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”
We can point to the CB data collection for a lot of the economic ills we are facing. The number of “disabled” has increased because the CB has redefined what being disables is and that definition has expanded the payments from social security for the new disabled. The housing market was targeted because not enough minorities owned homes. The insurance question wasn’t added for nothing. The college major question was added by the National Science Foundation to track individuals with degrees in science and engineering. Wonder what they want to do with that info. Can’t wait to see what new questions are in the works.
The ACS is a screening tool for other surveys which target the elderly, large families and lower income families. The SIPP and the Monthly Expenses surveys are even more intrusive. Then there are a bunch of surveys for businesses.
I warned a friend in AZ a little too late. She said it already happened. The owner of the house she’s staying in had to let the ACS rep in for the interview. He felt intimidated.
However, a friend in CA had been avoiding the rep until he moved away to another location. He thought it were the UPS like usual so he quickly opened the door; turned out it was the ACS woman but he did not answer anything. After that another rep waited across the street and the minute he came home from work and got out of his car she dashed over and started asking questions. Luckily he already got the education from me.
The ACS wants you to personally hand over your private informations although you’re not applying for anything, lol. Even if you’re applying for something, there’re optional questions which are up to you to provide them or not. I read from another blogger which the gentleman filled in each of the questions as “I have nothing to say”.
I’m thinking if I encountered the rep I would act as if I’m deaf, mute, can’t use sign language, blind and can’t read anything. The rep may send in an army of helpers. Still, I can’t understand them; but I only know how to say one thing my mother taught me, “No!”.
I never thought I’d see the Orwell book “1984” come to fruition! “Big Brother” does exist and will continue to grow stronger if we don’t wake up!
There is a bill being introduced in the house (HR3131) to make the ACS voluntary, which will probably go no where. Ron Paul tried to get this stopped a while ago.
There seem to be 2 ways to get rid of it – congress cutting CB funding or someone getting fined and getting standing in court. The CB requested to increase to number of residences getting the survey, but failed to get it. The CB won’t do the fines, because no one in the gov wants a court challenge.
The more people refuse, the more expensive it gets to justify the survey. Each year the survey gets more attention. The more people refuse, the more skewed the data becomes. The public outrage over the census long form in 2000 caused the long form to become the ACS. Now the backlash is building for the ACS. I see more and more blogs appearing with personal stories. The CB knows that it is invading privacy and doesn’t care.
The CB and congress get lobbied hard by a bunch of groups addicted to the data that the CB collects. These groups also submit questions to be added to the survey. It may take a while to get it stopped.
Thanks Cathy…. it is a very lonely feeling, but knowledge is power! And we have some great neighbors who view things the way we do. At least they will know what to do when theirs arrive.
What is the line of defense to get the law changed so this will stop? My goodness, what an invasion of privacy!!
Fay,
You may be the only one in your neighborhood being harassed, but you are not alone.
This has been going on for 10 years. Getting it to stop is another matter. At least if they are visiting you now, you should be done at the end of the month. Sitting outside for 20 minutes is a common tactic. They hope to catch someone coming or going. They try to visit during times when children may be getting off buses and common times for workers to return home. If you google for their phone numbers, you might be able to find out how far they have to travel to annoy you. I also left all their notes and cards out side. I copied what I needed off the notes and never touched them.
I work from home sometimes and have a very erratic schedule. My neighbors don’t know when I’m home and when I’m not. I can move around my residence and not be seen by anyone wondering if I’m there. It served me well for dealing with the CB reps.
We received the “Survey” back in August. Upon coming home from the long Labor Day Weekend, we had a business card and pamphlet stuck in our door telling us to call the person on card. We decided the information was way to personal and we already sent in our Census information. The next night there was a knock at the door….. we didn’t answer as instructed by a friend that is an attorney. More information was left. We ignored again AND left the information stuck in our door. On Thursday…… at two different times of the day, neighbors saw cars parked in front of our driveway that sat for about 20 minutes. Neighbors called the police and of course, the cars left right before the police arrived (which makes us suspicious that someone was monitoring the police radio in our area). Saturday morning we received the Fed X delivery addressed to Resident and the letter starts off “Dear Friend”. We are awaiting our next knock on the door….. which we won’t answer. As others posted…. we feel alone because no one else on our street has gotten a survey. Not only are all the questions on the ACS an invasion of privacy, but the attempts to “get in touch” with us is an invasion of our privacy as well.
How do we get this to stop in the future???? From the information that I’m seeing here, this has been going on for several years now!
Hello again. We have been getting phone calls from the CB just about every day and night. It is almost surreal (Pardon my spelling). At times we feel that we are in pre-war Germany and that the government is out to get us. There must be different phone lines they use because we are now getting phone calls from numbers we don’t recognize. Since we have caller ID, we don’t pick up any numbers we don’t know. We figure that if it is a legitimate caller then they would leave a message. By the way Cathy, you sounded just like my wife with the “How dare they” routine. I figure since we sent in the standard form at the begining of the year we don’t need to send this one in. They are just being redundant and we don’t need to be counted 2x.
Keep you up-dated.
JoRingo,
The mail phase was the first 30 days. You are now in the call phase and they don’t have your number, which can make things a little fuzzy. If you are a renter, the CB rep can demand that your landlord give out your contact info. (Title 13 chap 7 subchap II 223 – to furnish the names of the occupants of such premises…)
2 things may happen at this point; 1st you may have the month off and get visits next month or the CB may start the visits at any time this 30 days. It is still too early to tell. The contractor for the phone numbers can’t start till they research the “randomly chosen victims”. These calls will come from 4 different calling centers across the country. I received calls from 3 of the 4 centers. My phone calls started closer to mid month and my residence visits started after the 1st week of the new month. Reps have been tied up with the 2010 followups and data submission. When the calling centers fail to make contact then the reps take over in the 3rd month. I had calls from my rep, a supervisor and the local CB office.
A 3rd option is that you may be part of the 2/3 not getting the visit at all. If you are in an area with a population above 65,000 that increases the likely hood that you are done. Living in an area with a population around 20,000 increases the the probability of having the reps come.
To counter act the nerves, I took one day at a time. I had my plans all mapped out for different situations. I installed cameras to capture stuff going on outside and unplugged my landline phones and left the caller ID connected. It became a spy game for me. I hid out and spied on all who came. By the time they finished, I knew more about them than they knew about me and could have filled out an ACS on them.
So, start your 90 days from the 1st of the month that you received the 1st survey, not when you received the warning letter announcing the survey. Keep crossing off the day till the 90 are up, which should end on or about the 30/31 of the third month. Sometimes a rep has been known to go over a day or 2 if there is a holiday weekend at the end of the month. This whole deal can be a bit of a rollercoaster ride until it is done. My ordeal had me switching between anger to amusement.
It will end and things will go back to normal. Trust your instincts and know that the Constitution is on your side.
It’s been almost 6 weeks since my first notice. I got a second about 2 weeks later. Then a third… and then nothing. It’s September now and I wait every day that I’m off work. I’m looking out the blinds waiting…. waiting… I’ve gotten no phone calls because they don’t have my cell number I suppose, but I’m so impatient that I’ve considered calling them just to get it started. I’ve read several posts on here of people wishing it would end… BUT I WISH IT WOULD START!! I can’t wait to wear their asses out with inane questions of my own!! I’ll sit on the front step talking to them until they just throw their hands up in frustration. I’ll have the bastards talking to themselves!
I guess I’m unusual… but I see this as an exciting opportunity to let the stupid morons have it. LET’S GET IT ON!!