29-01-2010, 02:41 AM
...from the Wall Street Journal no less.
HONESTY MAY NOT BE YOUR BEST CENSUS POLICY
[size=12]By James Bovard [/SIZE]
Wall Street Journal, 8-Aug-89
Next year, the Census Bureau will conduct the nation's 21st decennial census. Ironically, while the bureau collect masses of information partly to justify expanding various welfare programs, many poor people will be victimized by the answers.
While many liberal groups are worried about how the census will count the homeless, no one is paying attention to how the census could create new homeless. The census forms next year will ask up to 59 compulsory questions per household, depending upon whether it receives a long or short form. They will include up to 26 questions on housing -- type of building, approximate number of units in the building, monthly rent or mortgage payments, whether solar energy is used, etc.
Anyone who refuses to answer any question can be fined $100. Each household will receive an official notice with its census form next March: "Although your answers are required, the law guarantees privacy ... The only people allowed to see your answers to the census are Census Bureau employees. No one else -- no person, government agency, police officer, judge, welfare agency -- can see them. It's the law." Federal law states that "in no case shall [census] information be used to the detriment of any respondent or other persons to whom such information relates." Yet, people have been evicted for giving honest census answers.
Though the Census Bureau does not release data on each household, it does release information on each block -- and a block can have as few as six houses on it. The average block contains 14 houses. According to the General Accounting Office, one of the most frequent ways city governments use census information is to detect illegal two-family dwellings.
An American Planning Association survey reported that housing code enforcement was a key benefit of census data for local governments. For instance, Montgomery County, MD, and Pullman, Washington, use census data on the nubmer of housing units in a structure to check compliance with zoning regulations.
The Long Island Planning Board uses census "block counts ... to estimate the extent of illegal two-family home conversions," according to a June 27, 1986 board letter. Such "illegal" two-family dwellings are pervasive on Long Island, according to Anthony Downs of the Brookings Institution. Such crackdowns are especially unfortunate because, as George Sternlieb of Rutgers University notes "The biggest source of good-size rental apartments in America is the illegal conversion of single-family houses."
Census data help housing inspectors zero in on violators. Bruce Stoffel of the Community Services Department of the City of Urbana, Illinois, declared in an Aug 24, 1987 letter to the Census Bureau that he "routinely used census data to analyze the developmental stage of neighborhoods to determine the most appropriate public intervention strategies (e.g., code enforcement).
Obviously, the people most likely to live in overcrowded situations are poor people, especially immigrants, who often cluster in the same neighborhood. Housing codes have long been used as a means to "keep out undesirables" and to exclude waves of newcomers. William Tucker, author of the forthcoming "The Excluded Americans" notes: "code enforcement has always been a very counterproductive way of trying to help the poor. It usually sacrifices the adequate in favor of the ideal.
The Census Bureau denies responsibility for the eviction of poor people because the bureau does not release the precise names and addresses of housing code violators. It makes a similar argument about events that occurred in 1942, when the Census Bureau provided the Army with a list of exactly how many Japanese-Americans lived in given neighborhoods, making it easy to round them up for internment during World War II.
Census Bureau spokesman Ray Bancroft insists that this was not a breach of confidentiality because the Bureau did not give out the names or exact addresses of Japanese-Americans. This is like someone claiming he bears no responsibility for setting loose on your block a wolf that just happens to gnaw on your leg -- simply because he didn't set the wolf free at your doorstep and tell the wolf to bite you personally.
The IRS in 1983 attempted (largely unsuccessfully) to combine census data with private mailing lists in order to track down people who don't file income taxes. As computer technology advances, the ability of the IRS to "abuse" census data will increase. As David Burnham, author of the forthcoming "The IRS: A Law Unto Itself", says: "The IRS will try it again. As marketing lists become more complete and accurate, the IRS will become more able to combine them with census information to track people down."
Information on race and home ownership is used to discover allocations of housing units that are discriminatory under the Civil Rights Act of 1984. Oxnard Park, California, uses census data to discover areas where landlords illegally discriminate against families with children.
Information on occupations is used by corporations and government attorneys to construct affirmative-action quotas for different industries. Information on "place of birth" is used by the Civil Rights Commission as a baseline for determining discrimination by national origin.
Even though the census is especially innaccurate with regard to minorities, (who often prefer not to be counted), census data are increasingly being used to construct proofs of prejudice and discrimination.
But the more intrusive government becomes, the less information it will get. The Census Bureau is expecting a sharp decline in the percentage of households that voluntarily mail back their census forms -- from 83% in 1980 to 78% in 1990.
A lower response rate will sharply increase the costs of doing the census. The cost per capita of the census has increased from $121 in 1970 to $1040 in 1990 -- a cost spiral that almost makes the Pentagon look good. (The total census cost next year is expected to weigh in at $2.6 billion).
While most information-intensive industries utilize computers to sharply lower their costs of operation, the Census Bureau has repeatedly botched its operations and squandered millions. The bureau will need to recruit 300,000 census takers next year to go around and knock on doors. But, unless the nation has a major recession between now and then, the efforts to recruit temporary help could be a big failure, and the entire census effort could run aground. Recruitment is already running into difficulty in many areas.
The more information the government collects on people, the more control the government will have over people. When there are hundreds of thousands of pages of federal, state and local rules and regulations, almost every citizen must be guilty of something. And will millions of government employees in this nation, there are too many people with an incentive to abuse government information to fill their quotas of citations, arrests and investigations.
