Justice Department officials appeared to be considering ways to circumvent the confidentiality of census responses, according to documents filed Friday in a California legal challenge to adding a citizenship question to the decennial survey.
A June 12 email from Department of Justice attorney Ben Aguinaga to acting assistant attorney general John Gore suggests not saying “too much” in response to a question about the confidentiality of the survey, in case the issue were to “come up later for renewed debate.”
Confidentiality is a key feature of the census, and it is protected by the Census Act, which says census data cannot be shared by the Commerce Department, which oversees the survey, with any other government agency or court.
