If you fill out the basic information, you have nothing to worry about for the following reasons:
-If you’re tried for not filling out the census, what evidence are they going to present against you? The instant they take out your minimally filled-out form and present it as evidence, the particular census worker who gave up your info is liable for a $250,000 fine and time in jail, because the law clearly states that your census information cannot be used against you in a court of law.
-The max fine is only $100. People have told census workers that they are not going to fill out the form and asked to just be assessed the fine instead. They were not assessed a dime.
-There are too many people not filling it out for the court system to deal with.
-The last time people were assessed the fine was in the 1970’s.
-I think that if the case would go to court, the court might actually find that all of these “how many toilets does your family have” type questions would be found unconstitutional. They have to know that there are ANY number of people out there who are pissed enough with the federal government that they aren’t willing to give someone the opportunity to show that the emperor has no clothes.
I wouldn’t worry about it. I’d feel more scared giving them my information.
The monetary fine would be the least of my concerns. It's the "violating Federal Law" part that I'm more worried about.
Allow me to put on my tinfoil hat for a second and speculate that in this day and age, giving the middle finger to the Census Bureau could get your name on a well-maintained list of computerized databases that you don't really want your name to be on.
By filling out their little form, I told the gov't my name, my b-day and that I'm white, my family's names, their b-days and that they're white too. No big deal. I'm in the military and I filed a tax return earlier this year. The government already knows all these personal details about myself (and much, much more).