Author’s note: This investigation is ongoing and MyTwoCensus.com will be pressing the Census Bureau for details about these cases, which thus far the Census Bureau’s public information office has refused to provide. This investigation is most definitely a personal crusade for me as a main goal of this site is to watch over spending and abolish government corruption. As such, I will be keeping this post at the top of MyTwoCensus.com until 1. The mainstream media reports on this most obvious scandal and 2. The Census Bureau acknowledges their mistakes and fires the individuals involved with these problems.

As 2010 Census operations wind down, the Census Bureau has been forced to get rid of many of its temporary employees. However, the few employees who are still employed at the Detroit Regional Census Center’s “partnership” office have one thing in common: They are closely connected to the Detroit political machine and/or the Democratic Party. And the one current employee who doesn’t fit the above description is Toine Murphy, who was indicted by the State of Michigan for his involvement in a Ponzi scheme.

To give you some background on the word “Partnership” in 2010 Census terms, the Census Bureau created an outreach program for the 2010 Census intended to boost involvement by linguistic, racial, and sexual minorities. The stimulus package gave this program a mega boost when it awarded upwards of $500 million in additional cash to the Census Bureau for outreach efforts, many of which are coordinated by “Partnership Specialists” and “Partnership Coordinators.”

(Some of these partnership employees have been paid more than $85,000 per year at the GS-14 and GS-15 levels of pay for federal employees.)

Let’s look at the cast of characters in the Detroit Regional Census Center who were NOT let go from the Census Bureau — even though “partnership” activities are long finished and the vast majority of employees in this office were let go in early June. The survivors are as follows:

1. Marsha Cheeks is a Democratic former member of the Michigan state House of Representatives. However, she was term-limited in 2008. Apparently, the Census Bureau is where retired politicians are put to work in Michigan. It was likely very easy for Cheeks to get the job though, since her sister is a Detroit Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick and her nephew is Detroit’s disgraced former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. (I’m not sure if Ms. Cheeks’ campaign finances have ever been investigated, but it looks like she’s taking quite a lot of money that was intended for her sister’s political campaign rather than hers.)

2. Brian H. White, who likely violated the Hatch Act by running for Detroit City Council in 2009 while a 2010 Census employee. Mr. White also ran for State Representative from Michigan’s 6th District in 2008.

Update: After doing more research, it appears that because Mr. White’s run for State Representative in 2008 ended before his official start date with the Census Bureau (February, 2009) and that he ran for the non-partisan City Council of Detroit (while still a Census Bureau employee) he was not in violation of the Hatch Act. (I was unable to acquire Mr. White’s start date with the Census Bureau until after he announced it himself in the comments section of this post.) However, that is not to say that Mr. White’s ethics aren’t poor as he ran for office while still employed by the 2010 Census in 2009 and likely applied for his Census Bureau position while still a candidate for a partisan position. Furthermore, did Mr. White use his Census Bureau resources (phone, office, etc.) to conduct a campaign on that taxpayer’s dime? In Cincinnati, Bernadette Watson left her position at the Census Bureau under pressure to run for that city’s non-partisan City Council in 2009. That said, because of Mr. White’s strong political connections, it is unclear what their role was in his being hired by the 2010 Census.

A recent profile of Mr. White states, “White has worked as state director for the Michigan Election Protection initiative; a Base Vote Director for the Michigan Democratic Party; political director of America Votes Michigan; and public policy coordinator for the Detroit branch NAACP. His political career is extensive, but hasn’t included a run for public office, until now. ‘I always knew I’d be involved, politically, but I never imagined being a politician, per se.”‘

However, this is a lie, as Mr. White ran for Detroit City Council in 2009 and his Facebook profile picture reveals a photo of his candidacy for City Council. (And here’s the Facebook  group dedicated to his State Rep. candidacy.)

Let’s not forget Mr. White’s family political connection: He is the older brother of Donnell White, the Deputy Executive Director of the Detroit NAACP.

Here’s the Facebook photo currently on his profile:

And another from the Facebook group for the 2009 City Council campaign:

3. Belda Garza is also a former Michigan State Representative (who was term-limited) turned Partnership Specialist employed by the Detroit Regional Census Center and kept on the job after other employees were fired.

4. Linda Clark is the girlfriend of Charles “Charlie” Beckham, who is an associate of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and works as a top aide to current Detroit Mayor Dave Bing. Mr. Beckham has been under fire for his previous criminal conviction.

