SELECT noprivacy FROM census, socialsecurity, irs 169
"The Congressional Budget Office, with the surprising help of some Congressional Republicans, is angling to get its hands on Census Bureau files," reports the
New York Times today
(free reg. req.). Here's the interesting thing. A staffer for Rep. Dan Miller (R-Fla.) told the NYT that there is no problem with doing a little cross-correlating of your census, Social Security, and IRS files: "The Census Bureau is the government, and Congress is the government." Last April, that same Dan Miller was
blaming the Clinton adminstration
for making the American people distrust their government through mishandling of sensitive files.
Can you say... (Score:1)
Well... (Score:1)
Redundant. (Score:2)
heh (Score:1)
Make it reciprocal, at least? (Score:4)
Or they could have kept their promise not to hand out the census data. Yeah. Right.
________________________________________
Surprised? (Score:2)
But I'm not bitter...
Re:Redundant. (Score:1)
There is a cross-corolation key, but as far as I know there has been no public knowledge of the databases being jointly mined. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but it isn't supposed to.
Damn! (Score:5)
Now I'm really in trouble.
IRS == Government ?? (Score:1)
Re:Redundant. (Score:1)
We've been saying all along that linking itself isn't criminal. Taking the position that the government should have to access each piece of information manually and inefficiently is technophobic and, well, MPAA.
Is this really that upsetting? (Score:1)
Of course, if you were lying on your Census form, or on your tax return, then you might have reason to be worried...
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I'm sick of this (Score:3)
Motive? (Score:2)
They have the method, and they have the opportunity...
The thing to look for in this "sudden" change of face is his motive. Whom was he trying to please when he tried to get the people to distrust the government? And now who his paying his campaign funds to get him to get us to trust the same government?
Folks, the members of Congress don't give a rat's ass one way or the other. You need to look for who is calling their shots and paying their bills if you want to see the true specific motives.
this is really scary... (Score:3)
great, so now the government is going to check up on you. they know who you are, where you live, who lives with you, if you filed your taxes correctly, whow many tv's you own, how far you drive to work. geez...
have you seen some of the questions on the long form? christ i wouldnt want people to be able to attribute a lot of those answers back to me, and thats exactly what they will be able to do if they cross reference all those documents.
maybe the government should do what they are supposed to do with a census, and just count people, and not try to profile everyone and everything. imagine if they fed your long form census answers through "profiling" device such as the one being pushed by the FBI for schools.
kids... big brother is watching.
tagline
Just another SNAFU waiting to happen... (Score:1)
Eric Gearman,
Who once again got stuff from the AARP the other day.
(I'm not old. I'm only 28.)
--
What's wrong with this? (Score:1)
Gee, its not happening yet (Score:1)
Okay... but why not? (Score:2)
Theoretically it would allow them to cross check your Tax forms to try to catch people who may not report income (but are receiving Social Security benifits from it), (or are perhaps reporting 15 children to the IRS but only 4 on the Census form).
Anything has the potential for abuse, but decrying any utilizing of the data for fear of abuse is obtuse. I think its an interesting idea, and while I don't like the idea of profiling people, considering how much you can find out about someone on their Credit Report, I don't see why the government as a whole should be prevented from puting this sort of information together. Now... tell me that they are going to start merging in FBI files, DMV records and whatnot into a 'Citizen Registration Database' and I might get worried... but then again... the FBI already does that.
Re:Redundant. (Score:1)
Highly unlikly that one government employee has access or reason to access both your social security data and your tax return, since they are seperate organizations.
Re:Make it reciprocal, at least? (Score:2)
For instance, it's more acceptable if a society allows anyone to invade anyone else's privacy in any way... than it is if one person can invade anyone else's privacy in any way.
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American Population: 0.0 (Score:2)
No wonder Joseph left town when they took the census 2000 years ago. Maybe he was on to something.
The Other Link (Score:2)
free reg. req
The other (non-reg) NYT link [nytimes.com]
1Alpha7
Registration Required (Score:3)
We have to provide personal demographic data to read an article about how the government wants to misuse our personal demographic data.
--
Then i guess it is a good thing... (Score:2)
Re:What's wrong with this? (Score:1)
Census information is totally different however. If everyone knows that census information is as un-private as everything else, noone will want to fill out the census. (I refused to fill mine out).
