Census: National Crime Victimization Survey
Date: Feb 4th, 2006 11:39:44 pm - Subscribe
boogidaboogida: preview still doesn\'t work
I have been contacted by the U.S. Census Bureau, to be part of the "National Crime Victimization Survey." Whoopee. I had just got back from eating with my parents and they were ready to go. I just needed to burn a cd for them, but my Mom says the apartment manager was coming up. I thought that was weird, but then this tired looking woman, I would guess to be about 50, comes up and starts telling me about the survey and why it's important. She addresses me as the previous tenant. I try to tell her I'm busy and need to get going, but she won't stop. She shows her badge as if that would make me stay and talk, then hands me the brochures, which I glance over and quickly see the statement that the survey is completely voluntary. So I say since this is voluntary I am not going to do it and I have stuff I need to do now. She replies by telling me how it so important and will only take up to 25 minutes. Then she starts to read her first long complicated question. Finally I get her to see I am busy and don't want to do this now but she wouldn't go away until I gave her another time to come back. I can see why people don't open the door for them. They are very annoying.
It is interesting, the supplied letter. They try to make it sound as if you are a very important person for doing the survey and how important your privacy is. They even throw in big words like 'passwords, firewalls, and encryption." Wow, I am impressed. It points out that it is a felony to disclose information collected and use it outside of it's intended purpose. Hmm, that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone nowadays.
56,000 households are chosen. The census website lists the January 2006 population as 297,821,175. Does that make me lucky? Did I win the lottery? At first glance maybe. I'm one in 5318. But really it's households. That's a lot of people to survey. Government is wasting money to find out that most crimes are not reported. It is fascinating that statistically we, the USA, are almost at 300 million. I hadn't noticed that. I thought we were still around 270 million. Neat.
I am all for counting people but that is where my participation in the census stops. I will only do what is required by the Constitution. That means that when I get the census form, I ignore all questions except the one about how many people are living at your household, fill in '1,' fold up the form, put it in the envelope, and send it away. I will not do this survey.
On a lighter note, I saw the movie Munich. It was excellent. One of the best movies I have seen this year.
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