Let me comment on each category in which I would place some of the proposed census questions.

COMPLETE COUNT

The complete, mandatory population count should include seven subjects: Name and address, relationship to head of household, sex, date of birth, race or color, marital status, and visitors in home at the time of census. The bill I have introduced would assure these as compulsory subjects for decennial or middecade censuses. All other questions would be voluntary and listed on a separate form.

QUESTIONS TO OMIT

I would recommend the omission of questions which fall into the following categories: Information of principal use to local communities having little Federal relevance, subjects which are already contained on questionnaires used by other Federal agencies making the need to ask them on a decennial census minimal, questions simply nonessential to a decennial census, and types of information private market research firms should gather because it is primarily of business or commercial inteerst. A good hard look and each question will reveal that many, if not most, subjects which have been proposed for 1970 fit into these categories. When the long list of questions is separated into smaller units along the lines I have outlined, I believe their omission becomes clearly justified.

Here are the four principal reason for dropping a large number of questions together with the exact subjects I would omit :

First, questions essentially of local interest: Place of work, means of transportation to work, number of units at this address, sewage disposal, and source of water.

Second, questions for other Federal agencies to provide statistics: Self-employment and income last year, farm income, other income, citizenship and year of immigration hours worked last week, hours worked last year, and last year in which worked.

Third, questions not significant to merit inclusion on a decennial census: State or country of birth, activity 5 years ago, number of children ever born, mother tongue, year moved to this house, place of residence 5 years ago, married more than once, and date of first marriage.

Fourth, questions of a commercial nature referred to private research organizations for collection of data: Heating equipment, telephone, tenure, vacancy status, months vacant, value, contract rent, trailer, bedrooms, automobile, air conditioning, television, radio, clothes dryer, washing machine, bathroom, dishwasher and second home.

DROP TO SMALLER SAMPLE

The Census Bureau believes it must obtain extensive population and housing data providing benchmark statistics on a block-by-block basis, for municipalities, metropolitan areas, States and the Nation. For this reason, the decennial census long form is prescribed for 25 percent or 20 percent of the households. The necessity for this proliferation of detail is debatable. Personally, I feel the decennial census should not attempt to amass extensive data on individuals other than to provide State and National totals. Localities and metropolitan area governments may conduct their own census or contract such a project from the Bureau of the Census, but this should not be a function of a compulsory decennial census. This reasoning leads me to recommend that several proposed questions be dropped from a 25-percent or 20-percent sample to a much more limited number of households. The Census Bureau conducts numerous sample surveys in which some of the decennial census questions could be listed. A special household survey covering 3 million homes has been proposed by the Bureau of the Census which might be suitable for gathering State and National benchmark statistics on several items.

A concurrent household survey could be planned for 1970 to collect data on a number of items now proposed for the 100-percent or 20-percent compulsory census program. This would provide overall profiles of the citizenry and household characteristics useful to the Census Bureau as well as give State and National benchmark statistics on a variety of subjects. I would recommend the following items be included in such a voluntary sample survey: School years completed, school enrollment, employment status, hours worked last week, occupation, wage and salary last year, veterans status, presence or duration of disability, vocational training, occupation or industry 5 years ago, access to unit, rooms,

basement, number of units in structure, land used for farming, fuel, and commercial establishments.

QUESTIONS TO DEFER

I have not listed any items in this category because the determination as to which subjects can be separated from the other questions on a decennial census and not asked concurrent with this national census is a technical matter about which the Bureau of the Census should comment. There are several topics within the two preceding categories, questions to be omitted or dropped to a smaller sample, which might be better placed here. An analysis of which items could be deferred successfully might bear study by the Congress in an effort to assure that a streamlined, maximum response census is conducted in 1970.

Mr. Speaker, this has been an attempt to examine the questions proposed for the 1970 decennial census and place all subjects in categories according to their merits. I hope it will serve as a working paper for my colleagues, especially those members of the Post Office and Civil Service Committee directly concerned with this subject. The Census Bureau no doubt will have its reactions to this analysis. I look to the hearings by the Subcommittee on Census and Statistics to be a form where all concerned parties may contribute to a sound census policy for 1970 and beyond.