Now, after speaking with many 2010 Census employees, not a soul can confirm that any of the aforementioned individuals, including Toine Murphy (who has not returned numerous calls or e-mails from MyTwoCensus.com) have done a stitch of work in the past couple of months, let alone even entered the Detroit office. All of these employees can “work from home” and are issued government cell phones to conduct their activities. (If any news organization has the resources to tail these people, I urge you to find out what they’re really up to!)

If all of this isn’t bad enough, the Detroit Regional Census Office is still being quietly led by a man who is under investigation by the Commerce Department Inspector General.

On June 10, the Census Bureau released the following statement: “Detroit Regional Director Dwight Dean is not currently involved in the management of Regional operations.  This is a personnel matter, and Mr. Dean remains in the employment of the Census Bureau.  In compliance with the Privacy Act, the Census Bureau has no further comment.”

According to his official 2010 Census biography,  “Dwight Dean has served as director of the Detroit Regional Office – one of 12 offices that make up the U.S. Census Bureau’s permanent field organization – since 1987.” Over the course of 23 years, Mr. Dean has apparently been making lots of friends in Detroit, and this is where the investigation really heats up.  MyTwoCensus has confirmed many tips that Dean engaged in acts of cronyism and corruption – including gaining financial stake in a Detroit warehouse in return for providing 2010 Census jobs for the individuals mentioned above and others.

To provide an example of Mr. Dean’s cronyism, he fired a hard-working 2010 Census supervisor with no cause and replaced the man with his secretary’s husband. So, as of today, both Barbara and Brad Cotner are on the 2010 Census payroll. (E-mail them at barbara.cotner@census.gov and bradley.j.cotner@census.gov according to a search today on the Commerce Department’s “Person Finder.”)

Two independent sources confirmed to MyTwoCensus.com that the Commerce Department Inspector General is now investigating Dwight Dean, who remains on the Census Bureau’s payroll (doing what job, nobody will say, and of course he never returns calls or e-mails asking for comment). MyTwoCensus.com has been unable to confirm  tips from readers who claim that other federal agencies are also investigating Mr. Dean for a variety of charges including corruption and abuse of power.

MyTwoCensus urges federal, state, and local officials to prosecute the individuals involved with the Detroit Regional Census Center’s shenanigans to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

So Robert M. Groves (a Michiganian himself) and Steve Jost, how are you going to try to spin this story so the Census Bureau doesn’t come off as a bastion of corruption?

Please keep in mind that the following opinion piece from Matt Schaertl on MPNnow.com doesn’t even factor in many millions of federal dollars that were allocated for 2010 Census PR and advertising in New York:

Canandaigua, N.Y. —

Too frequently, I receive emailed newsletters from Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez, New York’s secretary of state, informing me how her department is doing a terrific job and should be expanded. I do not really know how she received my email address, but it’s good reading when I am in a cynical mood, or when I need something to think about when I wake up in the middle of the night.

In her last newsletter, besides mentioning herself 28 times, she highlights the additional “$2 million in grants to bolster mobilization and media campaigns around the 2010 census,” and how those grants improved returns. What she does not say is that the grants improved the return by only 190,000 people. In other words, taxpayers spent, on average, an additional $50 in advertising for every lazy family of five that can’t manage to walk out to the mailbox, or, perhaps, don’t know where the mailbox or post office is.

She also mentions that because of the extra effort, there were “dozens of non-profits that worked together for the first time.” Wow, dozens out of tens of thousands in the state.

It seems like a more reasonable solution would be to use tax returns and Social Security numbers (dependents are listed on tax returns) backed up with driver licenses to gather census information. Question for Cortes-Vazquez: If 59 percent of state residents responded to the 2000 census and 60 percent responded to the most recent census, then how do they know that the other 40 percent even exist? According to the state website, New York City represents approximately 44 percent of the state’s population; something does not sit right.

Here’s the transcript and info from the latest press briefing. Here are some quotes of interest from Dr. Robert M. Groves:

1. On the second risk—the software systems, the new management team—I can say
honestly now that, although we had a very shaky start with these software systems, with
management interventions that were wisely done from this team, with enormous
dedication from a bunch of software engineers, we have successfully processed
47,000,000 forms through this software system that was designed to do that. It worked. It
wasn’t pretty, but it worked, and we have successfully completed that phase. We have a
few tail-end things that we’re finishing up.

