Did anyone else receive one of these? According to their web site, US Code Title 13, sections Section 141 and Section 193 your response is required by law.
In reality, those sections outline that The Secretary (who is presumably defined elsewhere) can take surveys as a part of their census process. It is Section 221 that requires you to respond:
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…
That’s just a crock.
Oh, sure, census information is useful and all that. It’s just the principal of it. I guess I’ll have to ask the nice lady who came to my door for some evidence that she is an authorized officer or employee of the Deparment of Commerce, or a bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of The Secretary.
Heck, I’d pay the $100 if it weren’t for Title 18, Section 3571 (allegedly Section 3559 as well, but that seems to deal with imprisonment and not monetary fines). With it on the books, the “not greater than $100” fine becomes “not greater than $5000” fine. That really blows.
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718 responses to “American Community Survey”
We also received a acs in the mail. The cover letter addressed to resident stated we must respond to the survey. So we returned the cover letter and stated the response is we aren’t completing the survey and signed it resident. We received another survey, which we threw away, then on a Sunday afternoon we had someone show up at our residence with his laptop stating it is required by law to complete the survey. Again we told him no, it is none of the governments business. He stated again that we were required by law to complete the document and we would be hearing from them. Two days later we received a letter by federal express stating same old shit.
First of all, it is none of their business what i do and how i spend my money and secondly, it is disgusting that the government is spending so much money on harrasing us to get personal information.
When does it end and what will the fine be? We did complete the census that was send out a couple of years ago and am not completing this.
Just recently sent this to Robt Graves, direk of the Senseless Bureau
Robert M Groves, Director
U.S. Census Bureau
WDC 20233
Mr. Groves: subj.: “American Community Survey”
This will acknowledge receipt of and thank you for your undated letter of recent (a copy of which is herewith enclosed for your reference) as well as the host of other material that has been directed to this address in regards to the 2010 census and subsequent “American Community Survey” as your Bureau has chosen to style it.
At this time I wish to register with your office the most vehement and unambiguous objection not only to this gross violation of my rights, and those of all those similarly situated, under both the IVth and Vth Amendments to the United States Constitution, but the totally and blatantly ham-handed way in which it has been imposed upon me. There is absolutely no difference whatsoever between the manner in which this has been done and the act of blithely strolling up to a complete stranger on the streets and saying
“Excuse me sir…but I am a member of the Census Bureau and I wish to
offer you my congratulations—for you have just now been chosen to
participate in a survey about people’s private life styles. It doesn’t matter
where you are going or what other business you may have right now, just
forget them, put them on hold, they can wait because the law requires you to participate right here and now.”
There are not two rotten cents worth of difference between the two scenarios.
Your pathetic and ludicrous claim that “this house was chosen and not me personally” is absurd on its face: the distinction at its absolute best is a purely semantic one should it even qualify for that. You are not asking my house questions—you are asking ME about my private life. Furthermore, I don’t believe there is a solitary word of truth in the claim that this address was “randomly chosen” any more than I believe that JFK was “randomly chosen” by someone with a mail order rifle who wanted to check out its ballistics and Kennedy just happened to conveniently be there within range. The fact is that the sole occupant of this residence did in fact comply with the letter and spirit of the Constitution providing for an “enumeration” and entered the total number of skulls residing under this roof—and the answer was “one” and it was freely given. That was all; and that is all required by the Law of the Land which is the Constitution.
Now you claim that this so called “American Community Survey” is extremely important so that State, County and local planners can more sensibly provide for fire stations, hospitals, highways—–blahblahblahblah—–and federal funding to various communities can be more efficiently and wisely allocated….in other words, thanks to your “survey”, State, county and city bureaucrats can soon find it much easier to socially engineer our lives into a state of oblivion. That all sounds superbly meritorious, I am sure…..and since when does the federal government give the proverbial rat’s rear end about how it obscenely and insanely squanders the tax slaves’ money like a bunch of drunken sailors? Yes, I am truly assured that fedgov really loses sleep over the way they strew OUR hard earned cash around all over Hell’s Half Acre and almost invariably to the detriment and not in the service of the working people of this country from whom the loot is extorted each April.
It is also claimed in some of your glossy propaganda tracts that this “community survey” aids businesses in more efficiently serving the public. Well, that may or may not be, but that is not the concern nor the proper function of the U.S. Census Bureau. Private businesses and corporations have absolutely no lawful authority whatsoever to take a free ride off the Census Bureau and use it as an artifact or vehicle whereby to mine personal information out of our lives—if they seek that kind of data, let them ask us for it themselves….not waste our tax money using you to do it for them. I believe that that in itself is in gross and rabid violation of the Constitution. I might mention at this point that the Census form for 1970 asked people how many rolls of toilet paper they had in their homes; and when a large number of respondents quite justifiably and understandably balked at this openly and refused to answer, your Bureau became really upset….as if the people owed you or any other bureaucracy such information.
