$5,000 fine if you refuse staggeringly invasive census questionairre
I am stunned by this.
Among the 3 million people this census variation is being (apparently) sort of tested on (hey, will they put up with this?), any one of them could be fined $5,000 for failing to answer questions like the following (I summarize):
How many people live in your home? Are any of them Hispanic? Are they citizens? How big is your home? What is your education level? Do you have difficulty making decisions or climbing stairs? Are you able to bathe, dress, or shop alone? How much do you pay for your sewage system? Are you married? What industry do you work in? What is your precise job description? What’s your rent or mortgage payment? Do you own an automobile? Are you covered by health insurance? What type? Are you on food stamps? How much money do you make?
I am not making this up. (Could I? I am not Ray Bradbury, and our world is not yet a Fahrenheit 451 world.) Here is a direct link to the publicly available .pdf form for the questionnaire, which is available from the Census web site here.
Apparently the Census Bureau “rarely” seeks fines for failing to answer. So what? What on earth caused any government official to think it is okay to compel everyday citizens to disclose such excess of private information? In regards to an everyday citizen, so much private information is not the Government’s business. (The puzzled administrative personnel respond: what is private? What exactly do you mean by this term?) Unless your government has evolved much closer to Communism than you may realize. So maybe I’ll make that statement more accurate. Evidently, as things are, precisely such information of everyday citizens is the government’s business – but it should not be.
I was randomly selected awhile back to complete the questionnaire. After two workers and their supervisor bullied me for weeks, I waited until the last evening of the deadline and then called the pushy census worker, who failed to take my call.
Whoops! I just got a commission for outing a non-compliant respondent’s evasion strategy! Notice of the fine is being sent!
(For those who wonder, that was a lie. No notice is sent – the fine is garnished from tax returns.)
I have never nor will I ever respond to the US census plain and simple. I will not pay the fine for not doing it, I would rather sit in jail. My and my familys info are our own concern. GOV don’t like that?? Well arrest me.
I have mixed feelings about it. I have a lot of ancestors I might never know about were it not for the census – but this questionnaire.. sheesh. I’d just leave most of it blank.