Re:Redundant. (Score:5)
Yes, but now they want to cross reference this with your Census information. Not a big deal perhaps, if you were one of the lucky (like myself) who received the "short form," but a large number of people receive the "long form" questionaire which demands (under threat of legal action if you refuse) all kinds of personal information to which the government really isn't entitled.
Now that personal information will be correlated to your financial information, providing one-stop shopping for spooks, police, bureaucrats (who may just not like you because your dating their daughter/sister/girlfriend/wife), and any private person who has the right personal contacts to ask for the information illicitly.
It makes an already abysmal situation with respect to personal privacy that much more abysmal. Worse, it codifies the current trend of violating our privacy into law, which is exactly the opposite of what is needed.
For an example of a country with sane(r) privacy laws I refer you to Germany, which has made the trading of personal information illegal, even between government agencies. After getting used to having some personal privacy over there I have to say, returning to the United States was like a bucket of cold water in the face -- we have almost no privacy here, and now that status quo is about to take on the force of law and be eroded even further.
Not a happy development at all.
so who to complain to? (Score:1)
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
They can't have it both ways (Score:2)
Bruce
here's the crux (Score:3)
It seems to me as though the government is attempting to modify its own "privacy policy" with regard to the Census Bureau's data, and then use the already-collected information (from when the old (current) privacy policy was/is in force) for new uses, which would clearly have not been expected, based upon the privacy policy citizens were aware of at the time they were filling out these surveys and providing their personal information.
It seems to me that, if it's possible to sue web sites and corporations for such abuses of the public trust, we should be able to also sue the government for such. Not that I expect it likely to happen, given that the two major parties are both intent on becoming Big Brother.
I suppose all we can do is engage in an active campaign of disinformation if/when we're asked to fill out these surveys. That, or move to a free country, if one existed.
--
It's pretty pathetic when karma can drop when you do nothing
Transparent Society (Score:2)
On the other hand (Score:2)
Re:What's wrong with this? (Score:2)
From the census propaganda leaflet (Score:1)
OK who are these cocksuckers and who exactly do I vote against? Can I just vote democrat and be safe? That was the last census I respond to and the last census my family responds to for as many generations as I am alive. If they don't want me chaperoning them on thier dates until they are 18 that is.
What utter bullshit.
In related news... (Score:2)
Personally I don't see how this li'l drone plans to get his hands on the raw Census data - he's talking out his ass. There have been many assurances, many committments on this & I don't imagine they'll get broken, particularly in an election season.
Census = snail mail spam? (Score:1)
I'm never filling out the census again. It is a waste of time and money for both me and the taxpayers. The census is so 1700's. Today, we could do a statistical sampling and have more accurate results. I always thought that it was funny when they said that only 47% of the people in an area filled it out. If you already know how many people there are, why are you counting them?
Come on, Hemos... (Score:1)
Why not make use of some of the space to report what Rep. Miller was really complaining about:
There's a term for misleading or senasationalistic reporting. Look it up, and ask yourself if you really want people using it when they talk about you and about /.
Re:Redundant. (Score:2)
Not only that, but if a government employee does access both, and perhaps your census data in addition, there will be a record of these accesses. There is a small hope that such would discourage abuses, or at least provide an audit trail if and when such abuses occur.
Now they propose a one-stop shopping center for all your personal info, displayed very neatly no doubt in a fancy new GUI for any government employee to see (and possibly abused). Where before there was discouragement, now there is active temptation.
Re:I'm sick of this (Score:3)
________________________________________
Re:Is this really that upsetting? (Score:2)
Speaking of lying, what about all the promises that Census information was confidential? Are they allowed to simply ignore promises when it's convienent.
A lot of people were really pissed off when etoys.com went under and sold their contact list despite promises to the contrary. Why should the government not have to face such scrutiny?
The fact is if you promise to keep information confidential you should keep it confidential, not change your mind whenever it's convienent.
Re:What's wrong with this? (Score:1)
Re:Registration Required (Score:1)
Re:Consider the source (Score:1)
It's also a quick way out for an opponent who has no convincing argument to stand against it. Like you.
Paranoia considered underrated ... (Score:5)
Why be paranoid (Score:1)
I realize that I've made it sound a little too easy to get at the info, but someone WILL find a way to make it public. Again, just figure out the value of all that info to marketing scum. Hell, the govt could sell it and bail out the social security trust fund they've raped. The kind of money the list is worth will guaranteee corruption of the system.
