Saturday, April 16, 2005
AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY--COMING TO A TOWN NEAR YOU
Some of you may soon be receiving the following message in your local community newsletter or local bulletin boards. I did. You may be next.
Here is the message:
"Some (township or community name) Residents may be receiving a Short Form Survey from the Census Bureau as part of the American Community Survey (ACS) it is currently conducting. Each month, a sample of different households will receive the Survey and are required to respond."
"The Census Bureau is recruiting permanent part-time workers to conduct interviews with households that do not complete the forms.. Interested persons can call the Bureau at 1-800-XXX-XXXX, Ext.#X." (The telephone number will depend upon which Census Bureau regional office is closest to your community.)
To see what kinds of personal information the Census Bureau will collect from you for their Public Use Microdata-Pums Files just click the link. It is very intrusive.
Do you feel comfortable that the government knows what time you leave for work, how long it takes you to get to work, where you work, your work status with your employer, which weeks of the year you work, and how many people ride with you each day of the week?
Now think about this.
You Can Run, but You Can't Hide
The morning alarm sounds with tinny urgency. Another early morning meeting today. Stifling a yawn, you touch the display of your Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) to silence the alarm, and begin your morning routine. Fortunately, you have a PDA to remind you of things. Unfortunately, you have me as an adversary.
I know when you will be waking for the next three months, because you save your PDA data to your computer, and your computer is my best friend. Over morning coffee, you casually flip through the news channels on AT&T Digital Cable, settling on a story about commodities futures. I know down to the second how long you spend on each channel. You linger on one commercial longer than the others and that information is now available to marketers---or me.
Walking out to your car, you use the alarm remote to unlock you car. I compare the radio signal, a simple digital pattern, and now I have 24-hour access to your vehicle. After sitting in the driver's seat, you reach into your tote and turn on your cellular phone. As you pull out onto the street, I see your phone negotiating with each PCS cellular tower. I know the position of your phone within 10 feet at all times as long as it is turned on. If only you left it on all the time, like so many of my "clients."
You finally make it to the bridge after the usual bout of road rage, and are relieved that you have a Smart Tag on your car. It tells me exactly how often you make this trip. You speed through the toll plaza, and I get secondary confirmation of your position. I know that your car and your phone are at the same place. This is definitely YOU in the car, not your spouse.
Having parked in the lot at work, you card-key into the building, show your badge to the guard, and walk to your desk. Today, I will hear every telephone conversation you make, read every e-mail you send, monitor every website you visit. (Echelon reportedly monitors up to two million communications every hour of every day.)(2)
I even know how long you spend in the restroom.
Do you remember Jurassic Park? Imagine yourself an insect forever frozen in amber. That is how I see you. I can view you from any angle. You are totally known by me. Just as the scientists in the movie extracted genetic information from long dead mosquitoes, I extract a fountain of information from you. As you move through your day, you move unknowingly through an ocean of information. Your every action creates digital ripples; patterns of information that tell me more about you than you know about yourself. Who employs you is not important. What is important is that I have compiled a complete profile on you.
The above story is an example of Class I Personal Information Warfare. When you combine the governments ability to collect information about you via census with the means to electronically track your every digital move you have no privacy. You are in a looking glass with the government and every other snoop on the other side of the mirror staring back at you; you never know it or even think about it as you move through your day.
Your vehicle can also be shut down remotely and the vehicle's location determined by radio frequency should law enforcement decide to apprehend you.
From an article titled Zipping Along in Newsweek Magazine, September 8, 2003:
"Last year a zipcar member took off and never brought the car back." (Zipcar is a car rental agency in Boston that rents cars by the hour). "The companies techies remotely disabled the starter and tracked it down via radio frequency." If a car rental agency can do this imagine what the government can do. Of course now that they know what time you leave every morning it makes it that much easier to apprehend you.
