To a Census Taker

The following was in response to comments posted on The Firing Line by a US Census crew leader, who pointed out a few technical misunderstandings people have, assured us that the census data would be kept private, and gave a warm fuzzy "census takers are people too" line. A lot of people on that board refuse to cooperate with census takers beyond a simple strict enumeration, and a few on the board are actually census takers; the discussion has been interesting.

Nancy-

You're really missing the point.

Ok, so there's some confusion about SS#s and some technicalities. That's not the real issue.

Issue #1 is privacy. You (and other census folks) keep referring to "Privacy is protected by Title 13 of the US Code." That's nice, but guarantees nothing. As repeatedly demonstrated by this government (and all others), such "restrictions" are easily overcome by changing the law, or even just plain violating the law (see the Clinton/FBI-files issue). Most notably, "confidential" census info has been used not all that long ago to put tens of thousands of innocent Americans in US concentration camps. That action has permanently destroyed any credibility for "confidentialy" keeping the info. History has repeatedly shown that when a government has the capability for evil (such as having detailed lists of people and their defining characteristics), that capability is eventually abused and lives are subsequently destroyed. If the gov't doesn't have the info, they can't abuse it.

Issue #2 is taxation. The current census is blatantly being used to divide up taxes among potential voters. "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship." (Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler) What is the driving goal of this census other than to take money from few taxpayers and give that money to people in a way that will encourage them to vote in certain ways? The Constitutional point of a census is to simply identify how many people live where to properly define representation districts; all other info inquired is used to gerrymander districts and to determine how best to buy votes with taxpayer money.

Don't snivel about "census workers are people too" and correct minor technical misunderstandings. Stand up and explain - with fundamental Constitutional principles - why the government is intruding on privacy for the profit of the elected, and to the inevetable persecution of "undesirable" classes of citizens.