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”
H.R.3131 – To make participation in the American Community Survey voluntary, except with respect to certain basic questions.
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3131/actions_votes
The little lady and I received the initial survey in the mail yesterday. I am encouraged by the comments in this thread and will document the activities and actions that occur. I hope we can help one another through these posts.
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. – Thomas Jefferson
The date on form ACS-1 is 05-22-2008. Maybe 05/31/2008 was the date that they finished the review. If this is the case, it took one week to review and approve this form. Are the hours then the man hours spent on the approval process? I could not find any explanation of this information.
Before the nice lady at the ACS hung up, she informed me that I had been listed as refusing to answer the survey.
We may decide to not answer the survey and in doing so we are breaking the law. I honestly don’t think that the Office of Management and Budget are trying to become “BIG BROTHER”, they just love to collect information thinking that it will help the under privileged. In doing so they are encouraging “BIG GOVERNMENT”.
A 2008 statement by Susan E. Dudley, Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs U.S. Office of Management and Budget before a subcommittee about “Does Federal Statistical Data Adequately Serve People Living with Disabilities?”, provides some insight into the thinking. She give high praise to the ACS and makes it clear that the ACS has replaced the Decennial Census long form and will provide data annually, rather than only once a decade. Her goal is to focus on the non-institutionalized population ages 18 and over for the health status and including obesity, risk behaviors such as smoking and alcohol use, insurance coverage, and access to health care.
I noted that lack of insurance coverage has now been lumped into a categtory with smoking and drinking as a bad thing. The question then becomes do we have the freedom to do things that are bad for us? And how far should we let government go in enforcing this.
After reading the statement on the back of the form, and checking out approval number from the Office of Management and Budget, OMB No. 0607-0810 I discovered that it had expired on 5/31/2008.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/rewrite/library/OMBINV.USDA.COMMERCE.html
OMB NO: 0607-0810 EXPIRATION DATE: 05/31/2008 RESPS:3,160,610 HOURS:1,917,410 COSTS(000):$0 The American Community Survey FORMS: ACS-1 ACS-1SP ACS-1PR ACS- 1PR(SP) ACS-290 ACS-1GQ ACS-4GQ
Well, there it is… the first piece of honesty from the CB folks.
” The PRIMARY GOAL is to provide up to date statistical PROFILES of people in your community on subjects like housing conditions, educational attainment, commuting patterns and employment status.”
The Constitution does not allow for these inquisitive minds to probe and collect personal profiles. The choices people make in constructing their lives ARE NOT FODDER FOR STUDY by a bunch of gov employees to maintain their year round employment. GET A REAL JOB!!! As far as I can see, the collection of this data has served to make life miserable for the rest of us by the over spending of the money that WE make and contributed to this depressed economy. The CB and all the elected officials can take their “nanny state” programs and shove it!!!!!
Michael,
In case you haven’t already looked the names and numbers up; Ralph J Lee is the regional Census Bureau head of the Seattle office. The 800-233-3308 number also goes the the Seattle office.
Darlene Johnson’s 541-473-3493 number is to the little town of Vale, Oregon. She must be a field rep. You can call the local sherrif and tell them you want this person trespassed from your property. She has no authority to remain at your home once she has been told to leave, nobody without a warrent does. Report her actions.
Now to the basic facts. Ralph is lying to you. The Census Bureau hasn’t attempted to have anyone fined for more than 50 years. They don’t even have any enforcement powers and would have to petition some other agency to issue a fine, and they aren’t going to start with you. They absolutely will not risk any bad publicity prior to next year’s 10 year census.
You don’t have to tell them anything and they can’t do anything about it.
Do you like being pushed around with hollow threats from bullies? Tell them firmly where to get off, and they will. Once they know that you are onto the game and will not cooperate they will move on to scaring little old ladies again.
I for got to add Darlene Johnson she states that she took a oath to pertect I also to a Oath when i joined the army and surved my counrty and got hurt blow my knee out and my records got destoyed by Bush i been fighting VA for 10 years and still fighting them for my benifits
i am also a disabled depribe viet cenis kiss my ass you took a oath to pretect the Con not to destoy it Mis Bitch Johnson Census Bureau bitch
The American Community Surrvey i recieved one it had all cap address all cap is not my ADDRESS so i pitched it in stove on saturday oct 10 6pm a woman showed up stated she was from Census and she wonted to search my home she coundnt show me ID i told her i was cooking dinner for my family and to leave she said no i am staying ill join you for dinner i said no way please leave i had to get very rud to her and ask her if she had a worrent she said no i then got mad called her a nazi bitch get the fuck off my property told her people like you destoy my rights i said fuck you bitch get the fuck out of her after about hour of this she finelly lifted but she kept driving by my property servil times like she was casing my 40 acers out
then i get a threatening letter from these bitches it states
Dear Mr xxx
Recently a Census rep visited your household in an attempt to collect data for the ACS with this letter we hope to explain the purpose of this MANDATORY survey to explain why your participation is SO important.
as you can see no personal info is published
The primary goal of the survey is to provide up to date statistical profiles of the people in your community on subjects like housing conditions, educational attainment, commuting patterns, andemployment status, this info is needed by your community, county, and state as well the nation, to plan and evaluate programs at all levels
A federal law( title 13, United States Code) authorizes the Census to conduct this survey and requires that you participate in the survey This law also requires that census employees keep all surey answers confidental bt not allowing any other goverment agency or count system access to your answers your support is needed your contribution is valuable and valued.
Due to the importance of this survey, we would appreciate it very much if youwould call our field rep Darlene Johnson 541 473-3493
survey supervisors Mara Hotchkiss, Nicole Banks, or Calaera Powroznik at 1-800-233-3308 press 13
if you do not do this survey you can be fined up to 5000 dollar fine
Sincerely
Ralp J Lee
Regional Director
bullshit i am not doing this survey they can fine me (can they get blood out of a turnup) this is UnConstituutional and a threat
john keep reading. There is more to discover. I’ve been researching this stuff for over 2 years. The CB actually has its best interest in mind, not ours. We are the guinea pigs for all the behavioral, social and economic scientists out there. Add to that all the data mining marketers. The CB is being used as a front to deliberately invade our privacy. Further, these very scientists laugh at us for being stupid enough to fall for the threats and fill out the survey.
I to am now going through the harassment cycle from the Census Bureau’s ACS Survey.
I did some informational searches and found and found a site prepared for Our Government representatives by the Census Bureau so that they can respond to their constituents when they are contacted it’s called “Congressional Tool Kit” website
Question 10 from Answers to Common Questions Submitted by Constituents is very telling specially the last paragraph:
“The census bureau is not a prosecuting agency. Failure to provide information is not likely to result in a fine. The Census Bureau staff work to achieve cooperation and high response rates by helping the public understand that responding to the ACS is a matter of Civic responsibility, and prefers to encourage participation in this manner rather then prosecution.”
From what I have been reading for the last hour I’m sure we all can agree that the C.B. has only our best interest when they continually call, show up at your do, leave letters with threats of fines and punishment for failure of compliance.
Stay the course, be strong, challenge complacency at all levels, call the police, file a complaint, and contact your representatives. Maybe we should start a grass roots coalition to fight this intrusive collection of information.