[From the Congressional Record, Oct. 10, 1967]

THE CENSUS: INVASION OF PRIVACY

Mr. BETTS. Mr. Speaker, the right of privacy is a cherished liberty which is given protection by the Bill of Rights. Yet specific constitutional boundaries of personal privacy remain unclear. Development of an industrial society with vast new technology and Government expansion into many facets of the lives of our citizens has resulted in grave concern for the maintenance of individual rights. Private citizens, educators, public officials, and civil libertarians have drawn attention to important areas of privacy invasion: psychological testing, listening and watching devices, physical surveillance, and collection and use of personal data. Congress, now alert to the dangers of unbridled Government intrusions on privacy, is beginning to act. Perhaps the greatest single agency collecting personal data of all kinds is the Bureau of the Census. Every decade, all who reside in the United States are required by law to comply with a census of population and housing. Over the years the number and type of questions asked have increased to the point where 67 separate subjects are scheduled for inclusion in the 1970 census.

I believe the 1970 census questionnaires violate the constitutional intent of the decennial census as well as constitute an invasion of the privacy of all Americans. It is this belief which has prompted me to relate these two subjects: the census and personal rights of privacy. They are indeed deeply intertwined as the following discussion will illustrate.

THE CITIZEN AND HIS GOVERNMENT

Basic to this inquiry is the concept of the proper relationship between a government and its citizens. A statement by a jurist, Judge Samuel H. Hofstadter of the Supreme Court of New York State, is significant:

"In a democracy, we are concerned primarily with the relation of the individual to his government-a just government. And the maintenance of this overall relationship has greater importance than the isolated search for fact—or even justice in any specific case."1

Another constitutional lawyer and able legislator, U.S. Senator Sam J. Ervin, has referred to the challenge of preserving individual freedom in an age of scientific technology as:

"Many learned people have analyzed the legal and scientific issues raised by the needs to meet certain goals of government in a country as vast and diverse as ours. But they have balanced the interests back and forth until they have lost track of the basic issues of liberty involved.

"The Founding Fathers drafted a constitution that was meant to protect the liberty of Americans of every era, for its principles are enduring ones. One of the fundamental aspects of our liberty as freemen is the privacy of our innermost thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs; this includes not only our freedom to ex1 Letter to Washington Post, August 6, 1967.

press them as we please, but the freedom from any form of government coercion to reveal them."

2

Defining the balance of interests and determining the equities of privacy against Government information requirements is clearly the proposition now facing the Congress. We, in the National Legislature, are often presented with two extremes. On one hand it is clear that "in our recordkeeping civilization, the man whose name is not inscribed on the tab of someone's manila folder simply does not exist." The quest for anonymity-the right to be left alone is deeply imbedded in the fabric of our culture. It must receive every consideration by all public agencies. Yet no one can reasonably deny the legitimate need for certain data by the Government.

4

5

This is one extreme, on the other is ingrained the truisms of Parkinson's laws. Prof. Edward Shils has described the factual hunger of all government bodies: "As the range of government activities widens, and as they reach more deeply into the structure of society, government departments gather more and more information about the persons whom they provide services or whom they seek to control."

6

Must ours be a "Naked Society" as author Vance Packard grimly depicts? Can we not strike some median according to prudent needs of Government. I suggest one measure against which Government requirements can be checked is to determine the information sought according to its validity as a "public matter." This method of evaluation, it seems to me, is present in an important bill affecting indiscriminate requirements placed on Federal employees.

PRIVACY AND THE RIGHTS OF FEDERAL EMPLOYEES

Evidence gathered by the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights revealed that some Government employees and applicants for Government employment are required to disclose their race, religion, or national origin; report on their outside activities or undertakings unrelated to their work; submit to questioning about their religion, personal relationships, or sexual attitudes through interviews, psychological tests, or polygraphs; support political candidates or attend political meetings. Are these "public matters" about which Federal employees should be compelled to divulge information? These disclosures have resulted in passage by the Senate of S. 1035, a bill now pending before the House Committee on Post Office and Civil Service.

