WPLN News Archive; Census Confidentiality (Adrienne) 5 1 00; News Archive 3/30/00-5/22/00

the victorian gothic style customs building on broadway musicals as nashville's downtown census bureau getting inside can be difficult people must be little marshals go through a metal detector and have their bag checked by an x ray scanner getting inside the heart of this census office doesn't get any easier dave pacman is he says the manager for recruiting for the local bureau one of thirteen and then we get to that story and you can see that the door is a lot on the only way to get in the doors open accommodation lot of what i'm doing there is an accommodation to play now in the lobby of the office and before we go into where the actual work to be and then you have to turn on the microphone on security is one of headwinds top priorities after all if he doesn't end here to the federal laws regarding the confidentiality a private information he could face a fine of up to five thousand dollars as well as a five year jail term

after his visit or signs in and gets a pass he has to escort them to his august so you can sit there at the computer and get access to that data edmonds offices just outside the heart of europe where employees are busy tabulating hundreds of thousands of pieces of personal information ideally on every single person living in davidson county a couple dozen employees hover over long work tables groups are separated by six foot tall she's a cardboard to prevent an outsider can sing their computer screens and that's because we don't want anybody feeling as if the information they're given the census bureau is going to be distributed that plan getting the stop button on the recorder turned into a standard part of the interview the young man to not wanting to know how long would take to process a person's application to work at the bureau that processes heckman could take up to several weeks every hire must pass an fbi background check only one in

five get the job training lasts for four days and a lot of it deals with the confidentiality laws at the end of the class training session every census worker has to swear that they won't divulge any personal information they learn if they do they face this same fine and jail time heckman would face this very serious not only do they have to sign a piece of paper and the whole of the right hand to be sworn in by one of the major decision a ceremonial heckman thought this has to be so secret because of the type of information it collects the long version of the census form includes everything from a person's race and gender to household in common type of job the short form asks far fewer questions but must still be kept private federal law states that also this information must be sealed for seventy two years before anyone outside the bureau can see the surveys this year they've blessed the public with information about their confidentiality laws so that people including illegal immigrants will turn in the forms they're afraid the information they give the census bureau will go to

the ins or the irs or some other government agency that is not true and were prohibited by law distributing this information to anybody especially other government agencies only two people in the office can have access to the internet or talk to the media no one can bring a computer desk in or out of the office at mit says even his job in the army working on secured radio site wasn't as protected as this one now that i've worked here a long time it's pretty clear that even if it was necessary and reality if it could make people feel better that would be worth doing it in a new writer cesar it order police or ins officer during their job they're required to leave the area and reported her supervisor they would go to the door if you were there and that's because again there's privacy aspect for the person who's door they're going to when the interview is over and i asked for permission to gather general sound of the office hadn't allowed for all about three seconds before realizing that to me jeopardizes mission

conversations are about probably nothing would say something that my son can't that somebody with a very sophisticated computer could take that tape right off the radio and who knows what they would get the census bureau has until the end of the year to collect and analyze data today nashville is second among cities nationally for filing the most census returns this year turning in those forms is so important because the more people national claims the more money the city gets from the federal government two hundred billion dollar fine that money funds public services from schools to police for national public radio i'm a dreamer