Not that im paranoid or distrut the government or anything...
Re:I'm sick of this (Score:2)
It's the national emergency that lets the President legislate via executive order. The power of legislation is supposed to rest in congress, not the President. Since 1933, the President has been able to legislate on his own without oversight from any part of the government. We have been living in a nation of Public Policy, not Common Law, since then.
Ask your favorite candidate if they plan to end all national emergencies, including the big, old one.
(previous post due to slipup with "submit" vs "preview")
________________________________________
Re:I'm sick of this (Score:2)
Forget not the fact that the geezers vote en masse, no smart politician wants to get them angry(Or scared).
LK
Re:I'm sick of this (Score:2)
Oh, I realize it. [boortz.com] I just wish everyone did.
________________________________________
Proper SQL statement for UPDATE of Privacy (Score:2)
UPDATE Privacy P
SET public_good = 'N',
GOP = 'Y',
liars = 'Y',
privacy_rights = 'Sold to Highest Bidder'
FROM Census C
WHERE C.personal_record = P.personal_record
AND C.legal = 'N'
AND P.voting_this_election IS NOT NULL
Re:I'm sick of this (Score:3)
My two former roommates filled out the long Census form like dutiful little sheep. I put that there was 1 other person there (all that the Constitution authorizes) and that the questions were a violation of my rights.
A month or so later, some tool showed up at our door wanting to clarify the census stats for "Mr. Constitution". Luckily, I was at work, and my roomie respects my privacy.
data sharing (Score:2)
--
In other related news... (Score:3)
This file was a collation of Employment, Unemployment, Taxation and Customs files on Canadian Citizens. One particularly interesting usage was to XREF people returning from vacation with unemployment records. So that if you were on EI and took a week to Aruba, they'd mark you as ineligible and fine you for the extra weeks paid out.
---
Vote Inanimate Carbon Rod in 2000
Yeah, well my brother did this (Score:2)
Actually, I seem to recall that since we're typical Americans, it wasn't hard to do that and tell the truth at the same time, but this is in Sourthern California (Santa Barbara CA).
So, is there a penalty if you live in two houses and you fill out the census forms twice?
Re:Damn! (Score:4)
Another reason (Score:2)
With no IRS and no extensive Census records, there's nothing to correlate.
-
Quit your bitching, and do something. (Score:4)
Or write Rep. Miller. Miller's site cleverly does not include his email address, but according to this site turned up by Google [webslingerz.com], Miller's email is miller13@mail.house.gov. Seems plausible, since he represents the 13th district in Florida. It won't be his personal email address, however. Ask him or his flacks to explain the apparent inconsistency in his two positions, as indicated by the links in the header. Note that http://www.house.gov/danmiller/census/faq.htm [house.gov], the official FAQ of the Census Subcommittee, hosted by Miller's office, encourages people to divulge all the requested information to the Census, and states the following to assuage their privacy concerns:
If you live in his District, write your local paper. Get them to ask him to explain the apparent inconsistency in his public statements. He's up for reelection. Make it an issue if you are a constituent.
You only have yourself to blame for your cynicism and inaction. Bitching on Slashdot won't change the world. At least not in politics. Slashdot is useful to let you know what's going on, but bitching here won't do much of anything except give you some catharsis.
No suprise, there is precident (Score:2)
How do you think they knew who was who?
Admittedly they used several methods, but one was Census data, given quite willingly at that time by the Census Bureau...
Herb
12 guys in the skunkhouse (Score:3)
When the census guy finally got around to us, we had to sit him down and pour him a drink. The short form isn't all that short if you've got 12 people living in your house, only two of them are home, and you've got to guess at peoples birth dates, full names, etc.
Maybe they'll connect my census records with my asbestos testing results, housing inspections, fire inspections, police records, and strong sugestions to the IRS criminal investigation about my slumlord. At that point Carole's abuse of the SkunkHouse [impson.com] residents will probably fall under RICO.
Re:Is this really that upsetting? (Score:2)
It is still confidential. No-one outside the government is going to see it. You obviously missed the point of my analogy with having two transactions with Amazon. The individual transactions are confidential, and the correlation between the two is confidential. So long as none of the information leaves the organization, no breach of promise or privacy has occurred.
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Re:Okay... but why not? (Score:5)
I hope the Census Bureau tells Congress to go fuck themselves. Otherwise, they will lose all of their credibility.
Re:Census = snail mail spam? (Score:2)
Personally I can't really see the justification behind forcing everyone to fill out these forms anymore.
Re:Redundant. (Score:3)
I got sent the long form. I sent it back with the information that two people live here, and declined to answer everythng else.
The Congress is authorized to conduct an enumeration, not an in-depth analysis of citizen's liefstyles. Where demographic data is needed it can be collected voluntarily, and anonymously. Or via statistical means where the respondant combines their answer with random noise so you don't know how any one person answered, but can tell how the group answered.
Re:Redundant. (Score:2)
Ever see the postings to Usenet from university accounts of people who forgot to logoff their terminals? I also remember the time a collegue of mine who used to work for an airline had to find out the flight number that a particular person was on and simply walked up to vacant terminals at the airport until he found one that was still logged on. To anyone looking at him funny, he simply said he was checking his email (a capability of airline reservations systems). Since he looked like he knew what he was doing, nobody questioned him. That whole episode was scary from many aspects, since he used the info obtained to go to the departing flight, crawl into the luggage hold and switch suitcases with the guy, who had accidentally picked his up on the shuttle bus. No one stopped him. Amazing.
Still not quite right (Score:2)
That I know of, SSA does NOT share individual data with anyone, except death records, which they will share with anyone (not just government agencies). In some cases, SSA will take another agencies data, do a match for them, and then provide 'cleansed' results. That might be a good alternative for the curent situation, have Census do the match and then provide the results in 'cleansed' data.
Most agencies provide data TO Census, for example, they get a HUGE data dump from the Post Office of every mailing address in the country, but Census does not share INDIVIDUAL data with ANYONE.
Re:What's wrong with this? (Score:2)
The Census Bureau is only allowed to release information in aggregate.
I believe the intent is to get the most accurate information possible by promising confidentiality, similar to drug surveys. Only in this case, it's not only a promise but a law.
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Re:this is really scary... (Score:2)
If that's the case, then no one can protect you. It's like a newbie running a virgin install without changing the default passwords complaining that he's been hacked...
You have to at least be aware that there's a reason people line their hats with Reynolds Wrap... and that it's only crazy 99% of the time. The other 1%, the tinfoil wiggers get to say "I told you so."
Re:Another reason (Score:2)
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Re:Redundant. (Score:2)
Re:Registration Required (Score:2)
It also admitted towards the end that they actually were looking for something different than the actual official census answers, but voluntarily filed supplementary sheets done throughout the year.
-Kahuna Burger
Re:What's wrong with this? (Score:5)
But if you must know, governments should not be able to track "its" citizens because of the history of government abuses. While the US decried to horrors of Nazi Germany rounding up the Jews, the US rounded up Japanese... with information from the Census.
Hitler didn't have anything like the detailed information on "his" citizens that the US has today. The Nazis kept records of suspected Jews in shoeboxes.
If a neo-fascist came to power in the US and decided to implement a final solution, having a nice cross referenced database like this would be invaluable.
You can't say "it can't happen here" when it already did once before.
Re:so who to complain to? (Score:2)
BZZZT! And thank you for playing! Here's [sjgames.com] your lovely partying gift.
The purpose of the census, per the US Constitution is the apportionment of House of Representatives. Period. Congratulations, Lord Omlette, you bought the government's story - hook, line, and sinker.
Re:Okay... but why not? (Score:2)
Even with all the "legal" privacy protections, the Census still had trouble getting responses from those that didn't trust them. If they openly and blatantly violate that promise now, they can pretty much be sure that all future data collected will be useless.
The Census complained that all those Republicans that were questioning the long-form were responsible for less turnout than they predicted...
They want to correlate with voluntary surveys that were filled out with assurances of privacy. Do you think those respondents (or any others) will fill out another voluntary survey?
Re:I'm sick of this (Score:4)
Thanks for the informative post. The law is simply too complicated these days. Here's the text he linked to:
Do you have a list of all current national ermegencies you can post for us? Perhaps with references to EOs that mention them?
Thanks!
