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”
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I hope this helps some of you and thanks so much for the blog!! Knowledge is power!
Russell ran the survival arts site (None of your Business). His site had thousands of posts on the survey dating back to when the survey was being tested on the public.
The CB also was used after 9/11 to identify Arab Americans. Checkpointusa.org/Census/Census.htm has a list of links to documents one the ACS.
Hi Cathy,
Apparently the CB really doesn’t know how to compile data accurately. You said they claim the return/response rate for the American Community Survey is 95% and I’ve read where they have stated that 25% of American people do not return the forms. So I guess they can’t do the simple math on that one why would I think they could get anything else right?
One other little tidbit: During World War 1 census information was used to round up draft dodgers and in World War II census information was turned over to the FBI and other government agencies to be used to round up Japanese Americans and confine them to interment camps. Twenty percent of the census forms today are questions on race.
By the way, Cathy, who’s Russel?
They don’t do anything that A. they aren’t being paid to do or B. that isn’t in their own personal best interest.
So, you have two options. You can either pay them to defund the Census, or you can make them defund the Census. For your average Joe, making them do it seems to be the way to go. Willing to take one for the team? Walk in to the Capitol with a gunduring a session and say, “You have five minutes to take a vote on defunding the Census Bureau before a congressperson dies. Every five minutes it doesn’t happen after that, another will die.”
You will lose your freedom (as if you had it in the first place), but you will get the vote. Not willing to go that far? Then walk in during a session and say, “Okay. No one is going anywhere or doing any other work until you vote on MY issue.”
In this latter scenario, you will be arrested, but the charges will be dropped. You might get your vote, but you might not.
The CB uses the ACS and the Current population survey as a check on the census numbers. The freedom of information act allowed for lots of material to be available for the common individual to read. The data users print their own stuff as well in journals, books and seminar power points. The CB conducts workshops to train the data users or other individuals in other countries how to run a survey program. That’s how I know. Much of my findings were discussed with others on the now defunct Survival arts site. Where are you Russell?
The data junkies lobby the Congress hard for expansion of the CB surveys, which is why it is going to be difficult to get rid of this. The groups supporting this have their jobs on the line. Stimulus money went into their coffers to continue to study us. A small list of supporters are listed on the COSSA website at the end of the newsletter.
The post that received the most critical response from the data junkies was when I posted that returning the CB forms without the address and barcodes. That really it hit a nerve. One poster stated that a shredded form was returned in the envelope. There are lots of ways to mess with the CB. Unfortunately, the best way to get rid of the over spending CB may be when Congress is replaced with individuals who pass legislation to defund and disband the CB survey machinery.
I understand they like to manipulate the data to get their way, Cathy. That’s what governments do. However, most people accurately portray the number of people in their residence, even if they elect not to answer. The CB always seems to know. “XX% of people didn’t fill out their Census.” How do you know? Isn’t the Census what counts said people?
But, if you portray the number of people in your residence all wrong, and so does everyone else, but then answer the questions in such a way where they know you did that, then they realise they’ve been screwed.
Telling the truth bucks their results as well. They use data manipulation and imputation to skew their own data and then have policy based upon it. Had I answered truthfully, most of my answers would have changed within 3 months of returning the survey. The sample pool is too low for accuracy as well. The CB claims that the response rate for the ACS is 95%, which is not. The CB hasn’t gotten a 95% response rate on anything it does. There are too many variables built into the methodology for the CB to have meaningful data or analysis of the data. So if you had fun with your answers, that’s fine.
The reason, Cathy, that I chose to lie rather than to ignore the Census, was a moral reason. I ignored it in 2000, but ignoring it solves nothing. Half the population ignores it every decade with no changes.
If you deliberately and blatantly lie, you buck their results. If their results are bucked enough, they can’t even guess an accurate reading. That was my goal.
Thanks, Cathy. I have about three weeks left then and I am still prepared, lol! Just keep waiting to see someone when I pull onto my street and into the driveway.