Wire Report

Census Data Not So Confidential After All -

(WIRE/IndInst) – The current $350 million ad campaign for the 2010 Census, including the much-maligned $2.5 million Super Bowl spots, urges individuals to “Tell your story.” The Census Bureau is particularly eager for minorities and illegal immigrants to do so, as they are traditionally believed to be the most undercounted.

Yet widespread non-compliance, especially among those most likely to be discriminated against by a majority, may not be rooted strictly in the “ignorance” the ads are designed to overcome. History—including very recent history—shows that the information provided to the Census can be used against you.

The most recent examples occurred in 2002 and 2003, when the Census Bureau turned over information it had collected about Arab-Americans to Homeland Security.¹

Data from the 1940 Census was used to intern Japanese, Italian, and German Americans following the U.S.’s entry into the war, and to monitor and persecute others who escaped internment². In addition to providing geographic information to the War Department, the Census Bureau released the name, address, age, sex, citizenship status and occupation of Japanese Americans in the Washington, D.C., area to the Treasury Department in response to an unspecified threat against President Franklin Roosevelt in 1943.³

There may well be other instances of such data sharing of which we remain unaware, as the full scope of the personal information released during World War II has only recently been brought to light.

Thus, while the Census Bureau assures us that “your confidentiality is protected. Title 13 requires the Census Bureau to keep all information about you and all other respondents strictly confidential,” these exceptions negate such assurances. Of course, the release of the “strictly confidential” data was also perfectly legal: during World War II, under the terms of the Second War Powers Act, and more recently, under the terms of the USA PATRIOT Act, now extended by the Obama administration.

In preparation for this year’s census, 140,000 workers were hired to collect GPS readings for every front door in the nation. Such pinpoint precision will certainly simplify the process of locating any individual or group that may be identified as a threat to “national security” in the future. Remember, for example, the 1976 Senate Report⁴ in which 26,000 Americans were slated for roundup by the FBI in the event of a national emergency at the height of the Cold War. Now that the U.S. Government’s Terrorist Watchlist has exceeded one million, the GPS data acquired could be instrumental in accomplishing such a roundup.

Meanwhile, the data is also shared a little more broadly than advertised. Stanford University recently joined UC Berkeley, Duke, the University of Michigan, UCLA, and others in having its very own census data center. As the director of the new center explained, “The Census Bureau is very interested in making the centers more accessible to scholars who can use the data they provide.”

As Henry Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley and principal investigator for the California Census Research Data Centers helpfully added: “We’re trying to make centers where lots of federal agencies will let us use their data.”

While reassurances are repeated that the data is held under the strictest security, and will only be used for innocuous projects like “government programs and solutions to our problems,” do we really want academics to social engineer policy solutions based on sensitive personal data? After all, they may turn out to be no more desirable than the “solutions” provided by government programs like internment and renditioning. Without the protections afforded by a right to privacy, there’s little chance of escaping a political will to enforce discriminatory policies.

This “mission creep” for the Census thus pushes up against a level of discomfort no amount of advertising dollars can likely assuage. Many will no doubt choose to follow former Senate majority leader Trent Lott’s advice to skip any Census questions they feel violates their privacy—which may well include any exceeding the Constitution’s mandate for an “actual Enumeration.” Unfortunately, choosing privacy now costs more: legislation recently passed raises the fine for “anyone over 18 years old who refuses or willfully neglects to complete the questionnaire or answer questions posed by census takers” from a limit of $100 to $5,000—a fact not advertised even in the small print.

Source(s): ¹The New York Times “Homeland Security Given Data on Arab-Americans” By LYNETTE CLEMETSON, Published: July 30, 2004 • ² New York Times “Census blamed in internment of Japanese” By STEVEN A. HOLMES – Friday, March 17, 2000 • ³Scientific American “Confirmed: The U.S. Census Bureau Gave Up Names of Japanese-Americans in WW II” By JR Minkel March 30, 2007 • ⁴Church Report Book II INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES AND THE RIGHTS OF AMERICANS – April 1976

© 2010 The Independent Institute

Mary L.G. Theroux, Senior Vice President, The Independent Institute

Mary L. G. Theroux is Senior Vice President of The Independent Institute. Having received her A.B. in economics from Stanford University, Ms. Theroux is Managing Director of Lightning Ventures, L.P., a San Francisco Bay Area investment firm, and Vice President of the C.S. Lewis Society of California. She is former Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Salvation Army of San Francisco, and is on the National and San Francisco Advisory Boards of The Salvation Army. Having been a director of nine corporations and three foundations, she was also Chairman of Garvey International, Inc., and Co-founder and President of San Francisco Grocery Express. Articles on Ms. Theroux have appeared in Business Week, Forbes, Savvy, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications.

