Nosy Prewitt

Jacob Sullum | March 22, 2000

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Some segments of the population respond this way: "Leave me alone. Mind your own damned business."

Last time around, 35 percent of households neglected, forgot, or refused to fill out the questionnaires, prompting followup calls or visits by census workers. It’s doubtful that Americans have become more trusting of their government or less concerned about their privacy in the decade since then.

As part of its effort to boost the response rate, the bureau offers a 100-page brief in defense of the census. It begins by acknowledging that people may wonder why today’s census is so much more intrusive than the "actual enumeration" authorized by the Constitution for the purpose of apportioning representatives.

"The short answer is that the principle of accuracy, which was the basis for establishing the census in 1790, still holds true today," the bureau says. "Just as the Founding Fathers sought an accurate way of distributing the House seats, so too have modern legislators turned to the decennial census as the primary basis for an accurate distribution of fiscal resources."

In other words, never mind whether the census is constitutional; it’s useful. The rest of the document explains how, laying out a long list of boondoggles, meddling regulations, and income redistribution schemes that rely on information from the census.

Like the census itself (once you get past the "enumeration" part), these programs are not authorized by the Constitution. All in all, the Census Bureau makes a pretty persuasive case--against participating in the census.