Posted on 07/21/2005 10:59:16 AM PDT by redbaiter
Two months ago a field agent from the US Census Bureau left a business card under my door, with a note requesting an interview for a survey the Bureau does on unemployment and income. The note explained the purpose of the survey and outlined the sorts of questions that would be asked (mostly income and work-related stuff). I called him back at the number provided, told him that my income was none of his business and requested that he not contact me any more.
This was not effective, and he continued to try to contact me. So I called him back again and ordered him to cease and desist. This too was ineffective, and he continues to try and contact me even now, two months later. (In the summer I am rarely home before 9PM so he has never succeeded.)
I asked around, and it turns out he has a pattern of similar behavior.
What can I do to make this guy cease and desist?
Its the monthly household employment survey that was showing positive growth during the past couple years when the Employer based surveys were not. The Census collects that info.
This would be a bad thing because...
I usually just start talking real dirty and start breathing heavy. They never call back.
Gee, they might have to come back home and meet and actually talk to the people instead of the lobbyist fact finding trips to Aspen and ...
On an unrelated note, the Moveon.org people were out & about in Philly today, smearing John Roberts. I'm pretty sure one of them will hesitate before approaching any more people matching my description. I emptied a whole can on her ignorant butt.
But, because of WHO the interviewers are, there's a serious risk of litigation as a result of an animal's attack.
I don't take well to anyone knocking on my door and disturbing me in my home. And under no uncertain terms, I let them know it.
Well then, why do they need to know what time I go to work?
Other options, after each question tell him you are hard of hearing, please repeat the question. Or you can get a CD that has background sounds like a lawn mower or jet aircraft, Maybe get some hospital sounds, tell him you're in the middle of sugery (the patient or the doctor). Say stuff like, "Nurse, he's bleeding way too much." or "oops, we were supposed to cut of the LEFT leg weren't we."
It's none of his business and you already told him so. Now it's time to have fun.
"The legal action is a $100 dollar fine, which is worth paying just to piss them off."
After you have paid the fine can they continue to bother you and start the whole process leading up to fining you again?
Nonsense. They could purchase the results of market research conducted legitimately and voluntarily by any of a number of organizations.
My brother has a habit - when an unwanted caller does manage to ask questions - he leads them into such convoluted, off-topic, irrelavent subjects that it's hard to keep up with him. He'll talk about TV programs where he "saw the same thing", or a friend "did just that", or "are you watching TV?" or a million other things - then the asks the caller the same questions. He goes on and on about how his job was that day, how sick the kinfolk have been, how many bugs got caught in the light shade last night, - such things as that. If one didn't know him, they'd think he was a little cracked on one side....
You nuckle dragging Neanderthals are really funny. Too bad you give real conservatism a bad name. Get it through your head there probably never was this grand period you think of when government only did was was enumerated. In fact there is a good chance that you live in a part of the US purchased unconstitutionally by Jefferson. We are never going back to pre-war (I mean pre-Civil War) government so get used to the real world. Or at least dont embarrass yourself.
This is no longer true.
Never give census works more than your name and the number of people living in your household. That is all the Constitution reqires.
" I'd be wondering why someone claimed to be collecting census data in the year 2005."
Census does the biggies on the decades, smaller ones at halfeway (5 years) and even smaleer ones yearly. Someone else posted the law up thread.
They apparently prosecuted someone over it in 2000 and the constitutionality of the statute was upheld in a Texas court. Morales v Daley (2000, SD Tex) 116 F Supp 2d 801, affd (2001, CA5 Tex) 275 F3d 45, cert den (2002) 534 US 1135, 151 L Ed 2d 980, 122 S Ct 1079.
Seems wrong to me, but it looks like you ignore them at your risk.
Actually the U.S. Contitution may or may not allow the feds to write laws to spend money on space exploration/etc. Here is the clause found in Article 1, Section 8:
The Congress shall have power ... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
Personally, I interpret this narrowly to mean that the feds can create patent laws and spend money directly on space applications that have military uses. This is because other clauses allow them to finance the military. They should be required to stay out of the financing civilian space exploration, imo.
That said, and even though my mother was one of the very first female engineers ever employeed by NASA, I think NASA is a gigantic money pit that is long overdue to be scrapped from the federal budget.
So you are taking the position of the Black Caucus that wanted the US to use sampling data rather than actual count via the cenus data because of an under count of blacks and other minorities who refused to give information to census workers.
No marketing research firm could provide that information, nor would they be willing to unless they had the force of law behind them. Many of these organizations get a lot of their raw data from the census.
All the better.
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