Three great waves of public anxiety about census privacy swept over the United States in the twentieth century. In 1940, 1970, and 2000, newspapers reported on fears of the public and politicians about invasive census questions. This article focuses on the second wave of privacy concerns surrounding the 1970 census, which focused on Big Brother and government overreach. The Census Bureau response stressed the confidentiality of census responses, but it failed to address the public concerns and sources of resistance to census inquiries. In addition to analyzing newspaper reports and congressional testimony, we examine individual refusals to respond to the census by members of the public and the Census Bureau’s responses to such refusals. By focusing on specific individual complaints instead of the general characterizations of concern found in newspaper coverage, we can gain a clearer understanding of the motives of the objectors.
