Anger and Shame

The Bureau of the Census has recently given information regarding Arab-American populations to the Dept. of Fatherland Security,i.e., how many Jordanians live in a certain Zip Code? How many Lebanese? How many are males? etc.

Next step: Armbands.

I was a supervisor for the 2000 Census, and until now I was proud of the job my staff and I did. Now the culture of fear has stripped me of that,replacing it with shame. I feel robbed. Cheated. Betrayed.Scared. Outraged.

In 2000 ,our big boss, Ken Prewitt, made a formal apology to Japanese-Americans because Census data was used during WW2 to round up Japanese-American citizens and force them into concentration camps. He vowed this would never be done to any Americans again.
This didn't really make the news, but it was a big deal in our Census office. I felt good that the agency I worked for was willing to stand up and admit wrong-doing ,albeit belatedly.

Now the bastards in charge are using loopholes to do it again, probably for the same reasons as last time. Camps.

"But we don't identify anyone by name", say the Brown Shirts.

News: They didn't identify the Japanese-Americans by name either. They had numbers. Concentration camps and numbering human beings is not an American value, at least not in my eyes.

I spent almost two years explaining to doubting Americans why they should answer the Census, detailing the steps in place to ensure that their data would be zealously guarded, never used to identify them in any way. I probably gave that spiel 5000 times.

Suddenly, I'm a liar 5000 times over. I take that very personally.

I doubt we'll hear much outrage about this. After all, it's about National Security.

We'll never have National Security while the Fascists are running the show.