Bob Unruh
WorldNetDaily
3/18/2010
While the forms for the 2010 Census are sitting on shelves in living rooms and kitchens across the continent, a small but growing campaign to oppose the “intrusive” questionnaire is developing.
A statement released today by a leader of the Constitution Party of Oregon recommends that people respond only to the “enumeration” part of the Census and suggested the rest of it is the equivalent of an unpleasant medical procedure.
“The Census has become some sort of involuntary colonoscopy,” said the statement from Bob Ekstrom, the Columbia County chairman for the party. “With the 2010 A.D. Census, the federal government has overstepped its authority. Citizens are balking at demands that they divulge all kinds of private information.”
Bloggers are raising hoots and howls of opposition to the questions posed to Americans on the Census, especially the expanded community survey long form. Among the issues probed are marital status and history, fertility, ancestry, birth place, language, education, disabilities, income, location of job and time of commute, vehicles, insurance, number of bedrooms, telephone and heating details, mortgage payments and amounts and other financial data.
That’s in addition to name, birth dates and other personal details…
…In a Census website promotion, the agency, over which this year the president demanded oversight in a move that was described as strictly political, cites a “Supreme Court” action to “characterize as unquestionable the power of Congress to require both an enumeration and the collection of statistics in the Census.”
But the “Legal Tender Cases” cited by Census officials dealt with currency following the Civil War and The Price of Liberty blog, concluded, “The reference to the Legal Tender Cases in 1870 is meaningless because the comment was dictum (a judge’s expression of opinion on a point other than the precise issue involved in determining the case). The statement by the court was not the holding in the case.” …
…Critics also point out that while the Census promises confidentiality, by law all information can be released after 72 years, which may not affect a current responder but certainly could impact a later generation.
Further, critics cite claims that Census information was used at the outset of World War II to round up and intern Japanese Americans…
The article continues at WorldNetDaily
