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Opinion

U.S. Census pries into private life

Emily Kelsch
Opinion Columnist

The Libertarian Party is boycotting the census, just as it did in 2000, and I for one can't blame them. In our Constitution, Article 1 Section 2, a census is called for to determine the seating of the House of Representatives. An "enumeration" is required every ten years, which doesn't ask any more than how many people live in each household in each state. So why has the census gone from one question to 53?

Does the government need to know how many working toilets your home has? The profits you've made from agricultural sales from your home? Whether your monthly rent includes meals? If your property has trucks, cars or vans on it? You can provide all these answers in Section 1 of the Housing Questionnaire. Do you by chance have trouble concentrating or difficulty bathing and dressing? Were you "temporarily absent" from your job last week? Did you attend private school as a child? You can inform the federal government in questions 10b, 16a-b, and 29b of the Personal Questionnaire. 

You'll also notice that the census isn't being taken in 2010, as called for by the Constitution, but in waves of 250,000 households a month, beginning in January. And it's also being called the "American Community Survey" instead, presumably to invoke a warm and fuzzy feeling about the "communal" government programs that are going to be enacted based on all this information that's being gathered. Just think, new programs devoted solely to everyone dressing and bathing with ease -- federally repaired toilets in every home! The data is also being given to private companies for marketing purposes, and I do not have a good feeling about that. Imagine, now your junk mail doesn't have to ask if you need plumbing repairs or a truck; they know you do.

I have no problem with information gathering; public statistics are vital facts from a business standpoint, and if private companies want to gather information about their markets for advertising or sales, then they are more than welcome to do so. But they should not use the power and resources of the government to do it, and until now they haven't because the census has been taken by the decade; working with ten-year-old information wouldn't make sense. Now they have 250,000 citizens' worth of fresh information every month, with your government doing all the work. I'd like to think Washington has better things to do than buy more toilets and trucks for everyone. 

What should be in the census, then? Perhaps it shouldn't be just limited to how many people live in your house, but 53 questions of personal nonsense is unnecessary. For districting purposes, let's keep it to number of people in your home, their race, gender and income. Wouldn't that help make the House's districting fair and help stop the government from buying for you (from your tax money) what it thinks you need based on some survey? Keep your private information private, and buy your own toilets. 

Kelsch, an opinion columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu