Census and Nonsense

“Vee haf vays of making you talk. You vill tell us efry tink.” Sounds like an old NAZI spy movie with a greasy Gestapo interrogator in a bad German accent salivating over the prospect of torturing the hapless hero for information. But wait, that’s not the Gestapo, it’s… it’s…the US Census Bureau! And they are here to make me fill out the mandatory American Community census survey.

That’s right folks; it is MANDATORY. Section 221 of the US Code Title 13 states:

“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.”

I guess they figure they’re giving us a break. Until 1976, that section carried a $250 fine and sixty days jail sentence. The penalty jumps to $500 if you get any of the answers wrong -- and I thought college exams were tough.

Title 13, enacted on Aug. 31, 1954, chapter 1158, 68 Statute 1012, seems reasonable enough. The US Constitution calls for an “enumeration” every ten years. That would certainly give congress authority to enact a law that pertains to taking the necessary head count. After all, we are a republic. A head count is necessary to fairly allocate the required representatives.

In true government fashion, though, they seem to have taken their authority a step beyond what was intended in that pesky Constitution. No longer do they just want to know how many people live where. They can ask absolutely anything that comes to their narrow little minds, and they can do it whenever they want. Here’s the real kicker, it’s required by law!

I’m no lawyer, but I can read. The language in the US Constitution is clear on this matter. An enumeration is to be taken every ten years for the express purpose of determining the allocation of representatives in congress. There is nothing in the Constitution about requiring the populous to divulge the number of toilets in their house or any other personal data whenever the bureaucrats decide to squeeze us for information.

This law is right up there  with removing tags from mattresses in the asinine factor. At a time when our government is surreptitiously collection our phone information and requiring Internet companies to reveal data on their subscribers, it is difficult to believe they don’t already know everything about us from our birth date to our sock size.

I, for one, have nothing to hide, but the idea that our government can REQUIRE me to divulge personal information without the constitutional authority to do so cuts against my grain.

The Census form is still sitting in my office. The Census Bureau continues to send letters and emails prodding me to fill it out. The other day a nice lady from the local Census Bureau office showed up at my gate to “help” me fill out the form. As politely as I could, I informed her that I needed no help, and am not inclined to divulge my personal information to her or the Census Bureau. I gave the necessary information on their head count in 2010. There is no constitutional requirement to volunteer any other information until 2020.

She was very nice, and told me she doesn’t enforce Title 13, but that participation in all censuses is a requirement.

Maybe they will send the Gestapo to interrogate me. I’ll grant them this much though, they are persistent. For all the tax dollars they wasted on trying to squeeze information out of me, they could have help fund another Obama vacation. Gee, I hope he doesn’t suffer because of me.