If these requirements for disclosure by Federal employees are not public matters how can very similar questions posed by the Bureau of the Census to all Americans be legitimate requirements? Under present law failure to answer all questions on the decennial census of population and housing may result in 60 days in jail or a $100 fine, or both-title 13, United States Code, section 221. There are similar items on the long-form census questionnaire regarding employment, marital matters, income and earnings, and detailed information on a person's household.

In its report on S. 1035, the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights said such legislation was needed to “establish a statutory basis for the preservation of certain rights and liberties of those who work for the Government." The report endorses the views of former Civil Service Commission Chairman Robert Ramspeck, who stated:

"We (the Federal Government) need better people today, better qualified people, more dedicated people, in Federal service than we ever needed before. And we cannot get them if you are going to deal with them on the basis of suspicion,and delve into their private lives, because if there is anything the average American cherishes, it is his right of freedom of action, and his right to privacy." [Emphasis added.]

2 Congressional Record, September 13, 1967, p. S-12912.

9

3 William M. Beaney, "The Right to Privacy and American Law," Law & Contemporary Problems, Vol. 31, Spring, 1966, page 256.

Ibid.. Kenneth L. Karst. "The Files": Legal Controls Over The Accuracy and Accessibility of Stored Personal Data," p. 342.

5 See Griswold vs Connecticut, United States Supreme Court in this case defined a right of privacy as an independent constitutional doctrine and granted the people a right to be left alone.

Op. Cit., Law & Contemporary Problems, Edward Shils, "Privacy: Its Constitutional and Vicissitudes," p. 298.

7 Ibid., Kenneth L. Karst, p. 349.

8 U.S. 90th Congress. Senate. Protecting Privacy and the Rights of Federal Employees, Report No. 534, 1967.

Ibid., p. 3.

It will be the height of irony if those who work for the Federal Government are given a statutory basis of privacy-and I support this legislation--and the plain old average citizen is denied similar protection.

Mr. Speaker, I have introduced H.R. 10952, which would limit the mandatory questions to be included in the decennial census. Only the essential data would be allowed. All other extraneous inquiries, as deemed desirable by the Director of the Census, would be voluntary and presented on a separate, plainly identified form. This is in keeping with the constitutional intent of the census as the official enumeration of population for the purpose of determining congressional districting. It would also serve to protect individual rights of privacy.

THE 1970 CENSUS QUESTIONS

Let me list some of the actual questions proposed for the 1970 decennial census of population and housing which will be asked 16 million or more American citizens.

(If a woman) How many babies has she ever had, not counting stillbirths? Have you been married more than once?

Did your first marriage end because of death of wife or husband?

Where did you live in April, 1962?

What was your major activity in April, 1962?

Place of birth of parents?

What is the value of this (your) property?

What is your rent?

Last year, 1966, what did sales of crops, livestock and farm products amount to?

Did you work at any time last week? 10

In my judgment, all of these questions invade personal privacy and have no place on a mandatory, or even voluntary census form.

On October 4, I presented my suggestions on where and how the proposed 1970 census questionnaire should be limited. That statement can be found in the Congressional Record at pages H12943 to H12945.

The following excerpt from that statement gives a comprehensive list of subjects I feel can be excluded:

"QUESTIONS TO OMIT

"I would recommend the omission of questions which fall into the following categories: Information of principal use to local communities having little Federal relevance, subjects which are already contained on questionnaires used by other Federal agencies making the need to ask them on a decennial census minimal, questions simply nonessential to a decennial census, and types of information private market research firms should gather because it is primarily of business or commercial interest. A good hard look and each question will reveal that many, if not most, subjects which have been proposed for 1970 fit into these categories. When the long list of questions is separated into smaller units along the lines I have outlined, I believe their omission becomes clearly justified.

"Here are the four principal reasons for dropping a large number of questions together with the exact subjects I would omit:

"First, questions essentially of local interest: Place of work, means of transportation to work, number of units at this address, sewage disposal, and source of water.

"Second, questions for other Federal agencies to provide statistics: Self-employment and income last year, farm income, other income, citizenship and year of immigration, hours worked last week, hours worked last year, and last year in which worked.

"Third, questions not significant to merit inclusion on a decennial census: State or country of birth, activity 5 years ago, number of children ever born, mother tongue, year moved to this house, place of residence 5 years ago, married more than once, and date of first marriage.