2. The first operation is the biggest we’ll operate, and that’s called Coverage Follow-Up.
That actually began in mid-April, and it should finish up by August 13th. We’re calling on
about 7.5 million households. This is exploiting an innovation in the 2010 Census. If you
remember your form, there were two questions. One, is there someone at your house right
now who normally doesn’t live there? And then for every person you reported, we asked
the question, does this person sometimes live elsewhere? For the houses that checked one
of those boxes, we’re going to call back and make sure, make double sure, that we’ve
counted people once and only once. It is these complicated households where people are
coming and going and living there sometimes and not other times that pose real
challenges to get accurate counts, so we’re calling back on those.

3. The second operation, The Vacant/Delete Check, is about the same size, about 8,000,000
households, and what we’re doing there is going back on a set of households that we’ve
visited over the past few weeks where, when an enumerator went up and knocked on the
door, they determined, he or she determined, that that house was vacant on April 1. We
want to make sure that’s right. We’re going to double check that. We’re going to go back
to that house and redetermine [sic] whether that’s a correct designation for the house.
And then there are other houses on our list that went out over the past few weeks, and
when they went out to locate the house, they saw an empty lot, the house had been
destroyed, or they couldn’t find the house. It looked like our list was inappropriate. And
they marked that as a Delete. We’re going to go back out to those and make sure we got
that right before we finalize the operation.

4. The third operation is called Field Verification. It will began August 6th and it will go
through early September. This is really our last operation in terms of time. It’s pretty
small. We’re going to about 400,000 addresses. This is a check on a set of cases that is,
itself, the result of our efforts to count everyone. So, in March and April, if you didn’t get
a form, we said you could go to a local facility and pick up what we call a Be Counted
form. People did that. Not too many people, but people did it. And on that form we asked
you to write your address. We’ve examined every one of those forms already. And
sometimes, when we look at the address, we can’t match it to anything we have on our
list. On those kinds of cases, we’re going to go back out. We’re going out to that house
and we’re going to make sure we can find it. We can understand the address, we know
what block it’s in, and we can place it correctly in that block.

5. One another note that is useful to make. If you’re out there, or if your audience has the
following thoughts, “Gee, I don’t believe I got a mail questionnaire. I know I didn’t send
it back. I haven’t had anyone knock on my door. I’m afraid I’m not counted.” We still
have a facility for you, an 800 number. 866-872-6868. If you press the right buttons, I’m
told, rather slowly, you will get connected to an interviewer who will take your data right
on the phone. And that’s still open. That’ll be open until the end of July, roughly.

6. This was a short form only census. In 2000, the short-form had a response rate about ten
percentage points than the then long-form. We were counting on this. This was part of the
success. This is really the only way we achieved that 72% mail out response rate, I’m
pretty sure. Secondly, remember we had a bilingual form that was sent to areas that were
disproportionately Spanish-only speakers. We’ve analyzed those data. That thing worked
the way we wanted it to work. It increased the return rate in high prevalence Spanish-
speaking areas, we’re pretty sure. It’s a complicated analysis that will take longer to do,
but we’re pretty sure that thing worked the way we wanted it to.

7. We have a lot of junk on the list.” We deleted about 4.1 million cases in 2010. In 2000, we deleted
6,000,000. We like that contrast. Right? It looks the list is cleaner on the Delete side.

8. In the 2000 cycle, we were able to do reinterviews [sic] on 75% of the interviewers. 75% of the
enumerators got at least one case in their workload redone and checked. We’re essentially
at 100% now; we’re 99. something. That’s a good thing. That means we can say honestly
that a piece of every Census worker’s work was redone, independently, and checked to
see if we found any departures from training guidelines. We like that result.

9. This Vacant/Delete Check will really nail that number, but right now we stand, as of today, we found about 14.3 million vacant
homes versus 9.9 in the 2000 cycle.

10. We have about 47,000,000 households, we have about 565,000
interviewers, it looks like the number of cases that we judged as so severely mismatched
that it could’ve been a fabrication incident is less than a thousand out of those 565,000.
This is, by the way, below what we expected. And we feel good about that, because we
know we’ve sampled work from every interviewer, essentially.

11. Now, the second question is about prosecution. We are not in the prosecution game, as
you know. When there are severe, endemic, large amounts of fabrication, then that’s a
matter where we would call the Inspector General, if they weren’t aware of it already.
They do an independent investigation, and then they would make a recommendation to
the relevant U.S. attorney to prosecute or not prosecute.