________________________________________
That's not the point... (Score:2)
The point is that nobody with any influence will stand up and stop this from happening. The politicians will get on tv and lie through their teeth to the people of this country about how this isn't really a bad thing. Nobody will know what's going on, and therefore they won't get sufficiently pissed off to put a stop to it.
I'll be writing more letters to my congresscritters about this. They're idiots apparently, given their responses to my last round of letters. (My representative took my support for the new Music Owners' Listening Rights Act as support for Napster, which I only mentioned briefly in passing. Aaargh!) They're idiots, but I don't know what else I can do right now to fight this sort of thing.
Suing the gov't (Score:2)
It is reciprocal (Score:5)
Actually, for the most part, this is already the case. Congressional and executive salaries, including non-government salaries, are all publicly declared and reported. You can request all this stuff-- it is public record, and occasionally published in the newspapers if it has some shred of juiciness to it.
Campaign contributors are the same way. Try to donate five bucks to a candidate-- you'll have to enter personal information to allow them to comply with campaign finance laws-- and much is published by the Federal Elections Commission.
Anyway, the whole point of the Census-- the reason it is in the constitution-- is to give government agencies, especially Congress, the information they need to determine the effects of different public policies. For instance, if the Congressional Budget Office wants to determine what the effects of a tax increase will be-- who it will hit and by how much, and what the effects on revenue will be, they need that information. The Census makes government (theoretically) more science and less guesswork. There's still plenty of opinion to politics, but solid numbers helps people.
That's one reason why libertarians and conservatives don't like how huge government has become. It has touched so many areas of our personal lives that it has to collect invasive information about us. Free healthcare for everyone? Well, we need to know if you qualify. Diane Feinstein, for instance, supported a plan to have a national ID card/database. The plan was rescinded when Congress changed parties.
You can't support a bigger government (as Nader, Gore and Feinstein do) without supporting measures to give government the authority to gather the personal information it needs to support a larger government.
Re:I'm sick of this (Score:3)
First off, national emergencies have nothing to do with executive orders. Executive orders are just that -- orders from the chief of the executive branch of the Unites States government. They do have the power and effect of law, but can be overturned at any time by congress or the courts should they see fit. There is no special authority from executive orders that allow the president to do anything strange -- it's how every president does their job!
Second, the whole "FDR National Emergency" is bullshit. There's no such emergency that's still going on -- if you had read the same section 50 you cite with such confidence, you'd know this:
All powers and authorities possessed by the President, any other officer or employee of the Federal Government, or any executive agency, as defined in section 105 of title 5, as a result of the existence of any declaration of national emergency in effect on September 14, 1976, are terminated two years from September 14, 1976. Such termination shall not affect -
(1) any action taken or proceeding pending not finally
concluded or determined on such date;
(2) any action or proceeding based on any act committed prior
to such date; or
(3) any rights or duties that matured or penalties that were
incurred prior to such date.
Your paranoia is about 25 years late, though clearly unfounded in the first place, considering these laws were put into place by congress due to presidential overstepping of bounds during Vietnam.
I would find it simply hilarious that you believe this stuff, except that the message board you linked to had so many other willing believers. So tell me, the conspiracy to keep Clinton in office when his term is up (the one the whole "national emergency" was supposedly cooked up for) -- when exactly does that take place? I mean, we've only got two weeks until the election so the stormtroopers better start now.
It might look bad for him to seize control of the government after the elections...
---------------------------------------------
Title -13 (Score:2)
The law that protects Census data is Title 13.
You can read about it on the Census Policy page: (at the bottom of the page)
http://www.census.gov/main/www/poli cie s.html [census.gov]
Or on congresses 'code' page: http://uscode.house.gov/title_13.htm Here's the meat: [house.gov]
(a) Neither the Secretary, nor any other officer or employee of the Department of Commerce or bureau or agency thereof, or local government census liaison, may, except as provided in section 8 or 16 or chapter 10 of this title or section 210 of the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1998 or section 2(f) of the Census of Agriculture Act of 1997 -
(1) use the information furnished under the provisions of this title for any purpose other than the statistical purposes for which it is supplied; or
(2) make any publication whereby the data furnished by any particular establishment or individual under this title can be identified; or
(3) permit anyone other than the sworn officers and employees of the Department or bureau or agency thereof to examine the individual reports.
