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May 28, 2010
Census Drudges Can Break Into Your Home
Posted by Dave Blount at May 28, 2010 8:11 AM
Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr has a reputation for looking for black helicopters. It looks like he's found one:
What many Americans don't realize, is that census workers — from the head of the Bureau and the Secretary of Commerce (its parent agency) down to the lowliest and newest Census employee — are empowered under federal law to actually demand access to any apartment or any other type of home or room that is rented out, in order to count persons in the abode and for "the collection of statistics." If the landlord of such apartment or other leased premises refuses to grant the government worker access to your living quarters, whether you are present or not, the landlord can be fined $500.00.
That's right — not only can citizens be fined if they fail to answer the increasingly intrusive questions asked of them by the federal government under the guise of simply counting the number of people in the country; but a landlord must give them access to your apartment whether you're there or not, in order to gather whatever "statistics" the law permits.
Census workers have reportedly been demanding private cell phone numbers from landlords, the better to harass tenants for data that will probably get cooked anyway. Yet we are asked to regard it as intolerable oppression that Arizona will start asking people for ID when they're caught running red lights, even if they might be illegal aliens.
Just hope the Census worker you find rooting through your fridge when you get home from work isn't a sex offender.
"Howdy. I'm from the Census."
On tips from Stormfax and J.