"Fourth, questions of a commercial nature referred to private research organizations for collection of data: Heating equipment, telephone, tenure, vacancy status, months vacant, value, contract rent, trailer, bedrooms, automobile, air conditioning, television, radio, clothes dryer, washing machine, bathroom, dishwasher, and second home."

The complete list of questions contains many more items that similarly could be omitted from at least the mandatory provisions of the census.

10 From Special Census of Metropolitan New Haven, a pretest for 1970 census, conducted April 5, 1967.

THE COURTS AND PRIVACY

Although the fourth amendment to the Constitution serves to protect the liberty and property of the individual from violation against probable cause, it falls short of protecting the people from the activities of the Census Bureau. In my view the fourth amendment should apply to all invasions on the part of the Government and its employees, of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life. It is not breaking of his doors, and rummaging of his drawers, that constituted the essence of this offense; but it is the invasion of his indefensible right of personal security, personal liberty, and private property, where that right has never been forfeited by his conviction of some public offense."

The decennial census in the minds of many citizens is an unreasonable search and seizure of information clearly without probable cause or justification as being a public matter.12 Mr. Justice Black in his dissenting opinion in the Griswold case interprets personal privacy in a broad, realistic framework:

"Privacy is a broad, abstract and ambiguous concept which can easily be shrunk in meaning but which also, on the other hand, easily be interpreted as a constitutional ban against many things other than searches and seizures." 13

Litigation will be forthcoming, no doubt, to further clarify the scope and application of matters of privacy for such definition is sorely needed.

USE OF CENSUS DATA

The foregoing discussion referred to but one phase of the issue of the census and personal privacy. Whether questions are public matters and should be included on census forms are solely related to the Government's input of personal data about our citizens. The compilation and utilization of these statistics is a second vital part of the privacy issue. This problem is explained well by my colleague from New Jersey, Congressman Cornelius Gallagher, a leading spokesman for protecting individual privacy. Congressman Gallagher's statement in opposition to a mid-decade census contained this observation:

"When the private citizen is asked to respond to census questionnaires, he is guaranteed by title 13, section 9 of the United States Code that the information he furnishes to the Government will be examined only by 'sworn officers and employees' of the Census Bureau; that it will be used only for 'the statistical purposes for which it is supplied'; and that it will be compiled in such manner that the data supplied by him cannot be identified as such. The census form itself states that the report 'cannot be used for purposes of taxation, investigation, or regulation.' But it does not state what census data can be used for, and the question of what this data can be used for is becoming an increasingly serious one."

914

Concern over the use or potential use of census data has been the subject of hearings under the chairmanship of Congressman Gallagher and U.S. Senator Long of Missouri. Computer privacy, confidentiality and sharing of census information were carefully reviewed by members of these subcommittees." The magnitude of computer collection and processing of data and the growing threat to privacy are exceedingly well analyzed in a new book by Prof. Alan F. Westin, of Columbia University. This book, entitled "Privacy and Freedom," is worthy of personal attention by every member of Congress and their legislative staffs, Professor Westin writes:

"The issue of privacy raised by computerization is whether the increased collection and processing of information for diverse public and private purposes, if not carefully controlled, could lead to a sweeping power of surveillance by government over individual lives and organizational activity. As we are forced more and more each day to leave documentary fingerprints and footprints behind us, and as these are increasingly put into storage systems capable of computer retrieval, government may acquire a power-through-data position that armies of government investigators could not create in the past eras."

Let me make one point clear, I do not challenge the present statute requiring confidentiality of Census Bureau material. I praise the enviable record the Bureau has had in its history of dealing with hundreds of millions of individual cases. In order that the present requirements for confidentiality may be fully

11 From address by U.S. Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., "Privacy and Employment," April 15, 1967, p. 3.

12 See U.S. v. Rickenbacker, C.A.N.Y. 1962, 309 F. 2nd 462, Cert denied 371 U.S. 962. 13 Op Cit., Senator Ervin, April 15, 1967, p. 5.

14 Congressional Record, August 10, 1967, pages H-10383-84.

15 Alan F. Westin, Privacy and Freedom, Atheneum, New York, 1967, p. 158.