The House flip flops declares war on the Census.

Malor wrote:

They're actively being infiltrated by the FBI. Actively. Right now. FBI agents are trying to trick Muslims into fake terror plots to make themselves look better.

And you think that Muslims should be willing, nay eager, to provide even more data to the government.

Yeah, sure, whatever.

Wake up sheeple! It's all connected, man!

An assertion isn't the Candyman--you can't repeat it three times and have it materialize into validity. Neither can you bully people into agreeing with half-baked appeals to white guilt. Again, disingenuous paranoia-stoking. This has nothing to do with ethnicity and law enforcement, everything to do with Norquist and his goons stripping Federal government down so they can drown it and run their fiefdoms.

The Census' response to this drama. Pretty forceful, at least as forceful as a non-partisan number cruncher can be.

Turns out it's not just the ACS that the Republicans whacked. They also got rid of funding for the Economic Census, which is quite a handy little tool for businesses. It's becoming harder and harder for me not think that the Republican party secretly hates America.

Malor wrote:

They're actively being infiltrated by the FBI. Actively. Right now. FBI agents are trying to trick Muslims into fake terror plots to make themselves look better.

And you think that Muslims should be willing, nay eager, to provide even more data to the government.

Yeah, sure, whatever.

In fact, no. We all know why people in certain communities have reason to be suspicious of the government. However, your mention of this is extremely strange. Because that's not a reason that the long form should be abolished. In fact, that's the reason why the census needs to spend a lot of time and effort to work to reassure those communities about how the census information is used, and to send people into those fearful communities to collect data.

It's [em]not[/em], however, a reason to not collect the data.

Historical abuses (like the Japanese internment camps I'm [em]very well[/em] aware of, since my grandmother worked as a nurse at one) are not an argument to not collect the data, either. They're an argument to commit to protecting the data more strongly. (And, again, census data is neither necessary nor sufficient in order to do such horrible things.)

In the end, the collection of census data is in the best interests of these communities--because it is [em]solid information backed up in fact[/em] that you can use to do things like say "Hey, you know how 75% of the people you arrest in your town have brown skin? That's not something that should be happening."

OG_slinger wrote:

The Census' response to this drama. Pretty forceful, at least as forceful as a non-partisan number cruncher can be.

[youtube video]

Turns out it's not just the ACS that the Republicans whacked. They also got rid of funding for the Economic Census, which is quite a handy little tool for businesses. It's becoming harder and harder for me not think that the Republican party secretly hates America.

Secretly? Seems pretty out in the open to me.

Wake up sheeple! It's all connected, man!

You do realize that this is a real, documented thing, right?

Just because they're not interning people doesn't mean they're not misusing the data in other ways.

Malor, did you miss the part about the individual Census data being unavailable to law enforcement or anyone else for 70 years? If you think that law is being broken, produce evidence for it, not innuendo. Otherwise, you're just making stuff up and worrying about it.

God knows there's enough going wrong that we have already found out about that we don't have to invent non-existent threats.

Malor wrote:
Wake up sheeple! It's all connected, man!

You do realize that this is a real, documented thing, right?

We do. And we've repeatedly told you how it happened: Congress changed the law and ordered the Census to cough up the information. You also left about the part where the US government recognized it did a terrible thing, apologized, and even cut checks to the survivors.

Stop trying to link what's happening with the Census with what's happening today with Muslims.

You just have to look at the big pot of boiling water that the NYPD recently jumped into to realize it had nothing to do with the Census. Nor did the FBI's "let's play a radical and see who will join" plan involve the Census. Both of those groups knew where mosques were and knew where Muslims congregated and lived. Not because of Census data, but because they could Google for mosques and then drive through those neighborhoods to see where people lived and shopped. The classic pattern of migration that applied 150 years ago still holds true today: immigrants clump together. Once you found one, you've pretty much found all of them. And all without the Census.

Succinctly put, OG.

Malor wrote:
Wake up sheeple! It's all connected, man!

You do realize that this is a real, documented thing, right?

