{"id":58865,"date":"2018-12-21T20:11:03","date_gmt":"2018-12-22T04:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/?p=58865"},"modified":"2018-12-21T20:11:03","modified_gmt":"2018-12-22T04:11:03","slug":"census-confidentiality-concerns-worry-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/census-confidentiality-concerns-worry-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"Census Confidentiality Concerns Worry Activists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Signs sit behind the podium before the start of a press conference with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to announce a multi-state lawsuit to block the Trump administration from adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census form, at the headquarters of District Council 37, New York City’s largest public employee union, April 3, in New York City. Critics of President Donald Trump’s administration’s decision to reinstate the citizenship question contend that that it will frighten people in immigrant communities from responding to the census. The Trump administration has stated a citizenship question on the census will help enforce voting rights. (Drew Angerer\/Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n

As the Census Bureau prepares for its 2020 count, concerns about new plans to question respondents about their citizenship status have taken center stage.<\/p>\n

But now, civil rights activists and others focused on the importance of ensuring a full and accurate tally of everybody living in the United States are also worried that current administrators seem to be wavering from a long-standing practice of fiercely safeguarding the confidentiality of census data.<\/p>\n

In discussing the implications of government workers asking vulnerable communities about their legal status, Department of Justice officials were reluctant to reassure members of Congress this spring that census confidentiality remains sacrosanct.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are alarmed,\u201d Corrine Yu, of the Leadership Conference Education Fund, the country\u2019s oldest coalition of civil rights activists, said. \u201cWe are alarmed by DoJ\u2019s position that census confidentiality protections are open to debate. In our view, there is no debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although census data informs billions of dollars of government spending, the allocation of government representatives, business decisions and more, the Census Bureau\u2019s \u201cculture of privacy\u201d bars sharing information gathered beyond sheer numeric tallies. That prohibition lasts for the lifetime of those who have access to the data, with penalties that include years of incarceration and hefty fines.<\/p>\n

But things may be changing in Wilbur Ross\u2019 Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau.<\/p>\n

California is only one of many states, cities and others who have filed lawsuits opposing Ross\u2019 intention to add the question about respondents\u2019 citizenship status to the 2020 census questionnaire, a proposal made at a very late stage in the normal, carefully thought-out and field-tested process.<\/p>\n

At a May appearance by John Gore, acting head of the DoJ\u2019s civil rights division, before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to discuss that proposed change, California\u2019s Jimmy Gomez (D-Riverside) asked if Justice concurred with findings prior to the 2010 census that \u201cthere appears to be no provision in the USA Patriot Act that would supersede or create an exemption to the confidentiality provision of the Census Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

That opinion was rendered in 2009 to address concerns that the then-recently enacted Patriot Act, created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, would impact census confidentiality practices.<\/p>\n

Gore declined to answer, citing the litigation already filed against the proposed citizenship question. Gomez then asked for a written response.<\/p>\n

A June 12 draft of that response, not released but recently uncovered in the course of California\u2019s suit challenging the proposed citizenship question, raised red flags among concerned observers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we want to say too much there, in case the issues addressed in the OLC opinion or related issues come up later for renewed debate,\u201d Ben Aguinaga, Gore\u2019s chief of staff, wrote. OLC is the Justice Department\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are worried about response rates and working to ensure a fair and accurate count. This affects every state, rural and urban areas alike. That\u2019s why there\u2019s such a groundswell of opposition to the citizenship question. It\u2019s a real problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Current census confidentiality protections, though, Yu said, \u201care the strongest in federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already, the census\u2019 biggest challenge is to follow its mandate, enacted with the U.S. Constitution in 1790, to count every person residing in the United States, whatever their circumstances. Opposition to the citizenship question often focuses on the concern that people won\u2019t trust that they can be honest about their situations without fear of becoming targets of law enforcement, immigration authorities and the like. To bring into question the underlying guarantee of confidentiality only increases the challenge of obtaining the best data possible.<\/p>\n

Asked what steps are available to protect census confidentiality, Yu said: \u201cCongress should continue to press senior administration officials, including Cabinet members, for confirmation that they will respect the ironclad confidentiality protections for census responses that are embedded in the Census Act (Title 13, U.S.C.).<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress\u2019 efforts could involve oversight hearings, requests for written assurances from relevant Executive Branch agencies, and \u2013 if necessary \u2013 considering legislation that would remove any doubt about the supremacy of Census Act protections<\/p>\n

\u201cAdvocates will continue to work with Congress, which has constitutional responsibility for the census, and senior Census Bureau and Commerce Department officials, to secure written assurances from the Justice Department and other federal agencies that they fully understand the supremacy of confidentiality protections in the Census Act and that they will respect the need for a positive environment before and during the 2020 Census.\u201d<\/p>\n

And asked of any indications of changes already apparent in the government upholding its tradition of confidentiality, she said, \u201cCivil rights advocates and other census stakeholders will be monitoring carefully the public rhetoric coming from the White House and senior administration officials with respect to the constitutional requirement that the census count all persons living in the United States and the statutory requirement that census responses cannot be used for any purpose \u2013 including national security and law enforcement \u2013 other than producing anonymous, aggregated statistics (datasets).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also will be monitoring the activities of immigration and other law enforcement authorities as the start of peak census operations approaches and during the census, to be sure there are no activities, such as immigration raids and sweeps of certain communities (other than searches for criminals who are endangering public safety) that could needlessly frighten residents away from participating in the census.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress has a role to play,\u201d Yu said. \u201cOur hope is that Congress exercises robust oversight of the 2020 census.\u201d She cited concerns about \u201cinsufficient and frequently late\u201d funding of census work in recent years to prepare for the 2020 count, with its plans to be the first to which people can respond online.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to make sure the Census Bureau has the resources it needs to do the job well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yu and a colleague, Allyn Brooks LaSure, spoke of how \u201cwe blew the top off\u201d of their target of encouraging 100,000 public comments on the citizenship question plan prior to the Aug. 7 deadline for such comments. A quarter-million voices made themselves heard, they said.<\/p>\n

As for what effects that public outcry may have, Yu said, \u201cThe Census Bureau is expected to submit the final 2020 Census questionnaire to the Office of Management and Budget by the end of this month, for approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act. That request will allow for another 30-day public comment period (which is somewhat pro forma), but more importantly, it will address the tens of thousands of public comments submitted previously in response to the proposed questionnaire.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth comment periods provide an opportunity to establish a strong, clear public record from a broad range of stakeholders and experts who oppose addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLinks to the many organizational comments filed this summer<\/a> can be found here,\u201d Yu said in conclusion.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ethnic Media Services<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Signs sit behind the podium before the start of a press conference with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to announce a multi-state lawsuit to block the Trump administration from adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census form, at the headquarters of District Council 37, New York City’s largest public employee union, April…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":58866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[275,5,1292,11,276,72,1848,19,20],"tags":[3832,6627,9915,11685,5209,5210,147,11686],"class_list":["post-58865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-current-affairs","category-legalissues","category-lifestyle","category-opinion","category-politics-current-affairs","category-society","category-topics","category-youth","tag-2020-us-census","tag-census-2020","tag-concerns","tag-confidentiality","tag-ems","tag-ethnic-media-services","tag-siliconeer","tag-us-census"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}