12. It is feasible, as the caller noted, that we would count someone both at a soup kitchen one
day and then we would visit an encampment, or a group of people sleeping under an
overpass. When we visit them in the evening, it is very common that those people are
worried about their own safety. They protect themselves in various ways, to make sure
they’re not harmed physically. It is common that when we visit those outdoor locations,
that we can’t get the names and age and race of each individual. They say essentially,
“We don’t want to talk to you.” As a last resort, in those cases, we enumerate, we count,
Person 1, Person 2–  that’s about the best we can do.

13. ANDREA ISHAL: I’m Andrea Ishal,  …(inaudible) Reporters. I wanted to follow up on
one question that came before, and then ask one of my own. You had said that there were
1,000 cases–  was that 1,000 individuals out of 585,000, or was it a thousand cases out of
the 47,000,000.

GROVES: What I wanted to say—and we’re still doing this, so I don’t know the final
numbers—but we’re confident that it will be less than 1,000 people who, in
reinterviewing cases they did, we have judged falsified those cases. That’s 1,000 out of
565,000 roughly.

14. The number, just for talking purposes, in talking about the marginal cost
of calling on a case and doing an interview is about a $57 a household or about $25 a
person. And those are numbers that we’re still working with. We’ll refine those numbers
based on our experience as soon as we collect all the data.

15. JEFF COONER:  The second question was, you were talking about being under budget,
so I wanted to know what the budget was and what we actually spent.

GROVES:  Yea, yea. Well, again, we’re not sure on this. But we’re coming in at the
Non-Response Follow-Up stage at about 70%-75%  of the budget. We’re not through
with that yet, so we’re not able to report on that. But that’s a significant cost savings,
we’re sure. The why of those cost savings are important to note, too. Part of it is our
workload was lower than we were prepared to do. These are good things. We had less
cases than we were ready to call on; that we thought we’d have to call on. The second
thing that happened was, we’re now pretty sure, that the work of this labor force that we
engaged was just smoother. We got cases in faster than we thought. We think the
productivity was greater. I’ve noted several times that we are blessed.

16. SARA HASAID: Hi, Sara Hasaid from AFP. You mentioned that the number of cases in
which you had to appeal to a landlord or a building manager to get information was
higher this time around. Can you give me any sense of actually what those figures are and
why that might be?

GROVES: I can. And it’s roughly 21% or 22% of the 47,000,000 that we went on to
knock on the door. And if you look, it’s a bit of apples and oranges. But if you look at the
2000 rate, that was about 17%, so it’s a little higher. Did you have a second question?

[off mic]

There are a lot of different reasons. This tracks trends and surveys. For those of you who
know a little about surveys, you know it’s harder to get a hold of us than it used to be.
People are at home less frequently, for a lot of complicated reasons. These 47,000,000
households, by the way, are the households that chose not to return the mail
questionnaire. These are really busy people. And so that’s part of it. And there’s a
reluctance in that contrast between 17% and 22% that we don’t know the components of
yet. People who open the door, they’re at home, but they say, “I don’t want to do this.”
And we go back repeatedly, we send different enumerators, and as a last resort, then we’ll
ask a building manager or a neighbor.

Well, folks, you heard it here first. (Don’t forget that!) Now, let’s hope that the New York news organizations will pick up on the following info. As usual the Census Bureau releases critical information on a Friday afternoon in the summer time hoping that the media mavens in New York are already on their way to the Hamptons and will forget about this by Monday. How much will this operation cost taxpayers? Will the fired officials be charged with crimes? Here’s a Census Bureau Press Release:

Quality checks reveal work must be redone to ensure complete accurate count

WASHINGTON, June 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The U.S. Census Bureau today announced that checks on the quality of some of the work in the Brooklyn North East local census office (LCO) have led to a replacement of the management of that office, and to the judgment that at least 10,000 household interviews will have to be redone to ensure a complete and accurate count.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090226/CENSUSLOGO)

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090226/CENSUSLOGO)

“I want to stress that our highest priority is to get a complete and accurate count in 2010 for Brooklyn, and while I regret some of the work must be redone, I’m sure the people of Brooklyn share in the goal of getting this right,” said Regional Director Tony Farthing.

