Last week, the House voted, largely along party lines, to abolish the American Community Survey, the new version of the US Census Bureau’s long-form questionnaire, a survey that was supposed to be conducted annually, The Wall Street Journalreports. Republicans claim the long form—asking about everything from demographics to income to commuting times—is prying into private life and is unconstitutional. Oddly, the WSJ disputes this characterization.
That paper says,
[T]he ACS provides some of the most accurate, objective and granular data about the economy and the American people, in something approaching real time. Ideally, Congress would use the information to make good decisions. Or economists and social scientists draw on the resource to offer better suggestions. Businesses also depend on the ACS’s county-by-county statistics to inform investment and hiring decisions.
But the WSJ is living in a fantasy world, as demonstrated by that adverb “Ideally.” In the real world, we’ve seen the likelihood of “good decisions” (question for the WSJ: whose definition of “good?”) involving personal information emanating from Congress. We’ve seen the quality of suggestions from the HSWIC* over in the government’s Energy Department. As for the businesses, see below.
Leaving that aside, though, in the real world, stipulating the argument, the ACS still is an intrusion into my privacy.
The WSJ even shamelessly trades on its “authority” status:
National statistics are in some sense public goods, which is why the government has other data-gathering shops like the Bureaus of Economic Analysis and Labor Statistics.
In the first place, they’re not goods of any sort, much less this baldly asserted public version, until they’ve been collected and thereby gained existence. Even then, no, they’re not “public goods,” solely because they’ve been collected from a broad public. They’re still made up of personal—private—data; having been collected up into a common database in no way places them into the commons. In the second place, the WSJ has just made an excellent argument for abolishing the Bureaus of Economic Analysis and Labor Statistics, also.
In the end, if these data have value for businesses, or any other entity, a market will develop for them (they’re not that hard to collect, and the barrier to entry into this market is, as my town puts it, speed cushions), and people can give up their personal data—or not—in accordance with their own decisions. There’s no need to have these data confiscated by government fiat.
But the most amazing part of the WSJ‘s demurral is their rationale:
As for privacy, anyone not living in a Unabomber shack won’t be much inconvenienced by making this civic contribution.
Leaving aside the cynically Alinsky-esque claim that a confiscation is a “contribution,” when did individual privacy become something to be invaded at will, so long as it doesn’t “inconvenience” the victim? Our privacy needs no justification from us to protect; we need no better reason to protect it—especially from a grasping government that’s supposed to be working for us—than that we don’t feel like being exposed. The WSJ‘s logic is in line with the government’s logic of two centuries ago: the Indians aren’t using the land they’re on, anyway. And we have a more important use for it than they do.
The inconvenience is the invasion of our privacy. Full stop.
Here is a sample of the kind of campaign that President Obama is running in his attempt to get reelected.
They’re obsessed
By Jim Messina, Campaign Manager on
In just about 24 hours, Mitt Romney is headed to a hotel ballroom to give a speech sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a front group founded and funded by the Koch brothers.
Those are the same Koch brothers whose business model is to make millions by jacking up prices at the pump, and who bankrolled Tea Party extremism, and committed $200 million to try to destroy President Obama before Election Day.
So in the hours before Romney courts two men obsessed with making Barack Obama a one-term president, let’s see how many of us can chip in to the Two-Term Fund.
Here’s what Mitt Romney told his supporters just after his victory in the Florida GOP primary:
“We must not forget what this election is really about: defeating Barack Obama.”
Pitch in $3 or more over the next 24 hours to show that, while that message may fire up two oil-industry billionaires, it’s also one that plenty of us are tired of hearing.
The Koch Companies’ President of Government and Public Affairs, Philip Ellender, responded to this in a well-publicized manner. I won’t go into that letter; however, a copy of it can be seen here.
What’s interesting, though, is Obama’s response, through Messina, to the Koch Industries letter. I’ll cite relevant parts; the whole letter can be read at the link.
I am writing in response to your letter, in which you portrayed the oil and gas executives you represent as average citizens trying to make their voices heard.
Of course, no such representation was made. They did mention the “tens of thousands of members and contributors from across the country and from all walks of life” with respect to Americans for Prosperity. Of course Obama knows that there are not “tens of thousands” of oil and gas executives all across the country; this is deliberate, Alinsky-esque distortion.
But it is a cynical stretch to describe the political activities of your employers as furthering democracy when they are courting huge checks from special interest donors to pay for negative ads, with no public disclosure of the identity of those donors.
Hmm. Obama claims to know of “huge checks from special interest donors,” but there is “no public disclosure of the identity of these donors.” Which side of Obama’s mouth should we believe, here? Or is Obama confessing to domestic spying on private American citizens?