In your undated letter of late, you try to convince us that any information I render either on the form itself or to your field representative will be “kept confidential”. Oh, that really lays my mind to rest—–they have hacked into the Pentagon, the Social Security System, the Veterans’ Administration and recently someone hacked into a major international card reader service and got data on millions of people. Yes, you are very assuring.
Getting back to this “community survey” form of yours, what has my marital status or how recently divorced or how many marriages, or how many illegitimates I have strewn all over the globe in my roamings, etc., got to do with building bridges, highways, fire stations, hospitals and providing other public services? Frankly I don’t believe it has any whatsoever and is just an attempt to profile us targeted individuals and is entirely out of line.
Yet another gem: you ask me how much I believe this place would sell for…..now how in the cornbread Hell would I know? Even if I tried to give you an answer it would have to be in terms of so called “dollar denominated” federal reserve notes which are currently printed up by the tens of billions every day and with no gold or silver backing—in other words you are expecting me to guesstimate how much something of value would sell on the housing market for in terms of something of no value whatsoever. And suppose I were wrong….then you would be accusing me of not being truthful and try to fine me for 5000 usd. You want to know what this place is worth on the violently oscillatory real estate market, go get a realtor or the county appraiser, have them come out here and tell you…they are trained to do that. I am not—and I am not going to waste my precious time calling one of them to do it because I do not owe you that.
In one of the communications I have received either from you or some other official with your Bureau, it states that those of us who have the dubious “honor” of having been “randomly chosen” will from time to time in the future and as you see fit, be requested to participate in further such “surveys”. In other words, once we have been singled out for such abuse of our rights, the assaults will just keep right on coming ad infinitum at your whim and caprice.
So it appears that we have ourselves a great big problem.
Wherefore at this time, you are advised that I waive NONE of my Constitutional or CommonLaw rights and hereby assert all of same as if set forth fully herein.
Occupant 8th of June, 2012
This is just another intrusion into our lives in violation of our rights under the IVth AND the Vth Amendments…I say Vth because whether any of you like this or not, according to a highly respected professor of Constitutional Law (obviously not Obama)back east (probably at some Ivy Plague diploma mill), there is not, as we speak, one solitary person in this entire so called “land of the free” over the age of eighteen years that cannot be arrested right now for a federal felony they most likely never knew existed…I said not one and I meant NOT ONE. Any of you reading this right now can be arrested for committing a federal felony I don’t give a damn how “law abiding” (yeah…whose “law”?) you claim to be. There are quite literally more “laws” in America than people—specifically there are three separate and distinct “laws” in America for every two people, man, woman or brat. So when you fill out a census form, any of your answers could be used against you flatly despite what they claim about the supposed “confidentiality” of your responses.
America has gotten to be a very good place to be from…just as far from as you can get while the getting is still good.
Aloha, I’m from Anahola, Kauai island in the State of Hawaii. On Saturday, May 23rd,2012 a Mr. Gene Henry came to our home saying he representing the US Census Bureau. My husband was unavailable so I took the information and laid it on my husband’s desk and we never responded. Well last week Friday, 6/8 we had a Fed Ex envelop with information that said we were obligated to respond. After returning from church this morning, 6/10 there is another message from Mr. Henry with a request for apointment but he also goes on to say we are wasting tax payers money because he is having to keep coming by and had to send a Fedex notification that . I’m glad I googled Title 13, 141, 193, 221 and your blog surfaced. I will certainly write to our local newspaper and our senators as wellhere in Hawaii.
File under: another moron writes……
Got to love these one sided articles in support of the ACS. No one bothers to investigate and present any other side of the story. As the GOP moves to try to stop the survey, we’ll be getting more articles containing the same mind numbing dribble.
Mike Maciag (5/28/12 governing.com) tows the CB narrative with his article on what would happen if the survey is stopped. I guess none of us will be able to think for ourselves with out the gov telling us what to think.
“The annual survey is the gold standard for current demographic data and a key factor in funding allocations for state and local governments – providing a snapshot (more like photo-shopped image)on everything from vacant housing units to immigrant populations. Without it, officials would rely on less precise estimates to guide policy making.” Local voters should be all that is necessary for policy making. We don’t need the feds forcing mandates on local populations.
He also states that the CB’s claims 1% are non-responders and that in 2010 the response rate was 97.5%. No survey gets a 95% response rate. Are they counting “go to hell” as a response? The 2010 decennial census didn’t get a 95% response rate.
Let’s call this survey what it really is…..SOCIALISM straight up! When the rights of the few must yield to the supposed advancement of the collective/community, that is SOCIALISM. When the rights of the individual take a back seat to the policy makers, that is SOCIALISM. When the gov which was formed by the people violates the rights it was formed to protect, then the people have a right to change that situation.
To all those who wish to support the ACS, including all data junkies, gov officials and media persons, then I say……. fill it out yourself and send it in to the CB and leave me out of it.
This survey was created as a tool to deliberately circumvent privacy laws and violate individual rights.
Another on for the :Do they try hard to be this stupid file.
Today’s NYT has an article, The Beginning of the End of the Census? by Catherine Rampell
“Researchers depend upon a survey that Republicans consider intrusive.” Researchers depend…… not the public, freekin’ researchers!