Allison Bricker

At an October 12th town hall meeting in Greensboro, South Carolina, Senator Lindsey Graham (R) accused Representative Ron Paul of ‘hijacking’ the Republican Party, stating:

“I’m going to grow this party. I’m not going to let it be hijacked by Ron Paul”,

Senator Lindsey Graham
October 12th, 2009

The Senator’s terse tone a result of hecklers in the meeting chastising the former supporter of John McCain’s abysmal failure of a presidential bid, for voting in support of banker bailouts via the TARP program, as well as his support for extending the PATRIOT Act and President Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan.

However, my view differs greatly with that of Senator Graham’s. Where he sees a “hijacking”, I see liberation from a party occupied for far too long by insurgent Whigs, perhaps the 2.0 variety, but Whigs nonetheless.

After all, today’s so-called “mainstream republicans” are just are just as backwards with their perpetual warmongering, chicken hawk imperialism, banker bailout, torture-apologist agenda, as were their predecessors; Whigs 1.0 from the 19th century in their support of denying inherent liberties to African-Americans via the promulgation and expansion of slavery.

As such, never failing to parallel their political coverage to a style more befitting of a magazine show like “Extra”, (think Election Day holograms) CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and his merry panel of peanut-gallery talking heads invited Representative Ron Paul into ‘The Situation room” Wednesday evening. Practically salivating for an attempt to degrade the issue into a worthless petty verbal dispute, host Wolf Blitzer sophomorically began by asking Dr. Paul for his “reaction”.

Always the statesman more concerned with principle, Dr. Paul pulled the debate back between working to support the Constitution, or further allowing the status quo to persist with its utter disregard for one of our most cherished founding documents. In consequence to the tone set by Mr. Blitzer, the other commentator/old-media journalists could not seem to structure a question without first displaying a philosophical bias for government to intervene in as many areas of our lives as possible.

The only exception to the vacuous line of dribble was Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post. So kudos to her for demonstrating some new-media moxy soliciting Representative Ron Paul’s opinion on the true issues at hand like the never-ending war in Afghanistan.

Allison Bricker

The Smoking Argus Daily has written previously on faux liberty talking head Glenn Beck after he attempted to link supporters of Dr. Ron Paul to “Domestic Terrorists” and after he inferred a link between the Liberty Movement and white supremacist James von Brunn, the unhinged lunatic who went on a shooting spree in the holocaust museum. It most certainly seems like a long shot for a man who shamelessly admits he does not check his facts prior to airing a story and blatantly fabricates entire segments in order to forward his agenda.

Nevertheless, some feel his crocodile tears are proof positive that he has seen the sunshine of liberty and is thus leaving his war mongering, torture apologist, PATRIOT Act loving, neoconservative days in the dustbin of history right next to the bottle of Absolut Vodka.

To them we say wake up and smell the coffee:

Allison Bricker

Fellow readers my disdain for the junior Senator from Illinois emanates not from any of the numerous wild emails circulating the internet nor individuals attempting to link him to radical organizations in his distant or recent past. No, my principles will not allow me to vote for Senator Obama based solely on his record, his public comments, or the complete lack thereof.

First, his stated tax plan will raise taxes, not only on those making $250,000 or more, but all Americans. The good Senator’s stated threshold for those receiving a “tax reduction” changed several times over the last week from $250,000 to $200,000 to $120,000,¹ to $150,000 as of today². Additionally, it is imperative that we understand the reality behind his plan is actually a “tax credit” not a “tax cut”. Meaning, payroll taxes, the money taken from paycheck withholding, actually might go up according to the Obama plan. Laughably Senator Obama’s plan then calls for issuing a $500.00 dollar welfare government check.³

Moreover, while it is a populist sentiment to “soak the rich” in the form of higher income and corporate taxes, raising the corporate tax rate has historically always resulted in higher costs in the form of goods sold to the consumer, lower wages paid to employees, or less business reinvestment in the industry. Thereby leaving us as the recipients of what is referred to as an “indirect tax”.⁴

Even more deflating is that reading over Senator Obama’s official tax plan, yields not one cut in any specific government program but instead just an endless list of goodies promised for the “average” person. (If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is) Again this is not a difficult concept to understand, although some would like to pretend otherwise. Spending more than you take in results in one of two things: deficit spending or increased tax rates to offset the shortfall. It should be obvious to all of us now that living on a “credit card” does not work for individuals nor government. It puts us in the perilous situation of being solely at the mercy of our creditors. Also, no matter how many times Senator Obama calls me “selfish”⁵ or Joe Biden tells me paying taxes is “patriotic”⁵ will I be convinced that less money to feed and cloth our family thus resulting in more money to Washington makes for sound fiscal policy.

