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”
Yup, JoRingo – cram it is a response. Notice that it doesn’t say that your answers are required, just that answers help you community. Social scientists like to play with language so that it sounds worse than it is so that the public will cooperate.
I finally got my third notice prompting me to hurry the hell up and send my ACS form back. They’ve informed me that they may have to come to my home… I should hope… I’ve only been waiting like a kid on the week of Christmas. I was excited to get a second copy of the ACS because I cut the previous one up and scanned it’s intrusive ass into my computer, but this one is a keeper.
My wife came up with a good line. She said, “They say you MUST respond but they don’t tell you WHAT to respond with…” so I suppose CRAM IT is a legitimate response… that’s REQUIRED BY LAW!
Hi everyone,
It’s been several weeks since we received our first ACS questionaire ans I was begining to think that maybe the CB had given up. Well, they haven’t. We just received our second packet in the mail to-day. I guess we will start to get harassed bY the CB very shortly. Just a point of info for you all out there, I have been going around our heighborhood talking to people and asking them if they had heard of the ACS. I was surprised that not one of them had heard about it. When I gave my neighbors copies I was encouraged by their responses….”What kind of BS is this?” I figured if more people knew what the CB was up to the better it would be for all. Anyway, I’ll keep everyone up-to-date as what takes place.
Cathy, I cheked out the John Whiteheads web and found it to be very informative. Thanks for the jnfo.
File under – it sucks to be them:
The NYT is reporting that the Republican Texas Rep Ted Poe is cosponsoring a bill with 34 others, demanding that the CB either make the ACS voluntary or to stop being so nosy.
The long form was eliminated because of public outrage and then it was replace with something even more intrusive. The CB behaves like a scam artist. The ACS is a dangerous invasion of privacy which is overreaching and intimidating. The CB spends millions of dollars to violate rights and invade privacy of citizens. The 4th Amendment protects against unreasonable searches.
The CB defended its position saying that congress requires the questions because of federal mandates for federal programs.
Time to eliminate big gov programs and the CB surveys as well. My prediction is that this bill like others before it will die on the house floor. Any member of congress who doesn’t support this bill will be exposed and will no longer be able to claim ignorance regarding the ACS. The next step is to fire these members with the voting booth.
geotom,
In spite of that scary “mandatory” on the form you are NOT required to return the survey. It is a violation of the 10th amendment to the Constitution. You will not be fined. You are not alone either.
First, the CB field reps are taught to keep a conversation going. Most of us want to be liked and perceived as being polite. The CB will take advantage of this. What to do depends upon how aggressive the reps are. Some do the good cop routine while other do the bad cop. You won’t know which you have till it starts.
You can call the police, some have done that. If they are asked to leave they should leave your property.
The 5 answers thing is a deception used by the CB to convince the data users that the response rate is higher than it is. So the rep could look at a residence and come up with a number of answers. Contact with a resident provides info like gender, approximate age, race or physical condition. (Which is why I did not wish to have any contact with the rep.) The CB claims a 95% response rate when it is between 55-72%. The data users know it and have reported in their literature and books as a kind of disclaimer for the accuracy of the data.
Filling out the form doesn’t mean that you won’t get called. The CB might call to have you verify your answers and to get you to answer more questions. The ACS is a screening survey. It is used to find targeted populations; those eligible for gov programs, large families, elderly and disabled. These groups can be contacted for future voluntary surveys.
The public servant questionaire is from public law 93-579. It is a safeguard for privacy protection. It is not something we can have a field rep fill out. The law is designed to prevent the intentional disclosure of private info by gov employees which is similar to the title 13 and title 18 stuff. This is when they tell you that your info will be kept private unless it is released by mistake.
As for what to do – the answer varies. Do what makes you feel good or empowers you. You are not required to talk to them at all. You can tell them to go to hell. No matter what you do, they can continue to contact you until the 90 days are up if they want. If all depends upon how aggressive the rep is and how many non-responders are being visited that month. They don’t call every one nor do they visit everyone. They tend to be more aggressive with rural areas and small towns because the sample size is already too low.