If you have real, documented evidence that the FBI is using Census data to harass Muslims, please share it.

OG_slinger wrote:

So, congrats again for making sure that well paying jobs stay away from Clinton County!

Thank you for your concern.

I doubt that this will pass the Senate or executive branch review, but it's still dangerous political grandstanding. The head-scratcher is that the Census is a politician's best friend. You need to understand the needs of your constituency, and the Census is the most powerful tool for doing so. Furthermore, the Census is designed to answer questions about legislation - without the census, there are no metrics for the success of many actions taken by the government.

Aetius wrote:

It's also not like the Census data is unique in any way. The population of the United States is, without a doubt, the most studied population in history. The ACS going away will not suddenly remove the ability of researchers to gather reliable demographic data.

No, the Census data is unique. The only other long-term broad national study that I'm aware of is the General Social Survey, which is more attitudinal than the Census. Most of the research out there (on the national level) is done by using Census data as a secondary data source or at least a starting point for designing your sampling pool. There are a lot of studies out there, but nothing near the scale of the Census that provides as much information on US demographic information and our communities. It's amazing the number of government agencies and private businesses that depend on Census (and BLS) data to make decisions. Without that, every one of those groups would need to either buy that data using a research firm (crazy expensive) or do it themselves, which would be akin to building your own bike every time you needed to get somewhere.

wordsmythe wrote:
Dezlen wrote:

So rather than answer the questions that are available in your tax records, deed, a simple Google search (including Google Earth), and other easily obtainable (for the government), and/or public documents, you would rather waste taxpayer money to pay a person to have to search for all of this information?

I'm always a little miffed when giant groups like the government or healthcare providers can't seem to shuffle the information around themselves. I realize it'd be a pretty big relational database, but it would have to be easier to throw a query at an in-house DB than ask me my ethnicity again. You know, in case it's changed?

The main reason is that it's really hard to do. The data stored in one system is not necessarily allowed for usage by other agencies, which is a Good Thing. Information is siloed within agencies and within federal/state jurisdictions. To get access to another agency's data, you need to demonstrate a need and it needs to be allowed under the law. At my previous job, we wanted to match data from our state agency to another agency for a study I was working on. It took over a year to get approval and then we had to have an intermediary do the actual match in order to anonymize records. On top of that, only 80-something percent of the data matched and some of it had duplicates.

Within the given example of real estate, there isn't even a decent primary key to match on - you could use an address, but matching addresses is a nightmare. Some records might be outdated - a four-bedroom house could be converted to apartments and the agency in charge was never notified. You would have to have someone manually review the data to assure accuracy, and at that point it's more efficient just to ask the respondent the living situation (not to mention more statistically sound as it follows survey methodology).

As for why it's a Good Thing, having a large, centralized database of information is an opportunity for abuse. If there is one database and everyone has access, it's much harder to regulate who can use it and for what. Census Bureau workers can be prosecuted for data leaks with up to a $250,000 fine and/or five years in jail (ditto with BLS). If other agencies had access to the information, it would be much harder to prosecute if record level data leaked.

Well, for the Right, and some Libertarians, *any* "government intrusion" into their lives is an over-reach. With Medicare and other necessary services, sure, *everyone* takes that so you don't have to grumble as much about it, but the Census has no apparent relevance to day to day living. So the politicians have to pander to their base, which is extremely fearful and resentful of "government intrusion", but at the same time they *need* the data produced. (Although I'm sure the Alan West's and Michelle Bachmann's would tell you that private companies could gather the data faster, better, cheaper and more securely - even though constituents claim not to want to give it up at all.)

So it's safe to do this stuff, knowing that the Senate will simply sigh and refuse to pass the lunacy. The fearful are reassured that *someone* is trying to "fix government", and life goes on as usual.

If you think the ACS is unconstitutional, though, consult a lawyer and run your case through the courts. Heck, even the poor in America are rich by the world's standards; surely a citizens' case against government intrusion could get enough support to put a stake in the heart of an unconstitutional law...