Rather than his nose being counted, Karl would rather pay through his own

On The Census
By Karl Neathammer
“For many sociologists and other scholars like me, the census data that is compiled every 10 years is flat-out the most reliable, comprehensive, and best source of data on the American population.”
– C.N. Le, Professor at University of Massachusetts, Amherst
After reading Article 1, Section 2 of the United States Constitution that requires the taking of a national census for determining the number of delegates each state can send to the House of Representatives, I read it again.
Then I decided to reread the entire text of the United States Constitution. I could find nothing that requires or allows the federal government to use the census for determining allocation of funds for highways, education or health care. Nor could I find any clause or section that allowed the federal government to know whether I have a flush toilet in my house, a disability, the size of my mortgage or my ethnic background, or who was living in my house!
However, the Census Bureau tells us:
“It is constitutional to include questions in the decennial census beyond those concerning a simple count of the number of people because, on numerous occasions, the courts have said the Constitution gives Congress the authority to collect statistics in the census. As early as 1870, the Supreme Court characterized as unquestionable the power of Congress to require both an enumeration and the collection of statistics in the census. “
Unquestionable?
As a citizen, I am not allowed to question Congress on my concerns about the Census?
Then there is case law that clearly infers that I cannot!
The Legal Tender Cases, Tex.1870; 12 Wall., U.S., 457, 536, 20 L.Ed. 287. In 1901, a District Court said the Constitution’s census clause (Art. 1, Sec. 2, Clause 3) is not limited to a headcount of the population and “does not prohibit the gathering of other statistics, if ‘necessary and proper,’ for the intelligent exercise of other powers enumerated in the constitution, and in such case there could be no objection to acquiring this information through the same machinery by which the population is enumerated.”
Apparently, I cannot even object!
Then there is Title 13 of the United States Code. Sec. 221
Refusal or neglect to answer questions; false answers
(a) Whoever, being over eighteen years of age refuses or willfully neglects, when requested by the Secretary, or by any other authorized officer or employee of the Department of Commerce or bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of the Secretary or authorized officer, to answer, to the best of his knowledge, any of the questions on any schedule submitted to him in connection with any census or survey provided for by subchapters I, II, IV, and V of chapter 5 of this title, applying to himself or to the family to which he belongs or is related, or to the farm or farms of which he or his family is the occupant, shall be fined not more than $100.
(b) Whoever, when answering questions described in subsection (a) of this section, and under the conditions or circumstances described in such subsection, willfully gives any answer that is false, shall be fined not more than $500. (c) Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, no person shall be compelled to disclose information relative to his religious beliefs or to membership in a religious body.
I guess I am in trouble!
I am not filling out the Census Form, and I am quite willing to pay the fine!
Moreover, not being a person who likes to have outstanding fines unpaid, I decided to call the U.S. Census Bureau to see if I could pay the fine ahead of time.
After repeated phone calls to the Census Bureau, I finally reached a faceless and monotone voiced government bureaucrat who told me he did not know what government agency would be willing to accept my money to satisfy the fine.
I wish to hell that the IRS had this problem!
While my refusal to fill out the census form is based on my strong personal feelings about privacy and confidentiality, it also challenges the government’s lack of credibility.
Nevertheless, once again, the courts have assured me I have nothing to worry about and my concerns are unwarranted.
US v. Little, 321 F. Supp. 388 (D. Del. 1971). The court found that information obtained by the census is strictly confidential under 13 USC § 9 and may not be used other than for statistical reporting and may never be disclosed in any manner so as to identify any person who has answered the questions.
There is a slight problem with this court ruling.
A specific and egregious example of the privacy risks of the US census can be found in the 1940s. During World War II, Japanese-American citizens were rounded up and sent to internment camps. The Census Bureau might not have necessarily given out individual Japanese-American names or numbers, but the Bureau did work with US War Department to offer aggregated data about certain localities. Although there is, still a lack of consensus concerning specific conclusions, the Census Bureau has issued a formal apology and now reports that the Bureau did not protect Japanese-Americans.
I doubt very seriously if the apology to Japanese-Americans was sufficient!
Additionally, and as a matter of historical fact, it has been recorded and verified that even before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered the Census Bureau to collect information on “American-born and foreign-born Japanese” from the Census data lists. Information was gathered from the 1930 and 1940 censuses on all Japanese-Americans and then given to the FBI and top military officials. These sources point directly to the census information as one of the reasons that led to the internment of almost 110,000 Japanese-Americans on the West Coast, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens.
In addition, this same government is unable to keep FBI files confidential, as anybody who has angered Democrat of Republican administrations can attest to after their political activities have been deemed suspect, or alternatively, have had their income tax returns audited for political reasons.
The same government that cannot keep our nuclear secrets away from the Russians and Chinese?
The same government who could not keep the secrets of our invention of the atomic bomb?
The same government officials who could not keep secret that a White House intern was sexually servicing a former President of the United States? How can we forget the “secret” of John Ensign’s squalid affair ?
I must also remind you that millions of veteran’s medical records were exposed to public scrutiny because of the ineptitude of an administrator of the Veterans Administration .
All of these privacy transgressions (except for the sexual improprieties) were allegedly protected by “privacy and confidentiality protection laws” and I am to believe that the government is going to protect my confidentiality, if I fill out the Census Form?
My point being…we cannot keep secrets in this country!
According to the official information that I received, “official census counts are used to distribute government funds to communities and states for highways, schools, health facilities and many other programs you and your neighbors need.”
Need?
Encouragement to become even more dependent on government programs is something I do not think is healthy for my country or me. This type of encouragement sounds too much like the drug pusher trying to scare up new clientèle in the schoolyard.