CDR: RE: Congress proposes raiding census records.

[Lucky Green]

I only answered the first question in the last census: how many people live
at that address (or something to that effect). The rest I crossed out with
fat black permanent marker. The result: no visits from the census taker. No
inquiries from the Census Office. No fine. No repercussions of any kind.

I am puzzled why anybody would have bothered to answer the remaining
questions.

--Lucky Green <shamrock at cypherpunks.to>

  "Anytime you decrypt... its against the law".
   Jack Valenti, President, Motion Picture Association of America in
   a sworn deposition, 2000-06-06


> -----Original Message-----
> From: cypherpunks at openpgp.net [mailto:cypherpunks at openpgp.net]On Behalf
> Of Trei, Peter
> Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2000 14:07
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: Congress proposes raiding census records.
>
>
> Let us remember that the last time the privacy of
> census records were violated on this scale,
> they were used to imprison tens of thousands
> of law abiding American citizens, whose only
> crime was to have Japanese ancestry.
>
> Peter Trei
>
> -------------
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/23/opinion/23MONK.html
> (free registration required)
>
> New York Times, 23 October, 2000
>
> My Data, Mine to Keep Private
>
> By LINDA R. MONK
>
>   WASHINGTON -- I was one of those paranoid Americans
> who chose not to answer all questions on the long form of
> the 2000 census. My husband and I decided that the
> government did not need to know, or had other ways of
> finding out, what time we left for work, how much our
> mortgage payment was or the amount of our income that came
> from wages. We were willing to risk the $100 fine to take a
> stand for individual privacy in an increasingly nosy and
> automated age.
>
> Editorial writers across the nation chided people like us
> for being so silly, insisting that only right-wing nuts with
> delusions of jackbooted federal invaders could possibly
> object to the census. Think of all the poor women who need
> day care and disabled people who depend on public
> transportation, we were told. And don't listen to the
> warnings of Trent Lott, the Senate majority leader -
> they're just another Republican ploy to get a low count on
> the census.
>
> Now, however, my concerns don't appear quite so
> ridiculous. The Congressional Budget Office, with the
> surprising help of some Congressional Republicans, is
> angling to get its hands on Census Bureau files. The budget
> office wants to create a "linked data set" on individuals -
> using information from the Internal Revenue Service, Social
> Security Administration and Census Bureau surveys - to help
> it evaluate proposed reforms in Medicare and Social
> Security.
>
> Under current law, census data on individuals can be used
> only to benefit the Census Bureau, which has balked at
> turning over files to the budget office without greater
> assurances of individual privacy. However, the Congressional
> number crunchers are not taking no for an answer.
> Republicans may tack an amendment allowing Congress access
> to census data onto an appropriations bill before Congress
> adjourns for the elections.
>
> The records the budget office wants are not themselves from
> the 2000 Census; they are voluntary responses to monthly
> surveys, with confidentiality promised. Forcing the bureau
> to give them up would set a disturbing precedent. Commerce
> Secretary Norman Mineta, who supervises the Census Bureau,
> warned Congress this month that amending the census law
> would "seriously compromise" the department's ability to
> safeguard taxpayers' privacy and "to assure continued high
> response rates of the American public to census surveys."
>
> Chip Walker, a spokesman for Representative Dan Miller, a
> Florida Republican who chairs the House subcommittee on the
> census, sees no problem with congressional access to census
> data. "The Census Bureau is the government, and Congress is
> the government," he said.
>
> Well, that's exactly what I'm afraid of. It's not surprising
> that a federal agency that stockpiles information would be
> raided by other federal agencies. If Congress changes the
> census law, the government will be well on its way to
> becoming another Amazon.com, which abruptly and
> retroactively weakened its privacy policy this year. I
> expected as much, because I don't believe either the
> government or businesses when they promise me
> privacy. That's why I routinely lie about personal
> information when applying for shoppers' discount cards and
> the like. And it's why I don't answer invasive questions on
> census forms. Keep your hands off my data set.
>
>
>