Monday, March 15, 2010

Think Before You Respond

If you haven’t received your 2010 copy of the Census questions, you soon will. Or, you may be one of the lucky ones to receive a personal visit. Either way you will have to decide how much information you want to give to the government or a stranger standing at your doorstep. You may be surprised to the content of the Census questionnaire.

Caution
Before you decide to give your full cooperation to the government, consider the following fact. FDR (the President at the time) used the "private and strictly confidential information" of the Census to round-up American Japanese to send them to internment (Concentration) camps at the onset of World War II. US soldiers were given this “sensitive” data so they could tell how many Japanese lived on each block in each town. The Federal government denies this, of course. But the soldiers missed no one.

Oh, but that was during a war. Yes, and we are war now with Al Qaeda. The government has renewed the Patriot Act which steals YOUR liberties. The Census is another attempt to do the same. The Constitution mandates that the government take a head count every 10 years for the sole purpose of determining how many representatives to seat for each individual state. Nothing more. Nothing less. You are required to tell the government how many individuals live at your address. THAT'S IT!

There have been more abuses of misusing Census information. The Census Bureau cannot legally release your personal information (Yeah Sure) but they can and do release data about each city/town block. In the past, this information has been used by local planning boards to enforce local compliance with zoning regulations. Block counts have also been used to estimate the extent of illegal two-family home conversions. This data was used to crackdown on the perpetrators and hand-out fines and charges. Census data also helps housing inspectors target local violators. In 1983 the IRS tried unsuccessfully (thank God) to combine Census data with private mailing lists to track down and punish people who didn't pay their taxes.

If you remember the last Census, they asked for your name, the number of people living there, and their respective ages. That's what it was 10 years ago. SO why do they now want to know how you make your money and if you are disabled, and how many cars you have? Ask them! They won't tell you why.

Action to Take
You can be fined $100 (unconstitutional punishment that has never been tested in court) for not answering the Census questions. Do allow the government to threaten YOUR FREEDOMS. Tell them the number of individuals living at the address. THAT's ALL THEY CAN LEGALLY ASK!