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”
Shannon,
Do your dogs know how to answer the door properly? LOL
Third envelope in less than a week left on my door yesterday. I was not home, but husband was and he said the guy did look in the window, but my husband was hiding because he saw him drive up while he was letting the dogs in from the back yard. Too funny! We’ll see when he starts coming in the middle of the night when he knows we should be hime, LOL!!
Shannon
I received the ACS form 2 or 3 months ago. I showed it to my husband and we both thought the questions were outrageous. We threw it in the trash. I also received the short census form but that had to be at least a month or two after we had got the ACS form. We lost that form. I’m glad im not the only person angry about this ACS survey. I have not received any phone calls. I hope I never do. Some man with a clip board just rang my doorbell as I was her posting. I will never know if such a visit is the CB agent or a someone trying to sell me something. I will never answer the door. I have no intentions of ever sharing such personal information.
I answered the 10 question survey, then came this other thing. Wow, I had no idea. I haven’t answered and the calls have started.
You know when you mandate something like this, it’s un-American. If it was a voluntary survey, they would get more response and less inaccuracy. Any survey co. could do this for them, we could get rid of our Census dept just like that – a reduction in govt. wouldn’t that be nice?
Thanks confused.
Resident, I’m not worried. I find it amusing that the CB with all its testing, training and analyzing still admits that the non-responder is a problem. My initial reaction upon receiving the ACS was “Fat Chance I’ll be answering it”. The CB already fills in the blanks. It’s called imputation. The questions on the survey are designed to allow the reader to then guess other info based upon the info disclosed by the respondent. There is an entire book written about the problems data users have with the CB data. And yes the CB field reps can mark answers by looking at a residence or occupants. I have no problem with that. Every town hall has info on dwelling as part of the public record. Anyone could guess if a residence has a kitchen or flush toilet. They can guess at how much a house could cost and extrapolate to the income necessary. There is a lot they can’t guess and I feel it unnecessary to tidy up my life decisions into a 22 page package for them, nor will I disclose any info on any individual who may live with me. A program designed to overcome non-response only works if the CB rep can talk to the resident. Not much can be asked if the phone is not answered or the door isn’t opened. Which also means that the rep can’t guess at race, age or gender. They could ask the neighbors, but mine are just as difficult to contact as I am and they know very little about me. I make it a habit to never answer questions about my neighbors to strangers. The Cb just thinks that more training and better techniques will conquer anything. I wish them good luck with that.
The ACS is also a screening survey for other gov surveys like the Current Population Survey, the Survey of Income and Program Participation and the American Housing Survey, just to name a few.
@ Cathy!! You go girl!!!! Wish I could met you!!!!!!
Some additional comments:
The Constitution calls for an enumeration of persons to create districts for congressional seats.
Not an enumeration by category – we are a melting pot not a salad.
Not data collection for government programs – we can’t mandate our way to prosperity or success.
States have gotten hooked on the drug of federal money, money which comes with strings attached. States have abandoned their responsibilities of self-sufficiency and violated the 10th amendment.
CB methodology:
Only answer the questions you feel comfortable answering. Huh? They have NO right to ask the questions! The strategy used by survey takers is to begin by asking questions that most people will answer and then shift to those which the person might not want to answer, but because the person has gotten into the habit of answering, more answers will slip out. Remember, they have already studied and tested their methods on the public.
The guilt trip: when the questioning fails to get the answers, then next step is to employ the guilt trip. You don’t really want to be the individual who deprives your community of federal funds much needed for schools, police or fire departments?
You could be fined: Well, title 13 and title 18 will allow for fines if questions are not answered and we are required to keep your info private or we will be fined. Yeah right! It is kept private unless a laptop is lost or info is accidentally posted on the net. No CB employee has been prosecuted for an accident which resulted in the release of private info.
Your info is already out there so what is the problem: Yes there is a lot out there already, that is why there is no need to add to what is out there.
It is your duty to help by supplying info just like jury duty: What? The Constitution doesn’t support that.
Government employees work for us. We pay their salaries with money taken from our paychecks. Now we have to put up with them invading our privacy? Be nice to them? What about us? What about all those who were scared to death because of a possible fine? What about the lies told to get responses? What about the data junkies who get to use our info for research or marketers who want to peddle their wares to us? Why can’t we just be left alone?
Cathy,
You said,”The poor old CB is frustrated with familiar patterns of non-response…” Don’t worry abut it too much, if their Resistance Avoidance Training for Census Workers doesn’t work they just fill in the information for you based on you’re surrounding neighborhood. In other words, they draw conclusions and make assumptions about your income etc based on answers they have received from areas they consider to be similar to you. So basically they’ll fill it out for you. Accurate huh?
Here’s a link to a verbatim copy of a manual published by the US Census Bureau on their train census workers to manage refusals.
Sign me,
Resident Apt.1
Sorry itsa mystery, I do hold the field agents accountable. So you’re a new hire who just happened to go looking for a site resisting the ACS? How interesting. The ACS is unconstitutional PERIOD. I didn’t like my privacy being invaded with threatening mailings followed by copious phone calls and residence visits and your advise is to be nice to the poor CB employee. Take that up with your employer, who is KNOWINGLY sending out individuals as part of a data mining extortion ring. I’ve been in a bad economy which left me unemployed and I didn’t turn to the gov for a job. The gov caused this recession. The ACS data collection feed the bloated gov programs. The CB needs to go back to one mission – decennial enumeration and dump all the various surveys it conducts. I don’t want to decline answering questions – I don’t want to be asked those questions at all. I pay for my phone and to have a residence not the gov, so I will decide who gets to contact me. I don’t take kindly to those who invade the public’s privacy.
Just checking in. Another envelope, exactly the same as the last one TWO days ago, was left on my door. I work full time and go to school full time, can they give me at least a week to follow the directions of calling in before they leave more GOVERNMENT WASTE on my door.
Jerry Scott, Field Representative for the Census Bureau, you will have to work REALLY early in the morning or REALLY late at night to catch us. Good luck! I hope you do not get caught in the Dundee back up coming from and going to Portland. You must HATE coming here. Poor guy. There are many other federal agencies you could work for, like the IRS. Just in case you are reading this.
Shannon