Important information from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce regarding your residence
I was out of town Thursday morning till late Sunday night. In my mail I find an envelope which appears to have been hand delivered as it has no postage on it. It’s from the US Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, US Census Bureau. Inside we find a US Census 2010 brochure, a Form 11-38 from the previously mentioned government bureaucracy and a letter from its director Steve H. Murdock.
Dear Resident:
The U.S. Census Bureau is conducting the American Community Survey (ACS). A Census Bureau representative will contact you to help you complete the survey. The survey will ask you questions about our household’s characteristics, including topics such as education, employment, and housing. We would appreciate your help because the success of this survey depends on you.
The ACS produces critical, up-to-date information that used to meet the needs of communities across the United States. For example, results from tis survey may be used to decide where new schools, hospitals, and fire stations are needed. Survey data are used by federal, state, local, and tribal governments to make decisions and to develop programs that will provide health care, education and transportation services that affect you and your community. This survey information also helps communities plan for emergency situations that might affet you and your neighbors.
The Census Bureau chose your address, not you personally, as part of a randomly selected sample. You are required by U.S. law to respond to this survey (Title 13, United States Code, sections 141, 193, and 221). We estimate this survey will take about 30 minutes of your time.
We want to emphasize that any information you give our representative will be kept confidential. By law, the Census Bureau cannot publish or release to anyone any information that would identify you or your household (Title 13, Section 9). The information you provide an be used only for statistical purposes.
If you have access to the Internet and want to learn more about the American Community Survey, please visit your Web site at <www.censuus.gove/acs/www/>.
Thank you for your help.
Sincerely,
Steve H. Murdock
Director
The form has our pal Ed Marcus’ contact info (201-927-4763) and a remark: “I am following up on the survey you have received in the mail. You failed to return it. Because it was not mailed back we must interview you either in person or on the phone. It is a very brief interview. Please call me to set up a time: Ed Marcus 201-927-4763.” The bold is on the form. The brochure contains much the same info as the letter but with some photos thrown in.
I find it interesting they tell you that completing the survey is required yet make no mention of the consequences for not doing so.
Related posts:
May 12th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Purely out of curiosity, and feel free to point me to a previous entry, why don’t you want to answer the census questions?
May 12th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I think a better question would be why would I want to. Not answering them is the negative action.
I have no desire to provide them with any information. I don’t care what Title 13, Section 9 says. The government has no need or right to information about me or others who lives at my address. May I remind people that events such as the Japanese American internment during WWII were made easier through the use of census data, it’s used to do make policy I will disagree with and in and of itself is a waste of the extortion money they got from me.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:53 am
If I recall correctly, it’s actually illegal to hand-deliver mail into someone’s US Postal Service mailbox. Back when I was in the Boy Scouts, my Scoutmaster was also the Postmaster in our little town. On the few occasions when we went door-to-door passing out information (usually about upcoming events in town), we were warned very strictly to not touch the mailboxes. If we had no answer at the door, we were to leave the information in front of the door– secured, if possible, in a door handle or tucked under a Welcome mat.
May 12th, 2008 at 11:26 am
It’s illegal to place anything other than actual USPS mail in the box. I’m too lazy to look up the US Code but pretty much the government owns your mailbox. Not you. You are breaking the law if you put your keys in the box for a friend or the like.
In this case though the government is the one who put the stuff their so it’s not an issue… they own it.
May 12th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Fair enough. I am not keen on providing information to anyone I don’t know personally about me, my habits, or those that I live with either. I avoid it at any point that I realistically can. I have not been faced with mandatory relinquishing of personal facts, so don’t know if I actually would, though I would be betraying a long ancestry if I did. One thing might stop an immediate ‘no thank you’ – I pay attention to statistics, percentages, and the like that leaders and anyone else on a soapbox wants to spout. How can I complain about my belief that the pie chart is wrong if I didn’t add my info to it? Because I’m sure that *my peers* are also not counted, because none of us would willingly volunteer to be part of it. Or perhaps I’m hedging my bets, certain that it is wrong because it obviously doesn’t count everyone, but that seems like dirty tactics to me. Would you be willing to add your stats to the pool if it weren’t connected with an address and name, just a community/region?
May 13th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Not if it’s collected by the government. Not something I’m interested in nor see helping me.
May 17th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
[...] by the Census Bureau I’ve documented the whole thing at my personal blog here, here, here and today’ss event [...]