Getting back to the Survey:
Not only is the Survey intrusive but it is mandatory per Title 13, United States Code, Sections 141 and 193. You may be fined up to $100 per question for any question not answered or not answered appropriately on the census survey form. If you don't answer the questions, the census bureau will conduct a telephone interview with you to solicit responses and/or you may receive a knock on the door to obtain the data the census bureau demands.(see the first ACS link).
This thing has teeth. Don't get bitten!
Why isn't the purpose of the survey clearly explained to the public in the major news media such as television and nationally syndicated newspapers? Why is the severe fine schedule not publicized?
Because they don't want to bring attention to the invasion of privacy issues the survey questions raise, or how the data can be misused by criminals breaking into the database to commit identity theft, etc.
The government will always have a plausible reason for the information it desires, but the question is.... where will it end and how much do they really need to know?
Have you ever wondered why the government denied for many months that there was a Patriot Act II being planned and why they had to put the Patriot Act II provisions into several different bills instead of one called Patriot Act II? I think you can guess the answer.
For a discussion of privacy issues including DARPA's Total Information Awareness program (TIA), the airlines former CAPPS II program, now renamed Secure Flight, and comments by John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute including the original purpose of the census see Freedom's Twilight.
I leave you with these quotes:
"Finally there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron-- for iron breaks and smashes everything-- and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all others." Daniel 2:40 NIV.
"After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast--terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts and it had ten horns." Daniel 7:7 NIV.
Steve
This article may be reproduced WITHOUT CHANGE and in its entirety for non-commercial and non-political purposes. ourfutureworld.blogspot.com
End Notes
1. Winn Schwartau, Information Warfare (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1994), p. 258 as quoted in Tedd Flynn, Hope of the Wicked, The Master Plan to Rule the World (MaxKol Communications, Inc., 2000), p. 229-230.
2. THE EDGE WITH PAULA ZAHN, FOX NEWS NETWORK---(Caps in original) October 21, 1999 as quoted at (http://www.fas.org/irp/program/process/echelon.htm)
Some of you may soon be receiving the following message in your local community newsletter or local bulletin boards. I did. You may be next.
Here is the message:
"Some (township or community name) Residents may be receiving a Short Form Survey from the Census Bureau as part of the American Community Survey (ACS) it is currently conducting. Each month, a sample of different households will receive the Survey and are required to respond."
"The Census Bureau is recruiting permanent part-time workers to conduct interviews with households that do not complete the forms.. Interested persons can call the Bureau at 1-800-XXX-XXXX, Ext.#X." (The telephone number will depend upon which Census Bureau regional office is closest to your community.)
To see what kinds of personal information the Census Bureau will collect from you for their Public Use Microdata-Pums Files just click the link. It is very intrusive.
Do you feel comfortable that the government knows what time you leave for work, how long it takes you to get to work, where you work, your work status with your employer, which weeks of the year you work, and how many people ride with you each day of the week?
Now think about this.
Amber--A Cautionary Tale (1)
The morning alarm sounds with tinny urgency. Another early morning meeting today. Stifling a yawn, you touch the display of your Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) to silence the alarm, and begin your morning routine. Fortunately, you have a PDA to remind you of things. Unfortunately, you have me as an adversary.
I know when you will be waking for the next three months, because you save your PDA data to your computer, and your computer is my best friend. Over morning coffee, you casually flip through the news channels on AT&T Digital Cable, settling on a story about commodities futures. I know down to the second how long you spend on each channel. You linger on one commercial longer than the others and that information is now available to marketers---or me.
Walking out to your car, you use the alarm remote to unlock you car. I compare the radio signal, a simple digital pattern, and now I have 24-hour access to your vehicle. After sitting in the driver's seat, you reach into your tote and turn on your cellular phone. As you pull out onto the street, I see your phone negotiating with each PCS cellular tower. I know the position of your phone within 10 feet at all times as long as it is turned on. If only you left it on all the time, like so many of my "clients."
