Census abuses, past and future?

By WND Staff

On a recent Sunday afternoon, my basketball TV viewing was
interrupted by the Census Bureau. Having filled-out the short form with
the information that I lived alone in my Sacramento apartment, I was
content to give the federal government its due. That afternoon,
however, I learned that the Census Bureau contacted my landlord
regarding my “non-compliance” and attempted to visit me on five prior
occasions.

My landlord submitted my name and phone number and the Census worker
asked me for my birth date, Social Security number, income, and racial
identity. I regret that I gave her my birth date, but she didn’t walk
away with any other information, not least of which being the
composition of my multi-racial background. I told her that I opposed
federal data collection because it can be used for pernicious purposes.
She handed me a flyer that highlighted the Census Bureau’s commitment to
confidentiality. As with all government action, though, prior
transgressions are more telling than present promises.

A paper presented at the 2000 meeting of the Population Association
of America found that the Census Bureau provided “block data” to assist
the War Department’s internment of Japanese Americans. Current Bureau
officials note that confidentiality rules have been strengthened.
However, Chief Public Affairs Office Maury Cagle cannot guarantee that
“it will never happen again.” The Bureau can indeed be ordered to
submit data to targeted ethnic groups.

As Bureau practices are governed by congressional legislation, the
privacy of individuals the fundamental security of each in their
person and their property
is subject to the commands of a
legislative majority.

What is to stop the poisonous use of racial data when “national
security” is invoked? When matters of national security are at issue,
the judiciary very reluctantly impedes the conduct of the other branches
of government. Congress continues to classify individuals on the basis
of race in its hiring and contracting practices, indicating that race
remains relevant to an individual’s status in the current political
order.

Curiously enough, racial minority groups like the National Asian
Pacific American Legal Consortium urge their membership to complete
census forms in their entirety. In a March press release, NAPALAC
condemned the Census Bureau’s prior misconduct and then called for the
provision of information which facilitated the same misconduct!

The pro-census posture of minority groups is found in current Census
Bureau literature, which highlights the importance of racial data in the
administration of the welfare state. To ardent proponents of the
welfare state, minority outreach is important insofar as those groups
provide continued justification for government programs. By their very
nature, government programs are characterized by the confiscation of the
property of one category of individuals and subsequent redistribution to
a preferred category of individuals. A central authority determines who
falls into which category.

How distressing it is to see that groups who have been singled out in
the past are quick to “forgive and forget” when promised with funding
for this or that program. It is nothing less than a self-destructive
exercise in collective amnesia.

Every citizen, irrespective of race, who values individual freedom
and limited government should be concerned with the collection of
extraneous census information. The principal purpose of the census, as
expressly indicated in the Constitution, is clear: to provide for the
apportionment of members in the House of Representatives. The
achievement of this purpose hardly requires asking every household about
matters like race, income, education, marital status, employment, and
other matters commonly considered private.

A Census Bureau publication called “How People Use the Census”
confirms that the data collected is used for purposes wholly unrelated
to the apportionment of House members. Census data determines the level
of federal funding for social welfare programs like those pertaining to
job training, state-run education, publicly subsidized health care, and
nutritional supplements. A previous president of the National County
and City Health Officials asserts that census data is necessary to
“target interventions in a population.”

In other words, the chief function of the current census is to
justify an activist state — one that engages in “interventions” that
discard the concept of limited government as a necessary condition of
individual liberty. As noted by Murray N. Rothbard in “The Logic of
Action,” statistics are “critical to all interventionist and socialist
activities of government,” as they serve as “the eyes and the ears of
the bureaucrat.”

The census worker who came to my door confirmed this observation,
pointing to the federal government’s use of census data in the aftermath
of Hurricane Andrew. I failed my civic duty once again; I did not
communicate the numerous shortcomings of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency.

Even if one were to accept the desirability of an expansive welfare
state, census data other than the number of individuals residing in a
dwelling is troublesome for two reasons. First, it allows the federal
government to continue categorizing individuals on the basis of
classifications like race, gender, and age.

Second, it opens the door for more intrusive policies like the
proposed national identification card, which would effectively reduce
each citizen to a magnetic strip or UPC code. The Internal Revenue
Service’s practice of payroll tax withholding already ensures that no
wage earner is absent from the tax rolls, so Washington’s need to
further account for citizen activity is less than compelling.

There is a glimmer of hope: a current federal court case in Texas is
addressing whether or not the Census Bureau has a right to ask questions
that individuals may consider personal or intrusive. The ultimate
issue, however, is whether the questions should be asked at all. While
the official propaganda says “yes,” prior government incursions on
individual liberty say “no.”



Nikos A. Leverenz
is the coordinator of

Pacific Legal Foundation’s
Program for Judicial Awareness.