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Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

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Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#51

Post by brimble »

throwaway9980 wrote: post #16
fuckcensorship wrote: post #2

I have similar hesitations about registering to vote in my state (North Carolina) because it makes voter record data available to “Any person upon request and for a fee. Free lists are provided upon request to political parties.” [1]. My name, address, etc. ended up on dozens of sketchy websites after registering to vote previously. Privacy conscious legislation can’t come soon enough. [1]: https://www.ncsl.org/resea…

I feel the same way about donating to political campaigns. It’s just not worth it considering that that information is then public record and could be used against you in all sorts of ways. Perhaps I will feel different when I’m older and of I’ve enough money that I no longer need to worry about damaging my job prospects. Maybe it would make it ok to donate if you also found a likable person on the other side to give…

I'm like this with magazine subscriptions. Seeing my junkmail double after subscribing to one not-cheap literary quarterly was enough to convince me never to subscribe to any sort of periodical again. God knows who else they sold my info to.

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#52

Post by Mountain_Skies »

fuckcensorship wrote: post #2

I have similar hesitations about registering to vote in my state (North Carolina) because it makes voter record data available to “Any person upon request and for a fee. Free lists are provided upon request to political parties.” [1]. My name, address, etc. ended up on dozens of sketchy websites after registering to vote previously. Privacy conscious legislation can’t come soon enough. [1]: https://www.ncsl.org/resea…

When I updated my address for voter registration a couple of years ago, I noticed my phone number was wrong so I updated it too. Huge mistake. I rarely received spam texts or telemarketer calls and now I receive both constantly. It started just a couple of months after the change. Even without those two annoyances, the political spam texts are nightmarish. They're basically DDOS attacks because the lists are distributed to large numbers of volunteers using their own phones to send out texts. It doesn't matter how many numbers you block, the next day there are dozens more text from dozens of other numbers. And since they're political campaign texts, they are legal due to the exemption politicians gave themselves to the anti-spam laws. Right now we're in a lull between elections so the number of political texts is small but as we get close to the midterms, it will become an all day affair. In 2020 it peaked at over 80 political texts in a single day. Not sure why they think this is effective in making anyone like them but they keep at it.

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#53

Post by 8note »

tharne wrote: post #27

The Census has really lost the thread. The original mission was simply to do a headcount to determine how many representatives and electoral votes each state was entitled to. One thing that annoyed me in particular was their creepy obsession around race. Even once you answer, "White", there are several more questions aimed at determining precisely what subcategory of white person you are. If anyone at the census is l…

If you're going to count some Americans as less than a person when determining the electoral votes based on their race, you're going to have to know the race of the respondents. Collecting race data is then part of the original mission

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#54

Post by 8note »

fitblipper wrote: post #6

I hate the argument this blog uses. Just because your data is available and abused through websites A, B, and C doesn't mean you should add your private data to site D. If I'm trying to avoid catching Covid-19 by limiting exposure but have to go the the grocery story, the doctors, and the gas station it doesn't mean I should also go to a music concert since I'm already unable to avoid exposure.

i dont think thats a comparable case. the avaiable and abusd would mean you caught and recovered from covid via the grocery store, and youre avoiding future exposure from the music concert while already immune

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#55

Post by dredmorbius »

tharne wrote: post #31
ironman1478 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is important for understanding how gerrymandered a district is.

> This is important for understanding how gerrymandered a district is. That's a bit circular. One of the main reasons that districts are so easy to gerrymander is precisely because there is so much rich census data that can be used to predict voting patterns.

The issue is specifically gerrymandering on the basis of race.

Parties know their votes by precinct, those data are available.

Apportionment of voting districts must be done by population, so the Census is necessary. Discrimination on the basis of race violates multiple Constitutional amendments and voting laws, for which enforcement requires clear knowledge of demographics.

The justirications are somewhat involved, but not strictly circular.

For a discussion of the background, from a conservative viewpoint, see: "Redistricting, Race, and the Voting Rights Act" (2010). This touches on the question multiple times, this passage captures much of the circumstance, though I recommend reading the full piece:

[T]he South's swift and effective circumvention of the Voting Rights Act in the wake of its passage demonstrated the truth of what many civil-rights activists had argued: that merely providing access to the ballot was insufficient after centuries of slavery, another century of segregation, ongoing white racism, and persistent resistance to black political power. In the Deep South in 1969 (and beyond), the alternative to de facto reserved legislative seats for black candidates would have been the perpetuation of whites-only politics.

https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/redistri...

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#56

Post by MerelyMortal »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #52
fuckcensorship wrote: post #2

I have similar hesitations about registering to vote in my state (North Carolina) because it makes voter record data available to “Any person upon request and for a fee. Free lists are provided upon request to political parties.” [1]. My name, address, etc. ended up on dozens of sketchy websites after registering to vote previously. Privacy conscious legislation can’t come soon enough. [1]: https://www.ncsl.org/resea…

When I updated my address for voter registration a couple of years ago, I noticed my phone number was wrong so I updated it too. Huge mistake. I rarely received spam texts or telemarketer calls and now I receive both constantly. It started just a couple of months after the change. Even without those two annoyances, the political spam texts are nightmarish. They're basically DDOS attacks because the lists are distribu…

> Not sure why they think this is effective in making anyone like them but they keep at it.

It could be the other party trying to make you hate their opponent (a "False Flag" operation).

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#57

Post by bpodgursky »

tharne wrote: post #31
ironman1478 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is important for understanding how gerrymandered a district is.

> This is important for understanding how gerrymandered a district is. That's a bit circular. One of the main reasons that districts are so easy to gerrymander is precisely because there is so much rich census data that can be used to predict voting patterns.

This isn't true, each voting precinct reports vote totals each election.

Demographic info adds almost no predictive value over this.

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#58

Post by overboard2 »

willis936 wrote: post #45
tharne wrote: post #27

The Census has really lost the thread. The original mission was simply to do a headcount to determine how many representatives and electoral votes each state was entitled to. One thing that annoyed me in particular was their creepy obsession around race. Even once you answer, "White", there are several more questions aimed at determining precisely what subcategory of white person you are. If anyone at the census is l…

You're misrepresenting what a census is and why they are done (yes, including historically since the US began and even before). You might not like the idea of being accounted for, but that negates exactly zero benefit to society that census brings. How can the rulemakers make informed decisions if they're blind?

By making less decisions

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#60

Post by gruez »

nobody9999 wrote: post #37
gruez wrote: post #10

>Private companies are already scrutinizing your purchase patterns to determine that you are pregnant and then potentially getting in hot water for notifying relatives you haven’t actually informed. >Given that baseline reality, compromising the usefulness of Census data for the sake of minimal privacy gains seems really bad. The difference is that you can opt out of various companies collecting data. Can you opt out…

>The difference is that you can opt out of various companies collecting data. Can you opt out of the census? I'm going to assume that this isn't a rhetorical question. Yes. Just don't fill out the form. And if the Census folks send folks to your house, you can pretend not to be home, politely ask them to leave, or in states that allow it, shoot such trespassers dead . In fact, I'd prefer it if those who live in areas…

>Yes. Just don't fill out the form. And if the Census folks send folks to your house, you can pretend not to be home, politely ask them to leave, or in states that allow it, shoot such trespassers dead.

Just like paying taxes is optional because all you have to do is not send money to the IRS, and if they come you shoot them dead?

>The participation of every citizen in the United States Census of 2020 was mandatory by the law by Article I, Section 2 of the American constitution. Census is carried out in the U.S. every ten years to count the correct population in the country. The figures obtained in the 2020 Census were particularly helpful in determining congressional representation and community funding.

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