Against the Wind

My brother and I had a nice long chat this evening. His latest adventure, other than working to perfect guitar manufacture? He got a letter from Census. They wanted to interview him for the census. No biggie really… toss the letter aside, go on with business.

*The next day the census person came to his door, wishing to be admitted. “What? have you received your letter? We have the right to come in and question you, but I can come back when it is more convenient.”

“Do that, then.” Leaves card and leaves.

Go dig for letter. LONG letter, the effect of which is that his number came up for some “special treatment” having nothing to do with redistricting of congress. He’s to be involved in some statistical study for some other branch of government, contracted out to census. By the way, there’s a $500 fine for each willfully wrong response, a $100 fine for no response.

What ever happened to the 5th amendment? Somewhere near the end of the document in very small print is a statement that participation is voluntary.

Next day, again the same lady shows up for the interview. “Sorry, I don’t care to participate in this.” Lady tries to strong arm him, bro digs out the letter and points to the fine print stating that his participation is voluntary, and again states that he declines to participate. Lady splutters, phones supervisor, leaves card and leaves.

Next day, the supervisor shows up to solicit participation in this fun activity. She also leaves a card asking him to reconsider and call. My suspicious bro. now calls our uncle, the retired country lawyer. He’s flummoxxed, but says, voluntary is voluntary, and by no means volunteer anything, including your home phone number by calling them.

Monday morning a Fed Ex truck pulls up in front of his house with a large sheaf of papers to deliver. No where in this sheaf of materials is the word voluntary used.

Tuesday the supervisor calls when brother is out.

Wednesday, Fex Ex returns with more papers. By now bro is losing sleep wondering what to do about all this harrassment. He has an aha moment while talking with his pillow.

Thursday, he dressed up in his workshop flannels and head to his Congressman’s office.

Receptionist duly tells him about census and its functions. “No,” he says. “We’re not talking short form, long form or any other form. They want to follow me; question me every two months for the next few years.”

“Wait a minute.”

Out comes an aide, a legal type…armed with knowledge of census, explaining that they’d been briefed about long forms and what those entailed. Bro showed the legal type the original letter that said the magic “voluntary” on it, as well as the two sheaves that had been delivered via Fed Ex, along with the highlighted information about $500 and $100 fines for wrong/no answers. Hmm says the guy. Leave me your number, and I’ll research this.

“No, I’m not giving census ammo to harrass me via phone. But here’s my address. You can write me about your findings.”

Next day a letter comes from the congressional office. Turns out participation is indeed “voluntary.” But to opt out, procedure requires you to say NO very emphatically and very often. Bro had not jumped through near enough hoops, but he short cut the whole strong arming routine by bringing in his congressman’s office.

Point of story? Who knows how big the survey sample is, but if you get something other than the short form for the census, be suspicious. They are mandated by law to find out who lives at your address, and not a lot more. Don’t give in to bullying! If you say no, mean no, and back it up. You’ve committed no crime, and the feds don’t have the right to enter your home unless you let them. This isn’t about “nice” or sociability.

Bro got himself off the hook, he thinks. People who are not as determined to unvolunteer may be in for a lot of problems with this.

*Dates and days are approximated here… I didn’t take notes as we were talking.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 11:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.