You finally make it to the bridge after the usual bout of road rage, and are relieved that you have a Smart Tag on your car. It tells me exactly how often you make this trip. You speed through the toll plaza, and I get secondary confirmation of your position. I know that your car and your phone are at the same place. This is definitely YOU in the car, not your spouse.
Having parked in the lot at work, you card-key into the building, show your badge to the guard, and walk to your desk. Today, I will hear every telephone conversation you make, read every e-mail you send, monitor every website you visit. (Echelon reportedly monitors up to two million communications every hour of every day.)(2)
I even know how long you spend in the restroom.
Do you remember Jurassic Park? Imagine yourself an insect forever frozen in amber. That is how I see you. I can view you from any angle. You are totally known by me. Just as the scientists in the movie extracted genetic information from long dead mosquitoes, I extract a fountain of information from you. As you move through your day, you move unknowingly through an ocean of information. Your every action creates digital ripples; patterns of information that tell me more about you than you know about yourself. Who employs you is not important. What is important is that I have compiled a complete profile on you.
The above story is an example of Class I Personal Information Warfare. When you combine the governments ability to collect information about you via census with the means to electronically track your every digital move you have no privacy. You are in a looking glass with the government and every other snoop on the other side of the mirror staring back at you; you never know it or even think about it as you move through your day.
Your vehicle can also be shut down remotely and the vehicle's location determined by radio frequency should law enforcement decide to apprehend you.
From an article titled Zipping Along in Newsweek Magazine, September 8, 2003:
"Last year a zipcar member took off and never brought the car back." (Zipcar is a car rental agency in Boston that rents cars by the hour). "The companies techies remotely disabled the starter and tracked it down via radio frequency." If a car rental agency can do this imagine what the government can do. Of course now that they know what time you leave every morning it makes it that much easier to apprehend you.
Getting back to the Survey:
Not only is the Survey intrusive but it is mandatory per Title 13, United States Code, Sections 141 and 193. You may be fined up to $100 per question for any question not answered or not answered appropriately on the census survey form. If you don't answer the questions, the census bureau will conduct a telephone interview with you to solicit responses and/or you may receive a knock on the door to obtain the data the census bureau demands.(see the first ACS link).
This thing has teeth. Don't get bitten!
Why isn't the purpose of the survey clearly explained to the public in the major news media such as television and nationally syndicated newspapers? Why is the severe fine schedule not publicized?
Because they don't want to bring attention to the invasion of privacy issues the survey questions raise, or how the data can be misused by criminals breaking into the database to commit identity theft, etc.
The government will always have a plausible reason for the information it desires, but the question is.... where will it end and how much do they really need to know?
Have you ever wondered why the government denied for many months that there was a Patriot Act II being planned and why they had to put the Patriot Act II provisions into several different bills instead of one called Patriot Act II? I think you can guess the answer.
For a discussion of privacy issues including DARPA's Total Information Awareness program (TIA), the airlines former CAPPS II program, now renamed Secure Flight, and comments by John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute including the original purpose of the census see Freedom's Twilight.
I leave you with these quotes:
"Finally there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron-- for iron breaks and smashes everything-- and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all others." Daniel 2:40 NIV.
"After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast--terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts and it had ten horns." Daniel 7:7 NIV.
Steve
This article may be reproduced WITHOUT CHANGE and in its entirety for non-commercial and non-political purposes. ourfutureworld.blogspot.com
1. Winn Schwartau, Information Warfare (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1994), p. 258 as quoted in Tedd Flynn, Hope of the Wicked, The Master Plan to Rule the World (MaxKol Communications, Inc., 2000), p. 229-230.
2. THE EDGE WITH PAULA ZAHN, FOX NEWS NETWORK---(Caps in original) October 21, 1999 as quoted at (http://www.fas.org/irp/program/process/echelon.htm)
Comments:
Post a Comment
