HOW to GET the CENSUS SHORT FORM & -------------------------------- CENSUS DATA USED in 1942 Roundup and Imprisonment of JAPANESE AMERICANS CENSUS GOOD NEWS 1-800-471-9424 CENSUS COMPLAINT LINE ---------------- You can get out of filling out the long form, I will explain how below my initial comments and backgrounder. Also did you know that JAPANESE AMERICANS during WWII were rounded up and interned in concentration camps here in America and that the information used to determine who was Japanese and where they lived was CENSUS DATA ????? That is right, CENSUS DATA was used in the round up and internment of JAPANESE AMERICANS right here in the UNITED STATES of AMERICA. So dont give me this bull that this data is never SHARED, whatever the frig. 'Lucky' me got the long form, there are actually SEVEN DIFFERENT forms according to the Census CONTRACTOR I spoke with. What is up with that ? How do they pick who gets what form. I called their 800 number, and I asked if I was speaking to a government employee or a private contractor, she replied contractor, so I asked who paid her, and she said a private company but would NOT reveal the name of the private company. Before I spoke with her, I had made the mistake of calling from a home phone. I spoke with a male whose first question was, "Could you please verify your area code ?", to which I replied, "Dont play games with me, you already know the entire phone number, DONT YOU, to which he at first replied "no", then upon my further insistance he replied that "he did", to which I replied, "Could you please tell me what phone number I am calling from ?", to which he replied, "Sure", and sure enough he did, he read me back the ENTIRE number from which I had called, at which point I asked, "Is this call being recorded ?", at which point he replied, "I am not at liberty to tell you," at which point I persisted, upon which he then admitted, "YES, this call is being recorded, and has already been logged into the computer along with my comments about my displeasure and refusal to send in the form and my comments about the JAPANESE AMERICAN's being rounded up based on CENSUS DATA", at which point I said I was calling from a friend's house and that it was not really fair to mt friend that he should have the call logged when I was not calling from my own house," to which he replied, "It is too late, it is already entered into the computer along with the recording", to which I responded, "This is outrageous, and that this was not fair to my friend whose phone I was calling from", to which he responded, "What is the name of the form I had in my hand, in the lower left hand corner", to which I replied, "it is my friend's form, not mine, besides, I thought there were only two different forms, a long and a short", to which he replied, "No, there are actually SEVEN DIFFERENT FORMS", I said, "Wow, and tried to terminate the call, but he kept insisting he wanted to know which form was in my hand even though it was NOT my form but my friend's, and finally I just said thanks and that I would call him back when I get my form, and I hung up.... Then I called back, and got a lady, who asked me, "Could you please verify your area code", upon which I replied, "Dont play games with me, I know damn well you know my entire number as I just got off the phone 3 seconds ago with a guy at 'census', actually department of COMMERCE, who knew the number I was calling from down to the last digit, and you are LYING to me, so give me your supervisor", to which she repsonded, "I am not lying to you, hold on while I get my floor supervisor". I then spoke with the floor supervisor who was very friendly and sympathetic and who assured me that they did NOT have my entire number. She said that all she could tell was that I was either calling from Puerto Rico, or OTHER, so either she is lying, or the first guy I spoke with was at another division that had caller id capabilities, who knows, but the floor supervisor became VERY understanding when I related to her the history of AMERICAN PRISON CAMPS of JAPANESE AMERICANS ROUNDED UP via CENSUS DATA. She was SHOCKED to hear this, and at this point did all she could to get me the short form. She said she could not guarantee me the short form but it was likely that I would get it, at which point I responded that the short form would be a step in the right direction, and that if it too was too long that I would simply call again and try to make it even shorter. At which point she turned me over to an assistant who asked me for my name and address to send the short form to: to which I responded, "You mean the name and address on the form I had in my hand ?" to which she replied, "No, I need YOUR name and address", to which I responded, "TO RESIDENT AT", and my address, to which she reponded, "I need a name or my screen won't proceed", to which I reponded, "TO RESIDENT is a first name", and "At is a last name", she then typed it in, then she asked for a phone number, "in case we have any questions" to which I replied, "I dont think so", to which she replied, "Ok", then I related the JAPANESE AMERICANS being ROUNDED UP & IMPRISONED based on CENSUS DATA story to her, and the call ended, after she told me I should get my new form in the mail within a week. My neighbor already succeeded in getting his short form through this technique. Even the short form asks too many questions, as the only question that appears to be "legal" is how many people, NOTHING more. No names no nothing. Whatever you do, remember, that blank is better than FALSE. False can get you into trouble, blank, well we will just have to see won't we ? Each person in the US can DECIDE whether or not to answer the census. (The government tries to give you the impression that you have no choice.) What you risk by deciding not to answer is a $100 fine and no jail time (see 13 USC 221). This penalty is only applied to a few people a decade, while millions DECIDE not to answer. What they call an undercount, I call protecting your privacy. Particularly if you are someone the government doesn't like. Are you a drug user? Own a gun? Speak your mind? From a persecuted race or culture? Have a sexual orientation unapproved by Jesus's mouthpieces? Enjoy fair use of copyrighted material? Like to travel without being unconstitutionally searched and identified? Refuse to give the right social security number? Not a fan of taxes? Don't answer the census. I have posted most of the information that I gathered about why answering the 1990 census was a bad idea, at: http://www.toad.com/gnu/census.html John Gilmore