Census officials from the New York Regional Office and the Suitland, Maryland headquarters visited the LCO this week following up on concerns raised by some employees in the LCO that the management there was not following established procedures. Senior managers confirmed that a variety of training and processing standards had recently been neglected in the LCO.  The New York Regional Office has replaced the LCO management with two experienced managers who are very familiar with the communities in the affected area. The systematic review of processing steps continues, and may lead to more household re-interviews. A physical inspection of a sample of census questionnaires pointed to a recent breakdown and failure to follow quality standards that must be met by every local census office.

Regional Director Tony Farthing said that the new LCO team will be in the field beginning this weekend to ensure all enumerator interviews are conducted properly and that any suspect interviews will be redone with new interviews of the households. He said he felt confident all the work can be completed before the end of door to door enumeration, but that work would continue until the Bureau is satisfied of the quality.

Editor’s note: News releases, reports and data tables are available on the Census Bureau’s home page. Go to http://www.census.gov and click on “Releases.”

MyTwoCensus.com is appreciative that Congressman Patrick McHenry’s office has taken up this issue. Now, we hope that William Lacy Clay and the House Democrats also jump on board to make this a bi-partisan effort…

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Josh Kahn June 17, 2010

McHenry: Why Is a Census Official Tied to the Blagojevich Scandal?

WASHINGTON, DC… Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC), sent the following letter to U.S. Census Director Dr. Robert Groves questioning the Bureau about a local Census official tied to the Blagojevich trial. Rep. McHenry is the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee overseeing the Census.  The letter is below: June 17, 2010 Robert Groves Director U.S. Census Bureau 4600 Silver Hill Road Suitland, MD 20746 Dear Dr. Groves: This week the director of a Census Bureau office in Chicago, Joseph Aramanda, appeared as a witness in former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s corruption trial.  Although Mr. Aramanda testified under immunity and so will not be charged himself, he was involved in some extremely questionable money transfers at the direction of Blagojevich associate Tony Rezko. This is unacceptable.  The Census is too important to be caught up in a corruption trial.  Mr. Aramanda manages a significant number of employees and his deep involvement in the Blagojevich scandal tarnishes the reputation of the 2010 Census. I strongly encourage you to reassess Mr. Aramanda’s employment status with the Bureau.  I would appreciate your quick response on this timely issue. Sincerely, Patrick T. McHenry Ranking Member Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives

First, here’s some background: States and municipalities have the power to challenge census results. For instance, just this year the Census Bureau admitted that its numbers were faulty for a number of locales around the country and eventually adjusted the totals, immediately effecting how federal funds were/are distributed. A few days ago, Microsoft released a press release stating that it is now operating a software system for the state of Florida that will help the state identify areas where the Census Bureau may have screwed up and failed to count people.

(Check out the site here at myfloridacensus.com)

site note: maybe I should sue Microsoft/the state of Florida for infringing on the mytwocensus name with myfloridacensus? any lawyers out there want to advise me on this one?

The press release states the following:

“The Florida House of Representatives is making one final push over the next month for its state residents to be counted in the 2010 Census, through its MyFloridaCensus (http://www.myfloridacensus.gov) website and Web-based application. MyFloridaCensus is an innovative component in Florida’s overall effort to ensure a complete count of residents during the ongoing 2010 Census, supplementing door-to-door canvassing, which ends nationwide July 10.”

Ostensibly, if Florida doesn’t like its total population count as identified by the Census Bureau, it will happily use data collected through myfloridacensus.com to fight the Census Bureau in its challenge. Does this mean that the stage is already being set for yet another bloody recount in Florida, this one to take place in 2011, ten years after the last one rocked the nation and changed the course of history?

The Census Bureau posted the remarks that Census Bureau Director Dr. Robert M. Groves made today online before they were actually said in public, so there wasn’t much of a need to live-blog the event. Please find the speech from Dr. Groves HERE, but I will also provide you with commentary and highlights below…

Here are the highlights from Dr. Groves’ speech and MyTwoCensus commentary (being updated as it is typed):

Dr. Groves says: “As I reported in our last briefing, one area of concern was our paper-based operational control system (PBOCS). Despite major problems at the onset, the system is starting to stabilize, and we are cautiously optimistic that we may be catching up on the check-in process.”

MyTwoCensus Commentary: Are you kidding me? Starting to stabilize? This system was developed two years ago and this operation is already more than halfway through its allotted time period. How can you spin this “cautious optimism” as a solution to a $3 billion operation?

Dr. Groves says, “The problems with this system seriously slowed the check-in of group quarters and enumerator forms in the field. Several field operations were affected. And we have had to implement separate alternative methods to handle the check-out and shipping of forms to the data capture
centers.”

