Census worker won’t take no for answer

Chicago - The first few requests were tolerable. A Census Bureau worker would knock on John and Beverly Scott’s door and ask them to fill out an American Community Survey. The McKinley Park couple would politely decline. But as the days passed, the visits became more frequent and the requests more urgent. Some evenings, the doorbell would ring at dinnertime, then again at 10 p.m. “I said, ‘I’m not going to answer your questions.’ She kept saying, ‘You’ve got to, you’ve got to.’ I shut the door, and she kept ringing the doorbell and tapping on the window.” In particular, the Scotts did not want to answer questions they found too personal, such as inquiries about their income, when they left for work and their health. The final straw, John Scott said, was when a Census Bureau employee told him he would be fined $2,000 if he did not fill out the 48-question survey. More…