“1980: Armed with a search warrant authorizing them to seize census documents, four FBI agents enter the Census Bureau’s Colorado Springs office. No confidential information is ever released because a census worker holds off the agents until her superiors resolve the issue with the FBI.”
Very cool! This is an interesting example because it shows the system protecting the information in at least one case, but also shows that yes the government damn well tried to get the information, despite it being an information source that was deeply important to protect—if census info leaked and it got out our ability to do a census would be crippled.
Found it.
https://www.census.gov/dmd/www/pdf/afs38.txt
“1980: Armed with a search warrant authorizing them to seize census documents, four FBI agents enter the Census Bureau’s Colorado Springs office. No confidential information is ever released because a census worker holds off the agents until her superiors resolve the issue with the FBI.”
Very cool! This is an interesting example because it shows the system protecting the information in at least one case, but also shows that yes the government damn well tried to get the information, despite it being an information source that was deeply important to protect—if census info leaked and it got out our ability to do a census would be crippled.