Quote Originally Posted by Tyme2fish View Post
That's one small step for a census taker, one giant leap for government intrusion.
Maybe so, but that's a "giant leap" that took place in 1800, the first time the census asked for your race. The very first census, in 1790, classified people as "free white males, free white females, or slaves."
http://www.us-census.org/help/questions.html

Looks to me like the censuses from the 19th Century, starting with 1840, were the most intrusive of all.