[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 17891-17892]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY--TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT INTRUSION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, under the United States Constitution, 
article I, section 2, it states that every 10 years there will be a 
counting of the people. The purposes are twofold: One, to levy direct 
taxes, and second, to find out how many people live in the United 
States so that Members of Congress can be apportioned percentage-wise 
based on population. That is the purpose of the census, and it's a good 
purpose. Next year we will have another undertaking of the census, of 
the counting of the people in the United States.
  But also, independent of the census, there is a survey that is being 
taken, given, rather, to American citizens, 3 million next year and 3 
million every year. Now, I want to make it clear that this is not the 
census, but this is a system of surveying the American people, and it 
just so happens that today I got one of these surveys. It's labeled 
from the United States Department of Commerce, the Census Bureau, and 
it's the American Community Survey, and it says, Your response is 
required by law.
  You open this document, you get a lot of paperwork. You get several 
documents that say you have to fill this out or by penalty of law if 
you don't, but you get the survey. Mr. Speaker, the American Community 
Survey is 28 pages. If a person receives one of these and doesn't fill 
it out, you've violated Federal law.
  Now, the survey contains a lot of information that makes me wonder, 
Why does the Federal Government even want this information? Why should 
the Federal Government even have this information?
  And here's some of the questions that it asks: the value of your 
residence, how much you pay monthly for your residence on your 
mortgage, how many rooms in your house, how many toilets are in your 
house, what kind of vehicles do you drive. I guess they want to know 
how many pickups are in Texas.
  Do you have a stove? a refrigerator? What type of fuel do you use? 
How much does it cost you each month to use that fuel? How much does 
each person in the household or in the residence, rather, make? What is 
their income? Where do they work? What do they do? How long have they 
done that? What is the cost of the mortgage? What is the cost of health 
insurance for each person, and what is the cost of taxes in the house? 
And it goes on and on and on, 28 pages, required by Federal law under 
the American Community Survey Act.
  I won't go into all the questions because I don't have time, but I'd 
like to mention one more. One question is, each person has to answer 
this question, because of a physical, mental or emotional condition, 
does the person have trouble concentrating, remembering, or making 
decisions?
  Now, should the Federal Government have that information? And why 
should a person in the residence make that determination about 
themselves and then have to answer that question for everybody else in 
the residence?
  I certainly hope they're all getting along well.
  It also asks, because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, 
does the person have difficulty dressing, doing errands, difficulty 
shopping? And it goes on and on and on, Mr. Speaker.
  Back in 2007, two historians found some old documents from the 
Department of Commerce archives and the

[[Page 17892]]

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library. These documents 
confirmed for the first time that the Census Bureau turned over 
information to incarcerate over 100,000 individual Japanese Americans 
after the Pearl Harbor attack. This information was reported by USA 
Today. The Census Bureau information made it all possible. Of course, 
the Census Bureau has denied that it gave that information. But be it 
as it may, it was legal in 1940.
  In 1942, documents proved the Census Bureau turned over these 
addresses of the Japanese Americans to the War Department. In 1943, 
they turned over their financial information to the Department of the 
Treasury.

                              {time}  1800

  This was all nice and legal in the War Powers Act of 1940. It was 
legal, but it wasn't ethical, and we know what happened to 100,000 
Japanese Americans. They were interned. The point is this, Mr. Speaker. 
This should be voluntary. If United States citizens want to give all of 
this information to the Federal Government so the Federal Government 
can have a file on everybody, then they should be allowed to do that, I 
guess, but it shouldn't be required by law. That is why I've introduced 
legislation to allow citizens not to fill this document out if they 
don't want to, because it invades, in my opinion, their personal 
privacy rights.
  Once again, I'm not talking about the census. I am talking about the 
survey that is being required by law to be sent out. People down in 
southeast Texas, people who live in Cut and Shoot, Texas, for example, 
shouldn't be required to fill this information out. It violates their 
privacy. It's too much government. It may be well-intended, but the 
Federal Government should not have this information, and we as Members 
of Congress should allow this information to be, not required, but 
voluntarily given by the people of the United States.
  And that's just the way it is.

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