The Thought Police and the American Community Survey
by John W. Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute
There is a permanent government in Washington, D.C., that consists of people whose power does not depend on election results. The largest part of the permanent government is the bureaucracy, which has approximately three million federal civilian employees. And believe it or not, ten times that number is funded by American taxpayers through government contracts and other venues. Thus, with one in ten of our citizens working for the government, it is not surprising that the bureaucratic presence is increasingly dominant in our lives.
Everywhere we look these days, we are either being watched, taxed or some bureaucrat is placing another bit of information in our government files. And now with the American Community Survey, the latest census form that hits various households on a continuous basis, the federal bureaucracy is thrusting its expansive tentacles toward us in an attempt to invade every aspect of our lives.
Unlike the traditional census, which collects data every ten years, the American Community Survey is taken every year at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. And at 24 pages, it contains some of the most detailed and intrusive questions ever put forth in a census questionnaire. These concern matters that the government simply has no business knowing, including a person’s job, income, physical and emotional health, family status, place of residence and intimate personal and private habits.
The questions, as Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has said, are “both ludicrous and insulting.” For example, the survey asks how many persons live in your home, along with their names and detailed information about them such as their relationship to you, marital status, race and their physical, mental and emotional problems, etc. The survey also asks how many bedrooms and bathrooms you have in your house, along with the fuel used to heat your home, the cost of electricity, what type of mortgage you have and monthly mortgage payments, property taxes and so on. This questionnaire also demands to know how many days you were sick last year, how many automobiles you own and the number of miles driven, whether you have trouble getting up the stairs and, amazingly, what time you leave for work every morning. With the power of government agents under the USA Patriot Act to secretly come into your home and rifle through your personal belongings without a search warrant, it is dangerous to let the government know when you will not be at home.
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Rep. Paul recently introduced an amendment that would have eliminated funds for this intrusive survey in a spending bill. He explained on the House floor that such information gathering went much too far in violating the privacy of American citizens: “The amendment,” Paul has said, “was met by either indifference or hostility, as most members of Congress either don’t care about or actively support government snooping into the private affairs of citizens.”
More here:
http://www.raidersnewsupdate.com/lead-story32.htmThe article also states the hefty fines imposed for refusal to answer, or lying.
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