Secondly, Senator Obama voted yes for H.R.6304 “FISA Amendments Act of 2008″. H.R.6304 is the warrantless wiretapping bill illegally abused by the Bush administration to gut the remnants of the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Senator Obama originally stated that he would not support any legislation which included blanket immunity for complicit telecom companies and administration officials⁶. The bill as enacted however does in fact provide complete immunity for all telecom companies who help the government listen in to American’s phone conversations as well as administration officials. Worse, the bill abolishes the original FISA court set up in 1978 and grants the district court administrative oversight authority.

Further, Senator Obama voted to renew the USA PATRIOT act⁷, originally passed at the behest of the Bush administration’s fake war on Terrorism. A 342 page behemoth printed at 5:00 in the morning, read by no one in Congress, and voted into law six hours later. The USA PATRIOT act gutted many inherent and civil liberties and gave the government unprecedented “tools” to intrude into our lives all under the guise of a fake enemy.

Next, the man who promises “change” illustrated his further lack of leadership and loyalty to the Constitution when he took the wet noodle stance of “undecided”⁸ in regards to his support for S.1959 the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act” which currently resides in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which Senator Obama is a member. This bill defines homegrown terrorism as:

“the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”

Further the bill goes on to define “ideologically based violence” as:

“the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs,”

Finally in a vagueness that only government can craft, the bill loosely defines violent radicalization as:

“adopting or promoting an extremist belief system,”

The question we need to ask is, who gets to define what is an extremist belief system? The centralized Federal government of course. The same Federal government that has repeatedly abused its powers as it has become less and less restrained by the shackles of the Constitution. No government, no President, needs this sort of authority in a “free society”.

Next, his support of the “Wall Street” bailout bill, approving the use of our tax dollars to bailout the corrupt criminal financiers and bankers who created toxic mortgage security packages and lost billions on their devil’s gamble.

Finally, his belief that “we need a Civilian National Security Force” to support the military. At best it sounds like another massive expansion of government, at worst another large erosion of our liberty.

There is no doubt in my mind that Senator Obama will win tomorrow’s election coronation and there is also no doubt that there will be “Change”. However, his record leads me to believe that it will not be change to benefit the Republic or restore the Constitution.

In conclusion, my vote will also not be cast in support of either major “party” candidate who offer only the illusion of choice. Instead my vote will go to Ralph Nader as a write in, seeing how the Democrats and Republicans in Indiana have succeeded yet again in continuing their prohibition of actual opposition candidates appearing on the ballot.

Yes my vote will be a protest vote, but at least my conscience will be clear when the time comes.

Source(s): ¹Washington Times “Obama camp changes tax-cut beneficiaries” • ²CNBC “Closing Bell” originally aired November 3rd, 2008 • ³ Washington TImes “Obama’s spread-the-wealth plan” • ⁴ The Tax Foundation • ⁵ The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin “Obama: Taxpayers Are Selfish” • ⁶ CNN video of Obama Press Conference • ⁷ Senate Roll Call Vote no. 29 – 109th Congress, 2005 • ⁸ The Indypendent “Obama “Undecided” on S. 1959″ • ⁹

Allison Bricker

Preface: During my innumerable hours spent reading about our Founding Fathers, it was specifically commented by noted historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, that the Founders felt the real power of the Declaration of Independence emanated not from the opening thesis on the inherent rights for all of humanity, but the long list of injuries contained within the second portion of the document; which they felt as the intellectual justifications for separation. Thus while many are familiar with the “When in the Course of Human Events” and “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” lines from the opening of the “Declaration of Independence”, few except the major nerds such as myself, have read over the Founding Father’s precisely articulated reasoning for declaring independence from Great Britain.

As such, it occurred to me a few years prior to try and make a video contrasting the reasons stated on July 4th, 1776, with the tumult of our own times. After somewhat gaining the skill set needed to produce a video using today’s video-editing software, my quest in contrast began this past Independence Day whilst conflicted and saddened over the state of our Republic. Unfortunately, the project languished with me suffering a creative block. However, with the publishing of our article reporting on an Army Brigade being activated stateside for their mission of being a “domestic on-call response team”,the aforementioned creative block quickly vanished.

During the past 6 days I immersed myself wholly into completing this project to the detriment of my posting amongst several other areas. Fortunately my fellow contributors more than covered my butt with their eloquent commentary and reporting. I would just like to say thank you both to my partner for putting up with my indulgence and our contributors, I truly appreciate all you do for “The Smoking Argus”.

In closing, my little project finished processing this morning at 5:56 am. I hope you like my first attempt at a video editorial and look forward to any and all feed back. – Alli