We had obligatory census in Poland.
Truth be told, seeing the state of our governement, I fully expect all of it to leak out sooner or later. :|
Privacy concerns are breaking the Census
61–70 of 80 posts
Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
I appreciate the honesty. Fallaciously pushing an issue for dishonest reasons damages representation in politics.
If you dislike the census because you hate big gov't then it should be left there, even if you know it's not a popular opinion.
Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census
#63Can someone explain to me why we need the census at all? Why are we actively pretending that the federal government doesn't have precise estimates for where people live?
It’s a constitutional requirement, Article 1 section 2
Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census
#64Title should be "Census is broken because it does not handle privacy concerns"
Yglesias once again looking at the right thing and getting exactly the wrong conclusion out of it.
Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census
#65I 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…
Some data have to be public for them to be audited by multiple independent parties. It is absolutely necessary for democracy to function. I don't see what harm can be done by someone knowing your name and address.
Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see you’ve never been stalked harassed threatened or dealt with people trying to make your life hell.
The government goons are some of the worst stalkers and harassers, which is exactly why they should never be allowed to collect this data in the first place. Our Founders understood this, but unfortunately, humans generally never learn anything from history.
The Constitution calls for a census (Enumeration) every ten years. https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/Article_1_Section_2.pdf
Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
The government goons are some of the worst stalkers and harassers, which is exactly why they should never be allowed to collect this data in the first place. Our Founders understood this, but unfortunately, humans generally never learn anything from history.
The Constitution calls for a census (Enumeration) every ten years. https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/Article_1_Section_2.pdf
No post body was provided.
Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census
#68The 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…
It's not actually up to the Census. They're following OMB Directive 15 on race reporting standards for all federal data collection. You can read it here: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1997-10-30/pdf/97-286...
This is the latest version, but it was originally published in 1977 and based on the idea that humanity consisted of only four races. The reason it asks what "kind of white person" you are is the 1997 update was in response to criticism that this wasn't fine-grained enough, so they split Pacific Islander into its own group and split white people into Hispanic and Non-Hispanic. The idea of there only being four races in the world comes from Carleton Coon's publications from the early 60s. He had a theory that human races all evolved independently from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens, in contrast to the more widely accepted "out of Africa" theory, and that this accounts for why some races, according to him, are "more civilized" than others. That is, humans left Africa in a savage state and evolved into sapiens form and developed civilization much earlier in Europe and Asia, again, according to him.
I think it should be obvious why making a theory like this the basis of US official federal standards for race is somewhat controversial, but as we know, laws and regulations change slowly, if ever, so the Census is kind of stuck defending work they're legally charged with doing, and this data is used to assess things like racial equity of federal spending and assessment of the fair housing act and what not. It's kind of a relic of our shitty history, but it's there.
Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census
#69I 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…
Some data have to be public for them to be audited by multiple independent parties. It is absolutely necessary for democracy to function. I don't see what harm can be done by someone knowing your name and address.
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Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census
#70No post body was provided.