So the German government has finally decided to count their population, something that hasn't been done since the re-unification. To people in countries that regularly get counted this seems pretty run-of-the-mill...but not to the German people! They are up in arms over the census because they feel that it is an invasion of privacy and they have been staging protests in West-Berlin and Köln and even called for a general boycott. But at least one group is tackling it a bit differently.

According to an article in The Local.de, a fake census form, that mimics the real one, has been sent around the country. Turning up in mailboxes, sans envelope, the Berliner Zeitung reports that the form is the same as the official version but contains questions about drug use, surgical augmentation, and even asks whether you are "heterosexual or not heterosexual."

Apparently the German people are a little unclear on the function of a national census, and have been since the first censuses were held in the 16th and 17th centuries. For those who are a bit hazy on the details, let me explain: a census is used to determine the population size and make-up. Census figures help a government to better determine where money should go and how well the country is doing in terms of education and employment. In the US, census figures are also necessary to determine representation in the government (and if you choose not to fill out a census form then you are telling the people who fought to give you representation that you don't care that they did that!). In the history of German census-taking, censuses were a way for the government to determine how many soldiers a state would supply the army -- the smaller you were, the smaller your contribution. It was also used to determine shares of revenue -- the bigger you were the bigger your share.

Therefore, the purpose of a census is not to invade the privacy of the individual citizen, but to make the government of those citizens more effective. Censuses are anonymous, just like political or consumer surveys. If you think that the government is going to use a census to target your criminal activities then you are wrong...that's what the police are for. So let the government find out how many of you there are and whether you finished high school or not, so that they can better govern you. Anything else is just stupid.