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0 pointsdroithomme6y ago0 comments

OK, thanks, I managed to find the form they sent me. It was the Census' American Community Survey, which claims "Your Response is Required by Law". I agree that cooperation with the decennial census is required by law to the extent it collects ages and citizenship status of household individuals, but I do not agree that the Census clause of the Constitution authorizes the collection of the American Community Survey information, which is vastly beyond the scope of Congressional districting needs. The claim that my response is required by law is fallacious and is worthy of being challenged in court.

> Could you not answer because you didn't know, or you didn't want to answer those questions?

Didn't know many. Didn't see how the Census clause authorized the collection of personal and private information they were demanding I turn over accurately under criminal penalty otherwise. Not knowing was sufficient to not be able to respond.

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crooked-v6y ago

> Didn't see how the Census clause authorized the collection of personal and private information they were demanding I turn over accurately under criminal penalty otherwise.

It's a law, not part of the Constitution.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/13/221

(Section 3571 and Section 3559 amend the penalty from $100 to $5000.)

> demanding I turn over accurately

Note the "to the best of his knowledge" in the law above.

wl6y ago

I think the point was that the law, as applied to the ACS, does not fall under enumerated powers of the federal government, nor could it be reasonably seen to fall under the necessary and proper clause. The census? Sure. But not the ACS.

As someone who was sent the ACS and started to fill it out before abandoning it because the government has no business demanding answers to some of those questions, I felt violated. Then the Census Bureau harassed me. And then nothing came of it. Shame on them.

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