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May 4, 1990
Census Confidentiality? The
Check is in the Mail
Some promises shouldn't be taken
seriously. "The check is in the mail," or "Of course I'll respect you in the
morning," or "I won't raise taxes." To that list should be added, "Your answers
to census questions will remain completely confidential."
Already this census season, many of
homeless people have refused to divulge personal information to census takers.
Some of the homeless have fears that their personal plight will be revealed to
far-away relatives. That intuitive distrust of the Census Bureau may be valid.
During the 1940 census, American citizens of Japanese descent dutifully noted
their forebears' ethnicity on the census form. Those Japanese-Americans believed
the Census Bureau assurance that their answers would remain secret. But in 1942
the federal government began rounding up citizens who were of Japanese descent
and imprisoning them in concentration camps. How did the Justice Department know
where to find Japanese-Americans? The Census Bureau told them.
The bureau kept its promise of
confidentiality, it never disclosed any individual's name and address. Instead,
the bureau told the Justice Department's concentration camp office when census
tracts (small neighborhoods) had high proportions of citizens with Japanese
ancestry. Knowing which neighborhoods to concentrate on, the concentration camp
officials descended for house-to-house searches.
Today illegal or recently legalized aliens may fear deportation. If in the late
1990s the United States suffered an unexpected resurgence of racism and
xenophobia, how would the Department of Justice know which neighborhoods to
search for illegal aliens? The Census Bureau would probably hand over lists of
neighborhoods with high proportions of low-income People with Hispanic or
Caribbean ancestry. It is little wonder that many, recent immigrants refuse to
cooperate with the census.
When other government agencies call for assistance, the Census Bureau may not
even keep its word about the sanctity of data on individual households. During
World War. I the bureau turned over the name-and-address lists to the Justice
Department for use in the search for draft resisters.
Even Americans who don't fear persecution or prosecution may be concerned about
census confidentiality. The Census Bureau is already advertising its new
commercial product that will. help marketers and credit bureaus zero in on
individual households. The TIGER (Topical Integrated Geographic Encoding and
Referencing) system will "include demographic data by census block." (A
census block comprises 200 or fewer people.)
Names and addresses will be omitted, but most of the other "confidential" census
data will be divulged -- including those on marital status, health and income.
Credit bureaus such as TRW, which already have vast computer files on nearly
everyone, will be able to use TIGER to find out a good deal more. For example,
the census long form asks how many cars a household owns.
TRW could buy the data for a census block and find. that only one household in
the block owns three cars. As a credit-reporting service, TIM might already have
a file on a particular household in the area that 64 taken out three car loan.
TRW, by matching this data with the TIGER data, could then use "confidential"
census information to learn about the income, dependents, house size, race
ethnicity and marital status of members of the household.
The Census Bureau, since it did not disclose anyone's name and address, would
claim that it had kept its vow of confidentiality.
The federal government has gone into the business of helping commercial
enterprises find out. intimate personal data, such as the fact that an unmarried
couple is living together. The legality of the Census Bureau's operating as a
reporting service for businesses is dubious.
The Constitution authorizes a census for the purpose of congressional
apportionment and for direct. taxation (a tax based on the population of a
state). For those constitutional purposes, a simple name and address
questionnaire would suffice.
The Census Bureau has shied away from legal confrontations over its extensive,
collection of personal information. The. penalty for refusing to -answer the
census is only $100, and false answers, bring a penalty of only $500. Yet the
bureau did not prosecute a single nonrespondent in 1980.
Perhaps the Census Bureau is afraid of what courts would do with a census case.
In West Germany in the early 1980s, a census boycott and then a court injunction
delayed the census for several years. When Germany's highest court finally heard
the case, it ruled that many citizens could refuse to answer many census
questions such as those about place of employment number of automobiles, health
and income.
In the United States those questions still must be answered on the long census
form, but the bureau steers clear of a court test of their legality. Homeless
people, recent immigrants and people with an old-fashioned skepticism about big
government probably will continue to resist a government agency that has turned
itself into a for-profit adjunct of the credit bureaus.
David Kopel is a Denver lawyer and an Associate Policy Analyst at the
Cato
Institute
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