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Comment by bertil | Hacker News Reader

I have a very low opinion of the current US administration, which might be a blindspot when they do something both horrible and not caveman-like in its sophistication. I’m genuinely surprised they would look into differential privacy (again: this sounds judgmental, but I’m just trying to confess my prejudice).

I’m more surprised that they were able to look into it and come to the conclusion that they should get rid of it… What could be the logic here?

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From the second linked article, this could be a motive:

> People who were using Census data to actually reconstruct records could no longer do so. Demographers admitted that this was common practice. It's also an open secret that this was done by political operatives as part of gerrymandering efforts.

https://desfontain.es/blog/banning-noise.html

You wont take away my tin hat here.

I think they are using any data source, private and public to compile enemy lists. We will see them use it to manipulate the mid term elections. Isnt it wise at this point to assume that extend of malignance and long term plannig?

The administration will do almost anything if asked, so long as the person asking is willing to offer tribute.

That might be accurate, but it doesn’t answer the question asked.

really? yes it does. a bribe is answer.

> The acting force behind this order is political interest, not scientific merit. DAO 216-26 bypassed legally required administrative procedures. It fulfills a promise made by the architects of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, and reflects both the rhetoric and misunderstandings of representatives of the Center for Renewing America (CRA), an organization founded by OMB Director Russell Vought. CRA’s explainer on the use of differential privacy in the 2020 Census is up-front about the stakes: “Even if the citizenship question is added to the Census, it will be impossible to ascertain the status of individuals so long as differential privacy is used.”

So from its supporters own statements, because it makes it harder to identify non citizens in statistics.

Making it harder to identify non-citizens sounds like it’s easy to fit into the amorphous bucket of things they don’t like of “wokeness”.

The other thing to consider is the current administration has plenty of chaos and snap decisions at its top level but at its mid level and among its backers are plenty of people able to take a more long term view of what they want and how to get there.

It could have been as simple as "noise infusion" being interpreted as "adding fake data". Especially if you don't trust the people adding the noise.

Wouldn't be the first administrative action taken at a keyword-level of understanding.

This could have also been how the administration got convinced by someone with deeper understanding and specific goals.

It fucks over every econometric technique that researchers use (by design) I’ve been hearing people in academia beating the drum about this since like 2021.

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