Having been involved with several open government initiatives in the past five years, both as a consumer and as a consultant to municipal governments trying to

Having been involved with several open government initiatives in the past five years, both as a consumer and as a consultant to municipal governments trying to to take positive action. I can understand the frustration and anger that such initiatives can provoke. And how it's almost worse when an initiative almost completes it's aim but is perverted by incidental contact with some outside agenda. That said, any politician who attempts to rig the national census is an idiot. Yes it may win your party momentary advantage this year, but at the cost of causing the government to abandon the reality principle altogether. I'd go so far as to say that doing away with accurate data gathering and attempting to suborn demographic statistics to meet political goals is a pathological symptom of the Beige Fascism [1] failure mode of representative democracy. 1. See Charles Stross's excellent summary of the issue http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/political-failure-modes-and-th.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/politica...