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In a move that could be described as foolish at best or insidious at worst, ACORN has been approved as a Partner of the U.S. Census Bureau for the 2010 decennial population census.
Think this isn’t a problem? Consider some of the questions that can legally be asked on the 2010 questionnaire and, should you receive it, the new “long form”, and your legal obligation to answer said questions. Name, race, date of birth, number and age of children, marital status and history, job (type, history, location, commute time, hours worked, and pay), health insurance coverage, residence (rent/lease/mortgage payments, utility costs, value of property, and number of bedrooms), number of vehicles, government benefits received, disabilities, military service history, education, and household language spoken. Taken together, these questions provide a pretty good overall picture of you, your household, and, by inference, your political inclinations.
Much of this is already information you wouldn’t be comfortable delivering to a complete stranger. Now consider ACORN. ACORN has a well-established history of voter fraud (in fact, nearly all of the links in the last sentence can be found in this article on the topic). They are also known for hiring criminals to go door to door to collect information and register people.
The information on the census forms is supposed to be confidential, or at least unable to be linked to any specific household or person (which must be why your name is one of the first questions), but any census can be compromised and abused. The Electronic Privacy and Information Center has a good article on censuses as relates to privacy. Yet, given the history of ACORN, I don’t place much trust in their assurance of confidentiality. Another consideration is that the director of the U.S. Census Bureau is a political appointee of the current President of the United States. The largest consideration is Obama’s close ties with ACORN (oddly enough, ACORN has taken strong steps to disassociate itself from Obama). Given the evidence, I doubt any information handed to the Census Bureau, or to many other organizations, for that matter, is safe any more.
Anyone who has not read 1984 or Animal Farm should do so. George Orwell explored the transformation to a socialist/fascist state, and we, the former United States of America are well on our way.
**Side note: Links are getting harder and harder to find on the topics covered in this post. Initial searches bring up obviously partisan and less-than-reputable sites. You have to dig very deeply to find original news links on these topics nowadays.
Think this isn’t a problem? Consider some of the questions that can legally be asked on the 2010 questionnaire and, should you receive it, the new “long form”, and your legal obligation to answer said questions. Name, race, date of birth, number and age of children, marital status and history, job (type, history, location, commute time, hours worked, and pay), health insurance coverage, residence (rent/lease/mortgage payments, utility costs, value of property, and number of bedrooms), number of vehicles, government benefits received, disabilities, military service history, education, and household language spoken. Taken together, these questions provide a pretty good overall picture of you, your household, and, by inference, your political inclinations.
Much of this is already information you wouldn’t be comfortable delivering to a complete stranger. Now consider ACORN. ACORN has a well-established history of voter fraud (in fact, nearly all of the links in the last sentence can be found in this article on the topic). They are also known for hiring criminals to go door to door to collect information and register people.
The information on the census forms is supposed to be confidential, or at least unable to be linked to any specific household or person (which must be why your name is one of the first questions), but any census can be compromised and abused. The Electronic Privacy and Information Center has a good article on censuses as relates to privacy. Yet, given the history of ACORN, I don’t place much trust in their assurance of confidentiality. Another consideration is that the director of the U.S. Census Bureau is a political appointee of the current President of the United States. The largest consideration is Obama’s close ties with ACORN (oddly enough, ACORN has taken strong steps to disassociate itself from Obama). Given the evidence, I doubt any information handed to the Census Bureau, or to many other organizations, for that matter, is safe any more.
Anyone who has not read 1984 or Animal Farm should do so. George Orwell explored the transformation to a socialist/fascist state, and we, the former United States of America are well on our way.
**Side note: Links are getting harder and harder to find on the topics covered in this post. Initial searches bring up obviously partisan and less-than-reputable sites. You have to dig very deeply to find original news links on these topics nowadays.
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