Yeh - Count Me Out! American shiite!!
Groups call for census boycott
The role of one of the world's largest defence companies, Lockheed Martin, in Britain's census has led some opposition groups to urge householders to boycott it or tamper with their forms ahead of a formal deadline on Wednesday.
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Groups call for census boycott
By John O’Doherty
Published: April 5 2011 16:36 | Last updated: April 5 2011 23:09
The role of one of the world’s largest defence companies, Lockheed Martin, in Britain’s census has led some opposition groups to urge householders to boycott it or tamper with their forms ahead of a formal deadline on Wednesday.
“Lockheed Martin produce F-16 fighter jets and other weapons, and this is legitimising the arms industry,” said Chris Browne, a founder of the Count Me Out campaign that urges non-compliance with the census.
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“At the end of the day, the profits from Lockheed Martin UK and the census go back to the same parent company, and we think the arms industry is an inherently unethical industry.”
Lockheed Martin makes the Hercules transport aircraft, missiles, and a range of fighter jets, earning $46bn of annual revenues last year. The group also has a division that manages census contracts, and has conducted censuses in the US and Canada as well. However, critics argue that the company’s defence profile should preclude it from the census.
“Lockheed Martin played a major role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Symon Hill, of the think-tank Ekklesia. “I worry that awarding a major government contract to them implies an endorsement of their work. As a Christian and a pacificist, I can’t in conscience cooperate with an arms company. So, I have decided to boycott the census. “I’m going to return the form with my name and address and with a letter explaining why I’ve not filled it in, politely.”
Count Me Out is not advocating any one single response to the census, instead placing on its website advice and letter templates so respondents can engage in various levels of dissent. At the more mild end, respondents can enclose a letter with their census stating their objection to Lockheed’s involvement, or step up their response by tampering with the form by smudging boxes or filling in barcodes.
“Because the data capture process is automated, if you can ensure the form has to be processed manually, then Lockheed won’t be able to make as much money off it,” said Mr Browne.
Beyond the broader ethical objections, campaigners have also expressed their opposition to Lockheed’s involvement in the census out of fear that data could be accessed by the US authorities under the terms of the Patriot act. The Office for National Statistics vigorously denies this claim.
“Arrangements have been put in place to ensure that US authorities are unable to access census data,” the ONS said in a statement. “All data is the property of the ONS, and all data processing will be carried out in UK – no data will leave or be held at any point outside the UK. The only people who have access to the full census dataset in the operational data centre will be ONS staff [and] no Lockheed Martin staff (from either the US parent or UK company) will have access to any personal census data.” Lockheed declined to comment.
With forms still being filled in, the ONS says it is still too early to make any assessment of the extent of tampering or census spoiling. While there is a soft deadline of returning the forms by Wednesday, the ONS will send out thousands of officials in the following weeks to call door-to-door on those households that have not returned their forms.
In addition to questions over the involvement of Lockheed, some campaigners have taken issue with the structure of the census questions itself, in particular the section on religion. “The question on religion was only introduced to the census in 2001,” said Bob Churchill of the British Humanist Association.
“We believe it’s a leading question. It asks what is your religion as opposed to do you have a religion, and the question is in amongst questions on nationality and ethnicity, so you’re geared up to answer it in a broad cultural way.”
The BHA is concerned that this will lead people who only feel a vague cultural affiliation to a religion but are not practising, to tick this religious box rather than the ‘no religion’ choice. This could lead the census to overestimate the true level of religiosity in the country.
“That data gets used to reinforce the idea that religious identity is especially important. It is used to justify existing policies such as bishops in the House of Lords, and also to create new policies such as the number of faith schools or introducing academies that are religiously sponsored.”
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