MyTwoCensus Commentary: What are these “separate alternative methods?” Is the data safe using alternative methods? What are the costs of designing, implementing, and activating these new systems?

Dr. Groves says, “In the first week of the door-to-door (non-response follow-up) operation, the system was not reliable; work was assigned to enumerators through a manual backup to make sure that the no harm was done to completing the field work. ”

MyTwoCensus Commentary: What about the millions of taxpayer dollars that were wasted as workers just sat around doing nothing while they waited for assignments? Isn’t “harm” being done because the operation has a limited budget and wasted time means that the real work won’t be able to get done later on?

Dr. Groves says: “Right now the system is letting us check in about two million forms a day and if this pace continues we should be able to catch up.”

MyTwoCensus Commentary: And what if this pace doesn’t continue because the system continues to crash and operate without stability as it has all along? There have been a multitude of reports to MyTwoCensus that completed questionnaires are literally piling up by the thousands at local census offices because the “system” is unable to process them in a timely fashion. This results in the appearance that residences were not visited, and then enumerators get sent BACK into the field to re-enumerate the same individuals whose completed questionnaires are laying around collecting dust at an office until they are put into the system.

Stay tuned for tomorrow, when I will rail and rail and rail against the Census Bureau for their lax fingerprinting procedures. (This is something that I have been writing about for OVER A YEAR NOW, and the Census Bureau only changed their policies once a sex offender was hired and a handicapped woman was raped. Both of these incidents would have been unnecessary had the Census Bureau listened to the advice I and others posted on MyTwoCensus.com…)

Of course the PR and spin forces will be at work, but hopefully the media does its best to fight them…please leave your questions for Dr. Groves in the comments section. I will live-blog this event later today:

NewswireToday – /newswire/ – Washington, DC, United States, 06/01/2010 – U.S Census Bureau Director Robert M. Groves will brief the media on the status of 2010 Census operations.

What:
U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert M. Groves will brief the media on the status of 2010 Census operations. One month into the door-to-door follow-up phase of operations, Groves will provide updates on America’s progress in responding to the 2010 Census. He will offer his views on where we are in the process and look ahead to future field operations. The briefing will include a media question-and-answer session.

When:
Wednesday, June 2, noon to 1 pm (EDT)

Who:
Robert M. Groves, director, U.S. Census Bureau
Fernando E. Armstrong, regional director, Philadelphia Regional Office

Where:
National Press Club, 13th floor
Holeman Lounge
529 14th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20045

The following statement comes to me from Stephen Buckner of the Census Bureau’s Public Information Office:

Statement on O’Keefe Taping of Census Bureau Staff

“Census Bureau policies and training are clear and require all employees to honestly submit accurate time records. Workers are instructed to report hours they work, which would include their time traveling to and from training. This is no different than the training session that Mr. O’Keefe attended in New Jersey, and during his previous employment with the Census Bureau last year. In his video, Mr. O’Keefe, an admitted criminal, does not disclose that he previously worked for the Census Bureau for nearly 2 months in 2009 without incident, allegation or complaint. That employment with us was well before his indictment and prior to his conviction of a federal crime last week.  The Census Bureau obviously does not condone any falsifying of or tampering with timesheets by its employees. We are investigating the allegations in Mr. O’Keefe’s selectively edited video and will take appropriate administrative action with staff as warranted. ”

Background:

· Policies, procedures and training sessions clearly instruct employees to record the hours they work, which includes payment for the actual time traveling to and from training sessions. Mr. O’Keefe clearly did not include that, or the fact that part of his raw footage also shows trainers instructing new employees that they must record their mileage accurately.

· Mr. O’Keefe implies that the tapings occurred while he was still employed by the Census Bureau.  In fact, most of his video taping took place after his Census Bureau employment ended.  The Census Bureau’s stringent background check disqualifies individuals with pending federal charges or criminal offenses.  After O’Keefe’s background check came back, he quit before any action could be taken.

· None of the other new hires or Census Bureau staff attending the training sessions that were taped were notified or granted permission to be filmed in Mr. O’Keefe’s video. Many states have laws against such surreptitious tapings.

· Mr. O’Keefe, like all census workers, took a confidentiality oath for life to protect census data — the Census Bureau cannot by law disclose any personal information about a household or respondent that could identify them. We take this very seriously at the Census Bureau.