TRI In The News
Invasive Survey Raising Questions
From One News Now
Original article available here
After receiving numerous complaints and inquiries, The Rutherford Institute is looking into an intrusive survey linked to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The American Community Survey features 28 pages and a 16-page instruction packet asking questions about what time one leaves for work, fertility rate, and so forth. And unlike the traditional census, which collects data every ten years, the ACS is sent to about three million homes per year at a reported cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
"If you do not answer all of the questions, supposedly, under law, the fine is a $100 fine per question. And if you intentionally report something that's not true or you make a mistake and they think it was intentional, it could be up to $500 per question," explains The Rutherford Institute's president, John Whitehead.
But he points out that the census is supposed to be just a head count to let the government know how to reapportion districts throughout the country for voting, so he has questions about the survey's appropriateness.
"The one complaint that we really get over and over is [about] the agents going out. If people don't answer this [survey], they get a knock on the door," Whitehead reports. "We've had complaints with Census Bureau agents actually crawling over fences, peering through back windows, going to neighbors and asking questions."
The Rutherford Institute has written a letter to Commerce Secretary John Bryson, asking why the information is being requested and how it is being used. If there is no response, Whitehead says the Institute will file a Freedom of Information Act request to get some answers.
