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.
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718 responses to “American Community Survey”
On the site, Truth is treason, is a post called “How to Legally Refuse to Participate in the Census Survey” by Kevin Hayden. It’s worth reading.
Let me clarify the $100 check thing was for the long form questions, which came before the ACS. The maximum fine is $5000. Which is all mute anyway, since no one gets fined. Don’t get hung up on the title 13/18 stuff, most doesn’t apply to the structure of the ACS.
The ACS was created for 2 reasons. First, because of the backlash over the 2000 census longform. Second, because the data junkies felt that data collected every 10 years wasn’t current enough. There needed to be a mechanism to get continuous data collection. Marketers and Social science groups didn’t want to base predictions on stale data. There is a push to get the monthly sample size increased for the ACS. The more info these groups get, the more they want.
For some reason we have lost Russel Whitaker’s Survival Arts site. He had a thread on the ACS which contained all sorts of info on topics, which are now being discussed again here. His site had over 2,000 posts on the ACS.
For the new people receiving the ACS, the fines are for leverage. Title 13 and Title 18 are used to convince the public to comply. The CB states that the info collected will be confidential. There is a difference between promising to keep it confidential and actually doing it. The CB knows that any of the profiles can be reconstructed using 6 data points. Notice that no one has been prosecuted for losing a CB lap top or when the entire profiles of ACS respondents appeared on the internet.
The CB claims that it gets a 95% response rate for the ACS. The actual response rate is between 55-57%. The CB considers a completed survey to contain 6 data points. (Anyone could get 6 data points from just looking at a residence) Using the CB’s faulty response rate for a little math, one gets: 250,000 surveys X 12 months X .05 non-responders = 150,000 residences/year. The actual number of non-responders is more like 1,260,000-1,350,000/ year. The CB doesn’t get the enumeration correct without a court challenge for an over-count or an under-count, so it has no way of knowing if the data they collect on the survey is even accurate. If I had filled out my survey, most of the answers would have been dated within 3 months. The CB has no real way of checking the accuracy of any survey answers. What a waste of money!
The info came from various gov sources like the CB meeting minutes with the congressional subcommittee which over sees the CB, as well as minutes from CB meetings and training courses. The CB folk were laughing at the fact that people would send in the checks. They did not say how many the received.
I have been at this for more than 3 years and have found than the CB has a twisted trail of lies; lies to congress, lies to the public and lies to lower level employees.
The fine was increase but with the stipulation that it not be imposed. It was needed to increase the response rate. And you’re right – it is all rubbish, including the letter from a gov lawyer which stated that the CB could stretch the law to include the ACS when it was separated from the actual census. Every thing is a twisted tale of legalese meant to confuse and deceive.
Cathy:
Do you have any documentation evidencing people were actually sending in $100 to the CB instead of answering the survey. I seriously doubt that happened. Who on earth would write a check before actually receiving a fine? Also, you are mistaken on the amount of the fine. It is STILL only $100. Yes, I know that even the CB likes to refer to US Code 18 Ch 227 Section 3571 paragraph (b)(7) where the $5,000 is stated; however, it is paragraph (e) that is controlling:
“(e) Special Rule for Lower Fine Specified in Substantive Provision.— If a law setting forth an offense specifies no fine or a fine that is lower than the fine otherwise applicable under this section and such law, by specific reference, exempts the offense from the applicability of the fine otherwise applicable under this section, the defendant may not be fined more than the amount specified in the law setting forth the offense.”
That brings us back to the $100 fine stated in paragraph (c) of US CODE 13 Ch7 section 221. The CB claim that Title 18 Section 3571 and 3559 “IN EFFECT AMENDS” Title 13 is pure rubbish.
Hi Cathy! Keep up your efforts. You usually cover everything I want to say. But you aren’t alone.
Lazarus
jeanette.
Neither your local newpaper nor a major news source will investigate your concerns beyond calling the Census Bureau and listening to the official propaganda. They will then print a story that re-states the part about the Survey being mandatory and quoting the Title 13 part about the possible fine.
If someone in the media actually prints something that questions the survey or the process, the Census Bureau will send a rapid response person to the source and make sure that a retraction or clarification is printed too.
Same with contacting your Congressperson. The American Community Survey is a large, fresh, gold mine of data and everyone wants you to just provide it.
Newspapers have been reluctant to print negative stories about the CB and its surveys for 2 reasons. First the CB conducts workshops and training seminars for journalists to better understand the data collected and to aid in the publication of articles using the data. Second, the CB will release its “rapid response team” to set the record straight for anyone not favoring the CB’s efforts.
The CB did have the survey voluntary and had a very low response rate which is why the CB asked congress to add the “mandatory” and to up the fine from $100 to $5000. People were sending $100 checks to the CB instead of the survey. What they really want in the info and not the money from the fine.
FOX news has been running more stories on the ACS as we get closer to getting the 2010 short form. Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann has been encouraging individuals to only answer the enumeration question on the 2010 census as well as the ACS.
My advise is to focus on informing neighbors, family and friends about the invasive questions. I’m expecting a bigger backlash this year because of the ACS overlapping the 2010 census.
Thanks, Cathy… I’ve suspected this (info being peddled to telemarketers) from the type of questions being asked. All they stress is how it will help your community in services. That’s really deceitful.
Maybe they should make this entire survey a volunteer thing, paying people (who don’t care about identity theft or giving out personal information). Even at $20.00 per volunteer survey taker, they would probably come out ahead with all the money they are spending. But wait a minute, isn’t that our money?
Our telephone calls from c.b. have startedl: so-and-so from the census bureau wants us to return their telephone call as soon as possible. They have even given us a case number.
Do you think there is any chance of getting the major newspaper here interested in doing an article on this outrage? I submitted something to our local midweek paper, but they didn’t seem to want to touch the subject.
FYI, there is a video on YouTube, “The Census is Getting Personal” that is getting a lot of hits and plenty of comments.
Shannon,
The land line constituting an occupied residence is from the CB material. The CB, pollsters and marketers have become concerned about the disappearing landlines because it makes it more difficult to tie people to their residences. I have a landline listed under another name and a cell number from another state. I too got lots of additional calls from strange numbers, so I disconnected the answering machine but left the caller ID active. The calling center calls were identified as the Census Bureau. No calls came to my cell.
The CB contracts out to telemarketing companies for the phone numbers. They are the most successful with phone book published landlines. They have gotten unlisted, unpublished and cell phones some of the time but not always. Some people have reported that the CB skipped the phone phase and went directly into the visit phase as a result.
So when those 2nd phase phone calls start, they are from calling centers and not from CB field offices. There are 4 main calling centers.
The site checkpointusa.org has a collection of articles describing some of the behind the scenes stuff. COSSA (Consortium of Social Science Associations) is one of the data junkie groups which lobbies congress for additional questions and funding. Stimulus money went to this group. Additionally, there are numerous marketing companies which take CB data and sell them. Want to know where the high incomes are with long commutes are or families of 4 with a child of each gender, these companies have it down to the zipcodes for all the states. The more people know where the data goes, the less likely they are to give in to the CB surveys.