Titled:   Does the Census Bureau go too far?

SayUncle brings up the American Community Survey. Every year, one in forty households are asked to answer a long series of questions, concering a myriad of topics as diverse as "What time do you leave for work in the morning" to the amount you pay for your mortgage each month. 

You can see the 2005 survey here.

The law, Title 13, Sections 141, 193, and 221 of the U.S. Code, authorizing the American Community Survey, also provides that your answers are confidential. No one except Census Bureau employees may see your completed form and they can be fined and imprisoned for any disclosure of your answers.

The same law that protects the confidentiality of your answers requires that you provide the information asked in this survey to the best of your knowledge.

The GAO published a paper investigating the Legal Authority for the ACS and finds in the conclusion:

For the reasons set forth above, the Bureau has authority under 13 U.S.C. §§ 141 and 193 to conduct the American Community Survey.  The Bureau also has authority to require responses from the public to this survey.  

It does however note the following:

While Census clearly has authority to conduct the ACS, we found no public laws, committee reports, or other congressional actions in which Congress has required the Bureau to develop and implement the ACS. 

So this would seem to be an example of unneccesary prying, though legal, at the behest of unelected and unanswerable bureaucrats. Please note that refusing to answer carries a fine of $100 and that for pretending to be an Eskimo and other false information is $500.