[stonogo]

"Counting everyone in the country" is one aspect of the census effort. Looking at where they live, what they do for a living, and if they live alone or with others are other aspects. In the US, when someone moves from one state to another, they're not required to notify the US government in any way. Most states have rules about getting your vehicles licensed within a certain time frame after settling in a state, or rules about when you must acquire a driver license and/or state ID. The rules are wildly different across all fifty states, and it's not feasible to "just track" everyone since the national government has no explicit authority to. The census, however, is explicitly assigned to the federal government in the constitution.

[hurricanetc]

The idea that the US federal government doesn’t know where people are and who they are talking to is hilarious. We have the biggest spying apparatus in human history.

This is 100% political.

[stonogo]

25% of Americans do not own a computer. 19% don't own a smartphone. 4% don't own a cellular phone at all. [1]

22% of Americans don't own a credit card -- although neither the Bankrate or Statistic Brain studies counted debit cards accurately, which are equally useful for tracking. [2]

All Americans do not even have Social Security numbers, as there are several moderately-sized religions who are excused from participating in the process. [3]

Finally, not everyone in America is here legally, and many of those people go to great lengths to avoid using technology or participating in programs which would lead to their identification and tracking.

All of these are good reasons to conduct a census now and then. But even if you find none of these convincing, the iron truth of the current situation is that none of these alleged panopticon efforts you're alluding to are allowed to release any of that information -- not to benefit allotment committees, not to infrastructure planners, not even to local law enforcement, so in practice it doesn't do anyone in the government any good at all.

1 - https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/

2 - https://www.crnrstone.com/insightvault/2018/03/04/many-ameri...

3 - https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0110225035

[mr_toad]

The census predates mass surveillance. The bureaucracy changes slowly.

I doubt the agencies with the surveillance data want to share it.

The data isn’t a count of people. It’s one record per conversation, or whatever. It’s probably riddled with errors and duplicates, incorrect names, dates of birth etc. It probably misses a lot of people (like children). Getting a unique count of individuals, with accurate addresses and demographic information would be a Sisyphean task.

[kelnos]

I wouldn't say political per se, at least not in the way most people would mean it. Taking the census every 10 years, in this particular manner, is required by the Constitution.