add questions and expand the intrusion by saying that society benefits from knowing about its people, when all these data junkies want to do is publish papers in their journals.
Thank you Cathy.
I intend to follow the “ignore” strategy. Lets see what happens.
Point I was trying to make in my earlier note was that our reps are not going to help us with this because they can USE some of the information that is being collected to help them stay in power. Why would they change anything.
Same issue with the patriot act and all that. When the next administration step in, what are the chances that they will make changes to the current policies (wire-tapping, interrogation techniques and so so?) None in my opinion. Because now THEY will benefit from such practices. No one gives up power voluntarily.
As such, the only thing citizens can do is what we are trying to do.
Its strange that the ACLU does not lift a finger on this issue at all.
Oh well. Life goes on.
Thanks
joe
Joe,
Just don’t answer the door if a field rep comes to you house. There is no law which requires you to read your mail, answer the phone or open your door. If you are caught outside, then you can just ignore the rep and walk away. Each rep has his/her own style. They probably won’t block your driveway. The ignore and avoid strategy worked for me. On Rational Jenn’s site, she has posted a very entertaining interaction with her field rep.
As for the cycle of the ACS, the plan is to have each residence receive the ACS once every 5 years. During the 2010 census year, the ACS will still be sent to the lucky 320,000 residences each month. I have read posts on other sites where some are receiving the ACS for a second time.
Yes, the Community Survey is to take the place of the 10 year census, since that info is out of date very soon after collected. It is to become a rolling count in addition to the census. But the 10 year census will also be done. I think the Census Bureau is going to have a hard time with the 2010 census count simply because not enough has been done in the last ten years to protect the information that is collected. Not just by the census, but by all government and private agents. The prevalance of identity scams and a host of other phone, internet, etc scams have trained people that they should only give out information on a “need to know” basis. If I am taking out a loan, then the bank needs my income, credit history, assets, etc. Just because someone wants it to create a demographic picture of my area in order for the government to ‘better provide’ for me and my community, is not a valid reason. This is not about Liberal or Conservative politics.
We are in the last part (probably) of the 90 day cycle. We got the form sometime in January. After browsing through it, I pitched it. I got another form a few weeks later. Pitched it too.
We stopped using our land line, we screen calls, do not pick up any call if we don’t recognize the number. CB has not been able to talk to us at all in the past month or two since they started.
Now a CB agent is seeking an appointment. Left an envelope and a note behind. I pitched it. (actually, I am shredding everything)
I am wondering about taking a “SAY NOTHING” approach. If I happen to open the door and its the CB agent, can I simply say nothing and close the door? Same thing if the person accosts me in my yard. I intend to say nothing, walk away, get into my house and close the door. I have no intention of letting the person into my house at all. I don’t think they can force their way into my house. Can the agent BLOCK my driveway so I could not leave the house? I don’t know what their rights are. Would I be within my rights to call the police if something of that sort happens?
I have read most of this blog. Its unfortunate that our reps won’t do a thing about it. Knowledge is power, and once reps (from any party) are in power, they will do everything to stay in power.
Fundamentally, I am very very liberal. I do not try to get out of jury duty, I pay my taxes (and not really feel bad about it :-). I vote, even in local elections. But I WILL NOT answer this survey.
As CB is now collecting information on a continuous basis, they could simply start the cycle all over again, year after year. I guess we just have to learn to ignore this, and go about our lives.
My apologies to those of you here who are also posting to my own blog about the ACS: I’ve moved to a new city, am back in college, and just went heads-down for a few months. The thread “‘None of Your Business!’: the American Community Survey” is back in business.
Keep up the good fight, folks!