Re:Census = snail mail spam? (Score:2)
No, the reason they don't use sampling is because it is more vulnerable to political motivation. The Constitution demands an 'enumeration'. Not a guess-- even a solid one. An actual count is tougher, but less vulnerable to political manipulation-- there are long lines of clever stat people ready to skew the results the 'right way'. Look at the numbers both our candidates spout on their economic plans.
You'd have to change the Constitution to change the Census policy.
I don't think so (Score:2)
I find that if I make typo in a tax return- mainly forgeting a 1099- the state system catches them faster than federal, if the federal catches them at all.
Re:Make it reciprocal, at least? (Score:2)
Or they could have kept their promise not to hand out the census data. Yeah. Right.
Actually, what they promised was not to give the information to any unauthorized parties. Authorization, it seems, is pretty easy to get.
A matter of WHEN not IF (Score:2)
Some states are pretty bad- for example CA. The most reliable and comprehensive database is the drivers registration database. That should be used for tracking driver licenses, car registrations, vehicle taxes, and driving violations. But CA attaches all kinds of non-driving stuff to it- because the database is relatively decent. The DMV is used for tracking rogue child support, jury duty, identification cards, immigration eligibilty, parts sold to credit agencies, marketers, plus other things. All this non-driving stuff slows down the over all computer & human system.
Its only a matter of time before the feds get their act together and do similar data mining abuses.
Re:Another reason (Score:2)
Re:12 guys in the skunkhouse (Score:2)
-B
Legacy Found (Score:2)
So much for the Clinton-haters who say that he never did anything good for the country.
/.
Re:They can't have it both ways (Score:2)
I wrote in "Human". I was so hoping that the Census people would insist on some other answer, so I could sell the story to the Weekly World News [weeklyworldnews.com] ("Census Discovers Space Alien Living In U.S.!!")
/.
Re:I'm sick of this (Score:3)
Because any "national emergency" (not any executive order) automatically expire after a year, so they have to be "extended" every year to stay in effect. Every extension has to go to Congress, and congress can feel free to say "no" to the president if they want to.
and also reference section 5b of Title 50? The 1976 law did not repeal Title 50, or end all of the "emergencies" declared under its aegis, or nullify the executive orders that are based on it.
It didn't repeal title 50 (why would it need to?) Title 50 is a huge group of laws, and they amended it in places so that the existing emergencies would expire in '76, and any new ones had to be renewed annually to stay in effect.
The powers that militias claim a state of "national emergeny" gives the president are much more limited than they claim. It doesn't let him order FEMA into your neighborhood in black helicoptors -- but it does allow him to say (for example) that for the next year all transfers of assets between Afghanistan and the US have to be declared to the State department, and may be blocked at the departments's discretion.
Congress is still congress -- the president cannot unilaterally declare himself dictator (well, he could, but it wouldn't mean anything). If they want to vote down an executive order (including any one that declares a state of emergency) they can certainly do so.
The White House even has a searchable online listing of all executive orders [whitehouse.gov]. Most of them are boring things like "from now on the president will have a council of watchmakers to advise him, and they will be appointed by him on an annual basis."
Granted that congress requires renewal of the emergencies now, but it's always renewed. The end result if the same -- sweeping power for the President
It's renewed if the president wants to, but the congress has the authority to say "no". Go to the link you included on Title 50, and look around in it. It states pretty clearly all the checks and balances Congress added that restrict possible abuse by the President. Also remember that Congress is the only body that can spend money -- they make all the budgets, it's one of their exclusive checks over the other branches of government. If the president does something they don't like (even if he has the legal authority), they can just cut his budget. Just as they've threatened several times to Clinton over military engagements overseas -- even though the President can commit forces unilaterally, he can't pay the bills without Congress' approval.
Seriously, 5 minutes of reading the actual US Code will tell you more than 5 hours of tax-dodgers who claim that FEMA is shipping "road closed" signs to huge warehouses for the Y2k takeover (oops, that one didn't happen, either!)...
---------------------------------------------
there are better ways (Score:2)
The reason for these kinds of protections is that the government needs accurate statistical data on what is going on in the country to make policy decisions. Laying open US Census information would only result in non-response. The net result would only be that the government would have much less accurate statistical data.
If the CBO, or some other government office, wants to correlate data, they can submit IRS, INS, and other data to the Census Bureau, the Census Bureau can do the correlation, and provide aggregate statistical results back to other government agencies. If the US Census Bureau continues to take privacy as seriously as they have in the past, this should not raise significant privacy concerns.
