I received this from another mailing list. As a genealogist, I found it very interesting and thought others might also. If we go along with his suggestions, future historians will be in a pickle! Joyce Herzog Tear up that census form Dateline: 3/6/00 I'm looking right now at an official, mis-addressed notice from the Census Bureau telling me that my census form will arrive next week. It's stained with coffee grounds since I tossed it in the garbage first off, then had to fish it out to write this column. The official census form will be stained too, since, like the initial letter, it's destined for a resting place beneath chicken bones and empty beer bottles. And that's all it deserves. Why sort of social misfit would condemn the census form to a moldering death beneath dinner leavings? How could I do such an antisocial deed even as a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign warns the nation that our neighborhoods won't get their fair share of the loot unless we diligently answer each and every question? As the reminder letter says, "[o]fficial 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." Well, I'll tell you what kind of person I am: I'm one to who those come-ons sound like the endearments of a pusher scaring up clientele around a schoolyard. Come over here, kiddies, if you want a taste of the goods. Encouragement of dependency is not a pretty sight. Frankly, of the list of programs that I "need," I don't see any in which D.C. bureaucrats ought to be involved at all. In fact, the Census Bureau has a hell of a lot of nerve talking about distributing "government funds" when my recently completed 1040 form sits on my desk, proclaiming where those funds really originate. I'm also the kind of person who's frightened by the long list of nosy questions tagged on to what's supposed to be a head count used to allocate congressional representation. Even the short form asks for: "Tenure (whether a housing unit is owned or rented), Name, Sex, Age, Relationship to household, Hispanic Origin, and Race." The long form delves into such personal matters as your income, education, value of your home, and how many porcelain thrones you squabble over with your kids. Is that anybody's business but your own? Now, nosiness is a long-time government trait, and just because federal head-counters want to know if our toilet paper rolls hang over or under doesn't mean that the information will be misused. More likely than not, all the data will be filed away harmlessly, if expensively. But that's a lot of information. A lot of personal information. And, thought it probably won't be misused, it could be a real annoyance in the wrong hands — and the wrong hands are those of any government official. According to the Cato Institute's Solveig Singleton, "Federal agencies and employees have used information stored in federal systems to carry on personal or political vendettas, or violations of rights... Past abuses include: During World War II, U.S. census data was used to identify Japanese-Americans and place them in internment camps." That's a nasty thought. Even as Americans bicker over whether the money picked from their own pockets will be "fairly" ladled out if people check multiple racial categories instead of the single one of censuses past, nobody considers that a checkmark in one box or another could determine who gets sent to a concentration camp during the next "national emergency." That sounds awfully dire and unlikely, of course. But census data can come back to haunt us in situations far less apocalyptic. Anybody who follows the news knows that IRS agents are caught abusing tax records on a seemingly annual basis. They paw through the files for dirt on ex-wives, feuding neighbors, and celebrities. They mine the records out of malice, curiosity, or for a few bucks from a private investigator. Does anybody really believe that census workers are cut from radically different cloth than tax collectors? I'm not alone in my concerns. The Libertarian Party recently sent out a press release calling on Americans to answer only the constitutionally mandated head-count, and to ignore the gratuitous snooping that follows. The party's national director, Steve Dasbach, was quoted saying, "[y]ou can strike a blow for privacy, equality, and liberty by refusing to answer every question on the Census form except the one required by the Constitution: How many people live in your home?" To my taste, even that's giving up too much. I see no evidence that the existing political system is so responsive that the shuffling of a few politicos among the states will improve my life. Frankly, I'd rather throw a monkeywrench into the gears than pretend that I believe in the creaky machinery. Granted, the feds try to discourage such unpatriotic non-compliance. Minor legal penalties are threatened for those of us with such a terrible lack of community spirit. The faint of heart might want to simply input nonsense information into the system. Is a census worker drawing temp pay really going to call you a liar if you swear that your home is occupied by seven Samoans making $150,000 each per year and living without benefit of indoor plumbing? But the potential risks and consequences of tossing the form in the trash seem rather low. Others apparently have the same idea, and it's spreading. The Census Bureau itself admits that "[w]ith each decade, it has become increasingly more difficult to count everyone in the decennial census. The percentage of people from all housing units who mailed back their census forms declined from 78 percent in 1970 to 65 percent in 1990." Good. Let's see if we can bring the response rate down even lower. If you want to help, just tear up that census form.