census

[http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (Robert)]

Maintaining people's privacy is important for people to feel confident in
participating in the census.  Adding noise seems like a fairly good way to
help preserve that privacy (but I suspect that it will not be sufficient
over time).

There is a paradox, 'tho, about the openness of the procedure.  If people
suspect that the noise is not truly random, then that also will destroy
trust.  Not sure exactly what could be done with that -- someone smarter
would have to work on that problem.

Nevertheless, I think the point of all this is destroy any trust in the
census at all.  It's in the constitution, but I suspect that this and any
future Republican administrations will try its best to whittle it down its
use in redistricting.