As you may have heard Representative Bachman plans to only fill in the census form for what the Constitution requires, enumeration of people in a home.

Ok, I agree on this, but my post goes much deeper.

Another known issue is Acorn, a political group, will be collecting the data and Obama moved the census overseeing to the Executive branch in the White House.

Current US Code
http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/13C7.txt

Sec. 221. Refusal or neglect to answer questions; false answers

-STATUTE-
(a) Whoever, being over eighteen years of age, refuses or
willfully neglects, when requested by the Secretary, or by any
other authorized officer or employee of the Department of Commerce
or bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of the
Secretary or authorized officer, to answer, to the best of his
knowledge, any of the questions on any schedule submitted to him in
connection with any census or survey provided for by subchapters I,
II, IV, and V of chapter 5 of this title, applying to himself or to
the family to which he belongs or is related, or to the farm or
farms of which he or his family is the occupant, shall be fined not
more than $100.
(b) Whoever, when answering questions described in subsection (a)
of this section, and under the conditions or circumstances
described in such subsection, willfully gives any answer that is
false, shall be fined not more than $500.
(c) Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, no person
shall be compelled to disclose information relative to his
religious beliefs or to membership in a religious body.
That said, note a couple things in that section. Fines for not answering fully will be no more than $100
Fines for lying are up to $500

Now, a followup comment posted by a reader of this article:
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009...buse/comments/
Chapter 7 Offenses and Penalties,Subtitle II .221 states: (a) Whoever, being over eighteen years of age, refuses or willfully neglects, ***when requested by the Secretary, or by any other authorized officer or employee of the Department of Commerce or bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of the Secretary or authorized officer***, to answer, to the best of his knowledge, any of the questions on any schedule submitted to him in connection with any census or survey provided for by subchapters I, II, IV, and V of chapter 5 of this title, applying to himself or to the family to which he belongs or is related, or to the farm or farms of which he or his family is the occupant, shall be fined not more than $100.... Wouldn't moving the census out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House basically negate this law, as it's no longer an employee, officer, bureau or agency of the Department of Commerce?

Good point i think and this is the only time i saw this thought. If Obama is Executive Branch and thats where Census is now housed, the US Code is invalid and one does not have to answer anything beyond the Constitution and how many people.


The down side is if that code is indeed invalid now, so are penalties for misuses by the census takers, in this case Acorn.