“It tells Americans how poor we are, how rich we are, who is suffering, who is thriving, where people work, what kind of training people need to get jobs and blah, blah, blah, blah……” Oh, please! Base upon what? Whose criteria? A bunch of “social scientists”?
The question on flush toilets is to help assess the groundwater contamination for rural parts of the country…… Really?? CB is that the best you can do?
A look at the graph showing how the number of questions has exploded over time is all the info that is needed to shut this thing down.
“Knowing what’s happening to our economy is so desperately important to keeping our economy functioning smoothly,” said Maurine Haver, the chief executive and founder of Haver Analytics. “The reason the Great Recession didn’t become another Great Depression is because of the more current economic data we have today that we didn’t have in the 1930s.” Gee, sounds like someone needs a history lesson. Ms. Haver, the jury is still out on how much damage this country will face economically because of DC’s irresponsible spending and borrowing. Look who is evaluating what the data means? A Moron! We’re not wealthy when our money is not worth the ink and paper. Thank you QE1&2.
The best line in the article is from the former CB director and current COSSA president, Kenneth Prewitt. “If it is voluntary, then we’ll just get bad data. That means businesses will make bad decisions, and government will make bad decisions, which means we won’t even know where we actually are wasting our tax dollars.” So, Ken, all the great data collection and analysis so far and it didn’t stop….oh, say GM bailouts, bank bailouts, Solyndra. Gee, so nice that YOU prevented our tax dollars from being spent poorly.
Folks, this is the best and the brightest that the data collecting industry has to offer. Prewitt knows that if the ACS goes voluntary, that there will be no data available to keep them employed. The response rate will be 3%. The ACS was Prewitt’s idea after he stated that he felt the public would reject the decennial census because of the long form. Suck up and deal with it Ken, bad ideas are bad ideas no matter how much BS is used to sell it. Further, the gov is in the business of WASTING our tax dollars and surveys like this one offer excuses for growing even bigger gov. Well, we have reached “peak” gov and it is unsustainable. It will come apart because the American public can’t continue to pay for it. You have planted the seed of your own destruction. Continuing to save a doomed survey won’t help you cause. As for the Chinese watching with glee, did you for get that we are up to our eyeballs in debt to the Chinese. They are already HAPPY!!!!!
File under: let the whining begin!
So the Webster Amendment, which would take the “mandatory” off the ACS and later abolish it, passed in the House 232-190.
Norm Dicks (D-WA) stated that the ACS was authorized under Title 13. If he had bothered to actually READ Title 13, he might have seen that the connection to the ACS is not there.
Chaka Fattah (D-PA) stated that the ACS is vital and that the same sort of questions appear on a mortgage application. The last time I viewed a mortgage application it didn’t include questions about marriage history, heath and bathing issues or who else would be living at the property. Further, those not interested in the purchase of property fill out mortgage applications. These same questions appear on applications for gov programs too, that doesn’t mean that those not applying need to submit the info the the gov.
If the collection of this data was so important and meant so very much, then where is the proof that the public is better off because of it? Because we have a booming economy? The housing market is strong? People have jobs and are self-sufficient? No, no and NO!. All this data collection has resulted in massive over taxation, over spending, creation of useless gov programs and an economy in the dumper. All the proof that the public needs, has been demonstrated by the results we see everyday. Got news for all the ACS supporters, bullying doesn’t produce prosperity and neither has your data collection contributed to it either. Which means that all the money paid for collection, interpretation and policy making has been TOTALLY WASTED!!!!!
File under: Don’t let the door…….
Well, after the “successful” 2010 census, Director Robert M. Groves is leaving his post for a position in academia. He even managed to return some of the money given to the CB to bail it out after the hand held computers crashed and burned.
I guess things got too hot for the director after the Rutherford Institute showered him with letters about how the CB has no authority to collect data with surveys.
Plans are being made for the 2020 census. The ACS is going to continue for a while, until the funding is cut off, congress scales back the CB staff or the gov implodes due to massive over spending. I figure that with all the attention going to the GSA for the irresponsible spending, the CB may be next on the list. Polish those resumes, social scientists! You will be on the budget chopping block.
Thanks to John Whitehead and the Rutherford Institute,
the CB and the Commerce Dept have been called on the carpet regarding the ACS. In a recent article at
World Net Daily, the CB was sent a letter and asked to explain how its ACS questions relate to the info the gov is authorized to request. The CB was accused of harassing and stalking Americans and intruding on the “zone of privacy”. Many individuals have contacted the institute with all sorts of stories of field agent behavior.
I was sent the survey 2x and threw it out 2x.
Was called 2x and finally agreed to speak to them
On the phone but not before I called my congressman;
Whose aide informed me I was the 60th call on this
Ridiculous survey. He also told me I had the right
To decline to answer the questions. They HAD to
Survey me but I could say “decline to answer” on any
Question!!! So…I did!!! 2/3 if that damn thing are intrusive,
Unnecessary and UNCONSTUTIONAL!!!!!