You argue that Americans for Prosperity is a grassroots organization of everyday citizens. But its emphasis on rolling back environmental protections and blocking a clean energy economy appears to be nothing more than an effort to promote the corporate interests of your employers and others who lavishly, and secretly, fund its operations.
This is another deliberate distortion. AFP doesn’t espouse rolling back environmental protections or blocking clean energy. AFP, along with all thinking Americans, do espouse eliminating excessive EPA regulations that hinder business—of any type—with no discernible gain for the environment. Nor do we Americans seek to block clean energy. We do object to Obama wasting our money on the Solyndras of the nation, and we do object to Obama wasting our money on “green” enterprises whose product cannot survive in an honestly competitive free market without those props.
You note in your letter that Americans for Prosperity has tens of thousands of members and contributors from all walks of life across the country, suggesting that this is the source of AFP’s funding. There is one way to verify your point: disclose those donors for the public to make that judgment.
How very Axelrod of Obama. He doesn’t have to supply any evidence. He just has to accuse, and given the accusation, of course the accused is perforce guilty unless he can prove his innocence.
But, even though I’ve spent some time on this, it’s all just cynical distraction, which is Obama’s intent with his Messina letter. What’s most important here is that at no time does Obama address the issues raised in the Koch Industries letter response to his original ad hominem attack.
If the President’s campaign has some principled disagreement with the arguments we are making publicly about the staggering debt the President and previous administrations have imposed on the country, the regulations that are stifling business growth and innovation, the increasing intrusion of government into nearly every aspect of American life, we would be eager to hear them.
and
It is understandable that the President and his campaign may be “tired of hearing” that many Americans would rather not see the president re-elected. However, the inference is that you would prefer that citizens who disagree with the President and his policies refrain from voicing their own viewpoint. Clearly, that’s not the way a free society should operate.
and
I…hope the President will reflect on how the approach the campaign is using is at odds with our national values and the constitutional right to free speech.
Oh, yeah—Obama did pretend to address the nation’s debt explosion:
That is why the President introduced a plan to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion and put us on a path to solvency.
Obama’s “plan” is two budget proposals so ludicrous that even the Democratic party voted it out of town unanimously, and the second proposal, just last month, doubles down on that bad joke.
But he carefully elided the Progressive regulatory environment and the increasing intrusion of the Progressive government into the lives of ordinary Americans and our businesses.
And on free speech,
When you attempt to drown out their voices through unlimited, secret contributions to pursue a special-interest agenda that conflicts with what’s best for our nation, you must expect some scrutiny of your actions.
Once again, cynically unsubstantiated accusations of secret donations (since you know of them, Mr Obama, provide the data), while continuing the free speech of ad hominem attacks.
Two reasons come to mind for such a campaign. One is the naked intimidation of those with dissenting speech in which Obama is so plainly engaged. He simply will not brook any disagreement with his own hallowed positions, and he attacks, personally and with demonization, all those who do disagree. Is this the sort of President of which we want another four years?
The other reason is that Obama simply is incapable of forming an argument that defends his own position, and so he runs away from the issues at hand and dives for the cover of the ad hominem as a means of changing the subject. He knows his policies have failed utterly, but he lacks the moral rigor to acknowledge that and change course: he is capable only of avoiding the issues and engaging in personal attacks. Is his the sort of President of which we can afford to risk another four years?
Just to look at one small aspect of Americans’ liberties, here’s an item: mandated coverage of women’s contraception.
Senator Roy Blunt’s (R, MO) amendment was an attempt to restore a measure of liberty; a copy is here; it said, in part [emphasis added]
(E) While PPACA provides an exemption for some religious groups that object to participation in Government health programs generally, it does not allow purchasers, plan sponsors, and other stakeholders with religious or moral objections to specific items or services to decline providing or obtaining coverage of such items or services, or allow health care providers with such objections to decline to provide them.
It also says
(A) FOR HEALTH PLANS.—A health plan shall not be considered to have failed…on the basis that it declines to provide coverage of specific items or services because—(i) providing coverage (or, in the case of a sponsor of a group health plan, paying for coverage) of such specific items or services is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan; or (ii) such coverage (in the case of individual coverage) is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the purchaser or beneficiary of the coverage.
The measure was voted down in the Senate on Thursday by a nearly straight party-line vote of 51-48. In the run-up to the vote, Senate Democrats had cast it as an attempt to limit women’s access to birth control. They also had claimed
[T]he bill is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” and may allow employers to exclude coverage for any conditions they find religiously or morally objectionable.
They say this could become a slippery slope, resulting in the exclusion of coverage for HIV & AIDS, mental health, hemophilia, STD’s and more
The Obama administration blasted Blunt’s amendment in a press release Wednesday, saying the president’s supporters need to “stand for a woman’s right to make her own health decisions.”
I certainly hope the amendment, had it passed, would have allowed exclusion—or a decision not to purchase—for “and conditions” that are “religiously or morally objectionable.” This is an area in which our Constitution, so routinely disregarded by the Progressive administration, explicitly barred the Federal government from entering. Furthermore, aside from the freedom of choice issues related to mandating coverage—and so paying for this coverage when it’s unwanted or unneeded—and the ludicrous “essential health benefits” aspects of contraception, what religious or moral grounds would be cited? The Progressives have carefully declined to offer any examples.
Senator Frank Lautenberg (D, NJ) was especially disingenuous in his argument against this amendment.
I don’t want Republican politicians making decisions about my family’s health care. Women are capable of making their own health-care decisions.
Except, no, they’re not. Not after Lautenberg got his way: their decision is thrust upon them by this Progressive and his fellows. Senator Lautenberg and the Federal government now will make health-care decisions in lieu of them. Obama claimed to “stand for a woman’s right to make her own health decisions,” but with this vote, women are not allowed to decline to purchase a health-care service they do not want or will not use or find morally or religiously objectionable. They must buy. They cannot make their own health decision. Read again the Section E quoted at the start. See the freedom of choice that the Progressives voted down.
Here is some action on the free speech front, particularly involving the Internet and piracy and government efforts to impose control on both.
These offerings from our government are pertinent: the Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the House of Representatives’ parallel effort, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Unfortunately, they’re not tightly written to address actual piracy, or theft of copyrighted material. With their too-broad reach, each of these bills can also achieve the following (whether this potential use is deliberate or simply the result of routine political pandering and/or incompetence, I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader).
Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe suggests this:
SOPA provides that a complaining party can file a notice alleging that it is harmed by the activities occurring on the site “or portion thereof.” Conceivably, an entire website containing tens of thousands of pages could be targeted if only a single page were accused of infringement. Such an approach would create severe practical problems for sites with substantial user-generated content, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and for blogs that allow users to post videos, photos, and other materials.
And
The notice-and-termination procedure…runs afoul of the “prior restraint” doctrine, because it delegates to a private party the power to suppress speech without prior notice and a judicial hearing. This provision of the bill would give complaining parties the power to stop online advertisers and credit card processors from doing business with a website, merely by filing a unilateral notice accusing the site of being “dedicated to theft of U.S. property” — even if no court has actually found any infringement.
Wow. Guilt by accusation; we’ll sort out the damages from false or erroneous accusations later. In the meantime, we’ll shut down the whole site, and RICO-like, cutoff the financial resources of the accused. Solely on the accuser’s say-so; he don’t need no stinkin’ courts.
By closing an entire facility over an (alleged) infraction by one individual or involving just a few documents, an entire avenue of speech is shut down: not just the speech of the Web site’s operators, but the speech choices of those who wish to hear (read) what contributors to such a Web site has to say, on any subject. Imagine a closely contested election in which a Web site favors one candidate over another. One of those “other materials” is claimed by the other candidate to be harming his campaign. Where might the greater harm be occurring?
Oh, but I’m overreacting. Ex-Senator Chris Dodd (D, CT) has the answer. The bills are only asking for the same power the People’s Republic of China has for Internet censorship:
When the Chinese told Google that they had to block sites or they couldn’t do [business] in their country, they managed to figure out how to block sites.
Hmm….
We don’t need any more free speech laws, or government intervention into free speech. We have too much of this, already. Besides, we already have a fine free speech law, one that doesn’t run to 2,000 or more pages worth of…speech:
Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press[.]
And it took our Founders only 14 words, and rather less than a single page, to write it.
Another lesson from Europe, this time from the United Kingdom, rears its…head.
It seems that Oxford thinks it’s a good idea to put surveillance devices into all the taxi cabs that operate in the city, and at taxpayer expense, yet (I suppose this might be mildly better than making the cabbies pay for them—that would be a bit like making the condemned criminal pay for his own rope). What’s more, after the passenger has gotten out of the cab, even after the cab’s ignition has been shut off, Oxford’s devices will continue to record for a time, and the records will be held available to the city’s authorities for a month.
It’s all to protect the cabbies and the passengers from each other, don’t you know. Mutual complaints and everything, you see
As for you pesky citizens and your concerns (“…staggering invasion of privacy, being done with no evidence, no consultation and a total disregard for civil liberties,” wrote Nick Pickles of the organization Big Brother Watch), don’t you worry your pretty little heads. The City says that when a company “buy[s] the taxi and license [they] submit to a regulatory regime.” Presumably, this submission extends to the passenger, as well, when he uses that taxi with its license.
We already regulate you. That justifies us regulating you more.
Let’s see, now, where else are we seeing government intrusion? Hmm….
