Thank God the Government is Protecting My Identity

It’s time to change the waiting period for the release of personal data from the Federal Census. There is currently, by law, a waiting period of 72 years before personally identifiable information is available in order to “protect the confidentiality of personal information” (quoting the Census Bureau). This law is based roughly on the average life span.

In the eighteenth century the census was the only centralized source of data on citizens. It is far from that today. Why this information needs to be protected for the life of the individual giving it is a mystery to me.

The primary purpose of the census, as described in the Constitution’s Section 2, Clause 3, is to adjust congressional representation (reapportionment). It has also come to include the allocation of about $400 billion in funds to other jurisdictions and public projects. This is done through the aggregate data, the personal data is irrelevant. Aggregate data is usually analyzed and released within two years.

In the 2010 Census, the personal information requested (paraphrased here) comprised ONLY TEN QUESTIONS:

How many people live in this home?

Are there any additional people staying here (e.g. relatives, roommates, live- in employees)?

Is this a house, apartment, or mobile home?

What is your telephone number?

What is the first and last name of each person living in the home?

What is the sex of each person?

What is the age and birth date of each person?

Are any of the people living here of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?

What is the race of each person?

Does anyone listed sometimes live elsewhere (e.g. at college, in the military, in jail)?

The information collected on this census is less personal - by far - than what you are required to surrender in many other arenas of society.

Consider this:

1. Have you ever applied for a credit card? The application frequently requires more “sensitive” information than the census gathers. It also requires you to state your income, and sometimes your employer and years of service.

2. Have you ever applied for a home loan? Your credit rating is available to most credit grantors as well as potential employers.

3. Millions of Americans have applied for unemployment insurance or public assistance. Those applications require much more detailed, sensitive information than the census gathers.

4. Have you ever “Googled” yourself (or anyone)? The information that can be accessed is scary. People even voluntarily publish personal information on social media (e.g. facebook) - including pictures!

What confidential personal information still remains? Very little, I’m afraid. Certainly those 10 little questions on the census don’t represent any additional threat to your privacy. So, lawmakers, when the 1940 Census’ personal information is released in April 2012, CAN’T WE ALSO GET THE 1950 AND 1960 INFORMATION RELEASED AS WELL? After all we, the taxpayers, paid $11 Billion for last year’s Census. We want our money’s worth. Family historians and genealogists will be very grateful.

Instructions To All People

During the Second World War individual civil rights were routinely denied. Many people were removed from their homes by force and relocated to “camps” where they were subjected to poor living conditions for years (or worse). Warsaw and other cities in Poland were depopulated of Jews. Europeans living in China were rounded up and moved to internment camps in rural areas.

Government orders, such as the one below, were typical. The instructions here are REAL. Can you guess where, and to whom, they were issued?

INSTRUCTIONS TO ALL PERSONS

“A responsible member of each family, preferably the head of the family, must report to the Civil Control Station to receive further instructions by 8:00 a.m.

All persons will be evacuated from the designated area by 12:00 o’clock noon, Tuesday, April 7.

No person will be permitted to enter or leave the above designated area without obtaining special permission from the Provost Marshal.

The following instructions Must be observed:

Evacuees must carry with them on departure the following property:

      Bedding and linens (no mattresses) for each member of the family.
     
      Toilet articles for each member of the family.

      Extra clothing for each member of the family.

All items carried will be securely packaged, tied and plainly marked with the name of the owner and numbered in accordance with instructions received.

The size and number of packages is limited to that which can be carried by the individual.

Agencies will provide for the storage at the sole risk of the owner of the more substantial household items. Private means of transportation will not be utilized.”

These instructions were NOT issued by the Nazi’s. They were delivered by the United States Army to citizens of this country - the Japanese-American families living peacefully on our west coast. Naturalized citizens, as well as those BORN in the United States, were denied their civil rights and gathered together for interment in “camps.” Yet no Japanese-American was ever prosecuted for being an enemy agent.