Skip to main content

Justice served to privacy- 2020 census

On Jan 23rd,2020, president Joe Biden ordered the U.S. census bureau to not to include any information related to citizenship data or immigration status of U.S. residents. As a reaction to this order, the census has decided to abandon the process of collecting citizenship data at the city/block level.


It was in 2019 when former president Donald Trump ordered the U.S. census bureau to gather the citizenship status data of every resident of U.S. , without asking them. Which means that the census would collect the citizenship data from the federal and state government. There was mass demonstration against this order as a result on Jan 27,2019, The supreme Court of U.S. said this process would put a question on privacy and hence Trump administration should stop this. Everyone Called it as a ' victory of democracy' but even after receiving orders from The SC, Trump asked the census bureau to collect the citizenship data in any way possible. U.S. census bureau never wanted to do this but due to orders from higher authority they had to do this. There was always a fear of data getting hacked, for this the census bureau developed a strategy in order to protect the data which is called the differential policy. In this method the data would be concealed with a synthetic copy of data which makes the data safe from any hacker But In July, 2019 this order proved as a failed attempt. Census bureau faced tremendous difficulties in collecting the data at such a fine level. As per Trump’s administration the sole purpose of gathering this data was to get complete and reliable information on count of non U.S. citizens which would then be used to draw voting districts and the data will be kept secret. But many critics, civil rights organizations and legal scholars believed that Trump would provide this information to U.S. immigration and custom enforcement authorities and this can posses a threat to the privacy of U.S. residents. Further more this data could be used to draw boundaries for state legislature and congressional district. Doing so would take away the power from metropolitan area and hand it over to rural areas which may lead to some serious conflicts.


Almost after an year, the justice has been served. President Joe Biden has abandoned this process of collecting citizenship data. Now this is truly “ victory of democracy”


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Past makes present: Elon Musk 's anti union tweet

Who would have thought that a tweet made in 2018 will cause hassle in someone’s life in 2021. We are talking about none other than Mr. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, Inc. He needs no introduction but more than him, his tweets are famous. Elon Musk has been seen tweeting sharp and blunt statements very often but this time he faced serious repercussions as well. Swami Vivekananda rightly said that the present is determined by past actions. It all started in 2018 when Elon musk is his tweet, wrote: “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare.” This tweet came in the limelight in 2021 when National Labor Relations Board found it oppressive and threatening. As per NLRB the tweet by Mr. Elon Musk was unlawfully threatening the employees with the loss of stock options if they decided ...

Significance of the “Developed Country” Tag for India

By Xeena Mehta The officials of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) uphold a list of countries that categorises countries as “developing”, “developed”, and “least-developed”. Countries that are classified as “developing” have permissions to export certain goods to the U.S. without being hit by heavy legal tariffs that are bind to be imposed on goods from “developed” countries. The “developing country” tag was originated by U.S. Trade Act of 1974, to aid poor countries develop faster. World Trade Organization also acceded to grant trade benefits to countries that were classified as poor. If noticed we can see that about two-thirds of countries that are members of the WTO classify themselves as “developing” countries and avail fore deals. Any such classification of whether a country is “developing” or not is entirely objective. While the economic progress achieved by India and China have achieved over the last few decades is seen as a valid reason to get rid of their s...

Changing Environment For Local Business In Sri Lanka; Government Initiates The Revolution

Local industries and businesses are the backbone of the economy of any country. Additionally, Sri Lankan Government defines a local company as one with a minimum ownership of 51% of a Sri Lankan. To help these companies grow, the Sri Lankan Finance Ministry has proclaimed a circular enlisting the priorities to the local companies. Moreover, this move from the government may bring some salient alterations in the condition of the local manufacturers. The government has also come with up steps that will augment the local industries across the different domains. These domains include IT sector, construction, etc. The circular, as issued by the government includes relevant documentation regarding sourcing of resources and products. Additionally, sources point towards the fact that the government is hoping to extend support to the domestic sector and help them grow. Besides, the major focus is on the three sectors- IT software and hardware, construction and furniture and allied products. Pos...