Abstract
Privacy is a contemporary issue and one which has implications for social research in general and censuses in particular. This chapter considers the impact of privacy concerns upon the content of the United States Census. The many books published in recent years on the issue of privacy range from serious commentaries to a best-selling vulgarisation.1 Their common theme has excited organisations from the John Birch Society to the American Civil Liberties Union. Government agencies at various levels have investigated the matter and made recommendations.2 The frequently paranoiac tone of many discussions can be illustrated with an editorial from the New York Times (6 August 1966):
Can personal privacy survive the ceaseless advances of the technological juggernaut?… The Orwellian nightmare would be brought very close indeed if Congress permits the proposed computer National Data Center to come into being.… Perhaps in the long run the fight to preserve privacy is a vain one. But, like the struggle to preserve life, it must be continued while any shred of privacy remains.
Extract from W. Petersen, ‘Forbidden Knowledge’, in S. Z. Nagi and R. G. Corwin (eds), The Social Contents of Kesearch, New York, John Wiley, 1972, pp. 297–304. Copyright ©1972 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Note and References
Ranging, thus, from Alan F. Westin, Privacy and Freedom, New York, Atheneurn, 1967;
Samuel Dash et al., The Eavesdroppers, Rutgers Univ. Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1959; and
Edward V. Long, The Intruders, New York, Praeger, 1966, through such works as
Myron Brenton, The Privacy Invaders, New York, Coward-McCann, 1961, down to
Vance Packard, The Naked Society, New York, McKay, 1964.
See, for example, ‘Special Inquiry on Invasion of Privacy’, Hearings before a Sub-committee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, 89th Congress, 1st Session, 1965, Washington DC, US Government Printing Office, 1966.
Office of Science and Technology, Executive Office of the President, Privacy and Behavioral Research, Washington DC, US Government Printing Office, 1967.
New Jersey omitted race or colour from its certificates of birth, death and fetal death in 1962, restoring it again later that year or, in effect, the following year; see US Public Health Service, Vital Statistics of the United States, 1963, n, Part A, Section 6, Washington DC, US Government Printing Office, 1965, pp. 6–9. In all of the national compilations by race, thus, this one state is omitted for 1962 and 1963. I wrote to several New Jersey officials for details on this interesting switch but received no responsive reply.
Cf. William Petersen, ‘Religious Statistics in the United States’, The Politics of Population, Garden City, NY, Doubleday, 1964, pp. 248–70.
Herman P. Miller, ‘Considerations in Determining the Content of the 1970 Census’, Demography, 4, 1967, pp. 744–52.
The laws and administrative rulings guarding privacy are quoted in Conrad Taeuber, ‘Invasion of Privacy’, Chapter 12 above; some of the court cases in which these rules have been upheld are discussed in Petersen, op. cit. A prime instance of the Census Bureau’s probity, even under intense pressure from other government agencies and despite a prevailing mood of hysteria, was its refusal in 1941 to disclose the names and addresses of Japanese Americans. ‘To its everlasting credit the Bureau of the Census demonstrated a higher devotion to the Constitution than did many of those who were responsible for the creation of detention camps for our fellow citizens who happened to be of Japanese ancestry’ (Representative Cornelius E. Gallagher, Dem., NY, as quoted in the New York Times, 9 May 1969). For the general background, see W. Petersen, Japanese Americans, New York, Random House, 1971, esp. Chapter 4.
‘Census Programs Attacked as Invasions of Privacy’, American Statistician, 22, April 1968, pp. 12–13; ‘Attacks on Census Increase’, 22, June 1968, p. 11; ‘The Census Inquisition’, Population Bulletin, 25, May 1969; John Kantner, ‘The Census under Attack’, American Sociologist, 4, 1969, p. 256.
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© 1979 Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Petersen, W. (1979). The Protection of Privacy and the United States Census. In: Bulmer, M. (eds) Censuses, Surveys and Privacy. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16184-3_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16184-3_13
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