HONESTY MAY NOT BE YOUR BEST CENSUS POLICY
[size=12]By James Bovard [/SIZE]
Wall Street Journal, 8-Aug-89
Next year, the Census Bureau will conduct the nation's 21st decennial census. Ironically, while the bureau collect masses of information partly to justify expanding various welfare programs, many poor people will be victimized by the answers.
While many liberal groups are worried about how the census will count the homeless, no one is paying attention to how the census could create new homeless. The census forms next year will ask up to 59 compulsory questions per household, depending upon whether it receives a long or short form. They will include up to 26 questions on housing -- type of building, approximate number of units in the building, monthly rent or mortgage payments, whether solar energy is used, etc.
Anyone who refuses to answer any question can be fined $100. Each household will receive an official notice with its census form next March: "Although your answers are required, the law guarantees privacy ... The only people allowed to see your answers to the census are Census Bureau employees. No one else -- no person, government agency, police officer, judge, welfare agency -- can see them. It's the law." Federal law states that "in no case shall [census] information be used to the detriment of any respondent or other persons to whom such information relates." Yet, people have been evicted for giving honest census answers.
Though the Census Bureau does not release data on each household, it does release information on each block -- and a block can have as few as six houses on it. The average block contains 14 houses. According to the General Accounting Office, one of the most frequent ways city governments use census information is to detect illegal two-family dwellings.
An American Planning Association survey reported that housing code enforcement was a key benefit of census data for local governments. For instance, Montgomery County, MD, and Pullman, Washington, use census data on the nubmer of housing units in a structure to check compliance with zoning regulations.
The Long Island Planning Board uses census "block counts ... to estimate the extent of illegal two-family home conversions," according to a June 27, 1986 board letter. Such "illegal" two-family dwellings are pervasive on Long Island, according to Anthony Downs of the Brookings Institution. Such crackdowns are especially unfortunate because, as George Sternlieb of Rutgers University notes "The biggest source of good-size rental apartments in America is the illegal conversion of single-family houses."
Census data help housing inspectors zero in on violators. Bruce Stoffel of the Community Services Department of the City of Urbana, Illinois, declared in an Aug 24, 1987 letter to the Census Bureau that he "routinely used census data to analyze the developmental stage of neighborhoods to determine the most appropriate public intervention strategies (e.g., code enforcement).
Obviously, the people most likely to live in overcrowded situations are poor people, especially immigrants, who often cluster in the same neighborhood. Housing codes have long been used as a means to "keep out undesirables" and to exclude waves of newcomers. William Tucker, author of the forthcoming "The Excluded Americans" notes: "code enforcement has always been a very counterproductive way of trying to help the poor. It usually sacrifices the adequate in favor of the ideal.
The Census Bureau denies responsibility for the eviction of poor people because the bureau does not release the precise names and addresses of housing code violators. It makes a similar argument about events that occurred in 1942, when the Census Bureau provided the Army with a list of exactly how many Japanese-Americans lived in given neighborhoods, making it easy to round them up for internment during World War II.
Census Bureau spokesman Ray Bancroft insists that this was not a breach of confidentiality because the Bureau did not give out the names or exact addresses of Japanese-Americans. This is like someone claiming he bears no responsibility for setting loose on your block a wolf that just happens to gnaw on your leg -- simply because he didn't set the wolf free at your doorstep and tell the wolf to bite you personally.
The IRS in 1983 attempted (largely unsuccessfully) to combine census data with private mailing lists in order to track down people who don't file income taxes. As computer technology advances, the ability of the IRS to "abuse" census data will increase. As David Burnham, author of the forthcoming "The IRS: A Law Unto Itself", says: "The IRS will try it again. As marketing lists become more complete and accurate, the IRS will become more able to combine them with census information to track people down."
Information on race and home ownership is used to discover allocations of housing units that are discriminatory under the Civil Rights Act of 1984. Oxnard Park, California, uses census data to discover areas where landlords illegally discriminate against families with children.
Information on occupations is used by corporations and government attorneys to construct affirmative-action quotas for different industries. Information on "place of birth" is used by the Civil Rights Commission as a baseline for determining discrimination by national origin.
Even though the census is especially innaccurate with regard to minorities, (who often prefer not to be counted), census data are increasingly being used to construct proofs of prejudice and discrimination.
But the more intrusive government becomes, the less information it will get. The Census Bureau is expecting a sharp decline in the percentage of households that voluntarily mail back their census forms -- from 83% in 1980 to 78% in 1990.
A lower response rate will sharply increase the costs of doing the census. The cost per capita of the census has increased from $121 in 1970 to $1040 in 1990 -- a cost spiral that almost makes the Pentagon look good. (The total census cost next year is expected to weigh in at $2.6 billion).
While most information-intensive industries utilize computers to sharply lower their costs of operation, the Census Bureau has repeatedly botched its operations and squandered millions. The bureau will need to recruit 300,000 census takers next year to go around and knock on doors. But, unless the nation has a major recession between now and then, the efforts to recruit temporary help could be a big failure, and the entire census effort could run aground. Recruitment is already running into difficulty in many areas.
The more information the government collects on people, the more control the government will have over people. When there are hundreds of thousands of pages of federal, state and local rules and regulations, almost every citizen must be guilty of something. And will millions of government employees in this nation, there are too many people with an incentive to abuse government information to fill their quotas of citations, arrests and investigations.
"If you're looking for something that isn't there, you're wasting your time and the taxpayers' money."
-Michael Neuman, U.S. Government bureaucrat, on why NIST didn't address explosives in its report on the WTC collapses
-Michael Neuman, U.S. Government bureaucrat, on why NIST didn't address explosives in its report on the WTC collapses