If Dan Miller doesn't understand the need for safeguarding the ability of the US government to collect accurate statistical data, and the profoundly negative effect tampering with the current privacy guarantees of the US Census would have on that ability, he should probably not be on the congressional census committee.
Census Bureau policy - from a "census peon" (Score:5)
When I was working for them, I was assured time and again that no information I collected would be given out in any way that could ever, under any circumstance, identify any individual. We were told that anyone working for the Census Bureau who gave out any information we collected could be fined thousands of dollars and thrown in jail for several years.
We were told that all the information beyond the "number of people who live here" questions were used for statistical purposes - finding out the average income of households in certain areas, finding out how long most people took to drive to work, etc.
Many people I met going door to door would never have given me the information they did if I hadn't assured them that the law stated that nobody from outside the Census Bureau would get any of this information. I would hate to find out now that although I was telling the truth at the time, I could now, retroactively, be made to have been lying to them.
One interesting thing about it, though, is that part of the procedure of the job was to give everyone I talked to a notice telling them that everything they told me was completely confidential, and informing them of their rights in the matter.
My question about the legality of this would be whether the Census Bureau, by ensuring people of that right through the notices I handed them before asking any questions, had entered into a contract of sorts? Or, since many people gave the information only because they were told it was confidential, would it constitute fraud?
In any case, if this change in law goes through, it will most probably destroy the census - the only reason 90% of the people I talked to told me anything was because they beleived the information was confidential. Take that beleif away, and I doubt many will give anything beyond name, rank, and seriel number.
Re:I'm sick of this (Score:2)
Until you posted, I had seen no dispute of it, in spite of looking. I don't belive in a FEMA conquering force, black helicopters, etc. Just that in reading about the formation and early history of the Federal Reserve System and previous US central banks, I came across that mess.
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Re:It is reciprocal (Score:2)
No, I don't think so - there is no reason to include it in the constitution if this is all it is for. It is there because votes in the electoral college, and perhaps state contributions to federal government, depend on the populations of the states. I.e. the US constitution is unworkable without knowing the populations of the states.
Re:Is this really that upsetting? (Score:2)
Re:American Population: 0.0 (Score:2)
Nope, just you. I mean, come on, I thought everyone knew that -- what do they teach you at school there? =^) <-- note
Re:Redundant. (Score:2)
I missed out on the long form. Is there any perjury penalty associated with it? I might have been tempted to give the same kind of highly reliable personal info I give on product warranty forms.
Hmmm. Sounds suspiciously like 1-click! (Score:2)
All your information will be stored in a cookie somewhere, all correlated, cross-referenced, and catalogued, so that when they need to do something, all they have to do is load your profile, and... click.
Of course, I'm not creative to actually list out what they would do to use or abuse this info. Of course, it's also late, and I'm not feeling particularly paranoid or creative, either...
The nick is a joke! Really!
How to bypass the NYTimes login. (Score:2)
Re:I'm sick of this (Score:2)
Actually, it seems to go back to only 1993. Is there a more comprehensive list?
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Re:Another reason (Score:2)
Can private prisons make deals to murder their prisoners?
Anyway, who cares what deals a privatized Census Bureau will make? They won't be able to force you to answer their questions, so who cares what they ask?
The only question the Constitution allows the Census to ask is "how many people live in your house?" Who cares who they give that information to?
Are you afraid you're going to get junk mail that's specifically targetted at houses with 3 people in them?
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We control the horizontal (Score:2)
Re:I'm sick of this (Score:2)
He's in his 40s. Attitudes are far worse with younger people. I'm 25 and I could count on one hand the number of people my age that I know who actually care about the issues.
LK
Re:It is reciprocal (Score:2)
I have, and in practical, day-to-day operations, Congress, the President and most federal and many state agencies depend on census data to maintain reliable information from which to make policy decisions. Why do you think there was such an advertising blitz in the inner cities? Because uncounted people reduce the government funds to which people are entitled.
Most of the federal government is based on ideas which aren't specifically enumerated in the Constitution. While I am very worried about how invasive the government has become, there are many implied powers which everyone agrees is important. The census's role in keeping policy as quantitative as possible is just as important as its raw people counting role.