NO CIVIL LIBERTIES PERIL IN CENSUS
No Civil Liberties Peril in Census By THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION EXAMINATION of the questionnaires used in previous censuses shows that only one essentially new question has been added to...
...The recent order of the chief of the census bureau that all cases of refusal should be referred directly to Washington indicates that great care will be taken not to invoke the law except in extreme cases, if at all...
...There are few cases in our history in which ensus information has been made public or available to any government agency as to any particular individual...
...But similar information has been required in the farm census taken for the past 20 years...
...That has been the settled law for decades...
...The complaint that citizens are now under compulsion to give information on pain of penalties is without merit...
...THE social value of the census is such that all citizens should be eager to co-operate in compiling the information necessary to an understanding of all these phases of American life...
...Citizens have always been protected against exposure by severe penalties on enumerators who divulge information...
...but so far as we can learn, the records do not show a single case of a citizen fined or jailed for refusing to answer census questions...
...If the census is to operate to gather complete information, a penalty clause is a necessary feature of the law...
...No Civil Liberties Peril in Census By THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION EXAMINATION of the questionnaires used in previous censuses shows that only one essentially new question has been added to the 1940 census, namely, the 'amount of money wages and salaries' received...
...The arguments on which the present complaints are based, insofar as they affect the civil rights of citizens, are in our Judgment wholly without foundation...
...No issue of the invasion of the civil rights of citizens can be successfully raised on the basis of this inquiry...
...The rules provide thai if the amount is under $5,000 it should be stated, if over $5,000 merely that fact...
...THE census has always inquired into what are properly regarded as private matters in the sense that no individual names should be associated with the census returns...
Vol. 10 • March 1940 • No. 13
