Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:53 pm
possibly the most important reason to collect census information is to help define school districts. funds allocation, building new schools, and defining the region itself is somewhat derived from census numbers. if you have kids and want a better school this is one way to make that happen.
I talked with a census collector or rather counter who told the tale of how hostile people are toward "the gubmint co'lect'n ma personal data." he was a bitter little man. it's quite a task to count to half a billion. one thing to remember is that there is SOOOOO much data that is unpossible to use it specifically. besides, the IRS, bank, insurance, credit card, and your grocery store club card know WAY more about you then census data will ever uncover.
so why not just use the IRS records to count people. ironically it's against a law to use data collected from tax payers for anything but tax stuff. just like how the census can't by law publish a very long list of things like your specific name, SSN#, phone number, lat/long, etc that could be a marketers wet dream.
look, it's your right to not disclose anything but before you go damning the system do a little reading. you'll see that this system is pretty benign.