The publicized inducement for participating in the census is to improve government representation and equalize disbursements. Apparently up until now chiefly corporations have been counted. Badaboom. Which explains why tax collection pretends to gain nothing from the census. Nor homeland security, nor domestic surveillance. What utter hogwash. My favorite census fluff piece portrayed a census-taker donning snowshoes to reach Vermont residents living off the grid. How pray tell will a census grid assert to help them? As for our concerns for the urban poor, social service organizations already know full well their number by their need, a Federal census only facilitates predatory access to them.

Though barred by law from using the census info, does it matter to whom the government give it? Will public outcry be for or against revelations it’s been given to ICE, complete with GPS coordinates for all the addresses? What public figure is going to argue that tax cheats should be protected from discovery? Ultimately state security will trump the libertarian pleas for personal privacy. This census is meant to dovetail with NSA records, pure and simple, and provides very little not already known. It is prison role-call, meant to be a reminder of the state’s control.

Look at the 2010 CENSUS brochure cover. Not very obscurely, it’s a finger print.