The CB has invested lots of time and money into developing strategies to get compliance. The non-responder is their most difficult subject. They like collecting info on us as a group so that new tactics can be developed. Well, good luck with that!
Hope this helps.
SUMMARY information about how to proceed requested –
so many great postings and experiences here about ACS – so much to read – perhaps some short summaries of how most effectively to proceed in certain situations when they call or come by could be shared ?
key word here is effective, to be able to most quickly stop the visits or other contact, assuming that one does not want to answer those questions for variety of reasons. (or if not stop the visits, at least lessen the stress on the resident who is scared or upset and does not know what to say or what to do)
The various situations specifically am looking for information on how to proceed are below:
1. if encounter the workers while coming/going to ones residence –
say nothing at all ?
say only won’t participate at all ?
tell them to leave only ?
say only the number of people there ?
(From what have read, am not sure discussions with them or statements to them about legality of survey or its scope would be effective or helpful
and would just provide openings for them to have longer discussions with the resident)
2. is it better to let them know they are being filmed and recorded or are they used to that and don’t care ?
3. for their knocking on doors – is it better to answer and just state things
like won’t participate, or tell them to leave vs just not answering the door
and saying nothing thru the door ?
(I guess talking to them thru the door is same as talking with them with door open, that once there is some discussion, they will try to continue it ?)
4. Is calling the police really a viable approach given that the police will know they really are official census workers and might view that their contact is legitimate and be negative to resident in spite of repeated knocking or contacts by the worker ?
5. Somewhere in this thread it mentioned that with 5 or 6 answers the workers or CB considers a survey complete, but other parts have said theat once some answers have been given, they will continue with phone and visits for getting more answers of the survey and even other questions.
Can someone clarify about this ?
6. If filling it in, but wanting to leave out most answers, with the hope that after sending it in, it will satisy them and there will not be phone calls or visits, is it better to put
words like “refuse to answer” OR “N/A” or “don’t know” on those answers
versus leaving them blank ?
or in any case, will this just mean they will keep contacting by phone or visits to get the survey complete or more complete ?
7. saw a reference to a govrnment public servant questionaire that workers can be given but also read something that giving them that means or implies you need to fill in the survey ? Can someone clarify ?
—> thanks for practical and effective information about how to proceed related to above questions.
Thanks, cathy.
I felt a relief that it wasn’t another census form. I guess we just wanted to be good neighbors; neither of us thought of that adversity. However I asked her to drop the mis-delivered mail back in the locked outgoing box. Live and learn….
Why didn’t that woman just put your mail in your mail box? Why give it to a neighbor? CB field rep have been known to look at addresses on mail in mail boxes. I return mis-delivered mail all the time and don’t knock on doors to deliver it.
Hi,
Really sorry, that was a false alarm. I saw the envelope on the doormat which the neighbor placed it there for me when I was away. Turned out my mail was in someone else’s box and the lady brought it over for me. Hmm, now I’m writing a thank you note to her and telling her the story why I didn’t answer the door. I’m giving her this website as well. I wish the ACS people would say “Give us a break! We didn’t send you anything or anybody!”
Hi,
It’s been quiet for two weeks, but I think of it almost daily. I was at home this early evening and working on the computer. I heard the doorbell twice. I was not expecting anyone so I was hesitant to even answering the door; besides, I was not decently dressed, lol. I peaked and saw a woman with a familiar envelope in her hand walking back to her car. She hung around then caught my next door neighbor and gave him the envelope, pointing toward my place. Now I’m wondering if she’s from the ACS. Let’s see if that was it. I won’t be asking him for it. If he comes over then I’ll have the chance to tell the neighbor about this site too. I still have the note on the door “attn: ACS Do not disturb the resident, no pounding on the door!”