This is incredibly alarming considering the bureau, which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, gathers personal information about every individual who lives in the United States. The information, especially the decennial count of people living in the country, is used by the government to determine representation in Congress and federal funding for states.

Incredibly, the agency is not protecting the confidentiality of its data, according to the findings of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress. A report issued this week reveals that the Census Bureau is not effectively implementing information security controls to protect the computer system that holds all the data.

Controls designed to regulate who or what can access the Census Bureau’s systems are a major problem, the probe found, because the agency doesn’t bother identifying or authenticating users or restricting access to only those necessary to perform official duties. It also fails to implement appropriate physical security controls and doesn’t properly encrypt data in transmission and at rest.

“Until the bureau implements a complete and comprehensive security program, it will have limited assurance that its information and systems are being adequately protected against unauthorized access, use, disclosure, modification, disruption, or loss,” the report states. It goes on to point out the obvious: “A data breach could result in the public’s loss of confidence in the bureau and could affect its ability to collect census data.”

Americans may have lost confidence in the Census Bureau long ago considering its many transgressions. As far back as 2008, congressional investigators determined that the bureau had severe information technology shortcomings that made the 2010 census a high-risk operation. More than five years later nothing has changed and in fact, the Department of Commerce “expressed broad agreement” with the audit’s findings.

It seems the agency does little in the way of security. As the 2010 count approached, it actually hired violent criminals to enter the homes of unsuspecting residents to gather data. The astounding information was made public in a federal audit that revealed the bureau failed to adequately conduct mandatory background checks for tens of thousands of temporary census workers, clearing hundreds of violent criminals in the process.  

Around the same time, the Census Bureau’s deputy director (Preston Jay Waite) created a ruckus when he demanded federal agents cease immigration raids during the 2010 count so the government can get an accurate tally of people in the country illegally.

The unprecedented effort to reach illegal immigrants included spending $26 million to send Spanish-language questionnaires directly to homes for the first time in the decennial count’s history.  It marked the first time that the government sent to entire regions census forms in a language other than English.

Prior to that, the Census Bureau partnered with a fraud-infested community group (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN) when it was under criminal investigation nationwide. Congress eventually cut ACORN’s funding and the group claimed to shut down but has simply rebranded. Read about it in this special Judicial Watch report.

The scandal broke several weeks ago in south Florida’s Palm Beach County where the supervisor of elections set off a statewide probe after discovering questionable forms coming from Strategic Allied Consulting, an Arizona-based firm. The Republican National Committee (RNC) has paid Strategic Allied Consulting $3 million to register new voters in several states, according to news reports, and Florida’s GOP has doled out an additional $1.3 million.

Now the number of counties in Florida, a key battleground state, that have reported questionable voter registration forms connected to the consulting firm has grown to 10. The tainted forms include discrepancies in addresses, signatures and other identifying information. The scandal has led the RNC and several of its state chapters to fire Strategic Allied Consulting, which is under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

One of Florida’s largest newspapers went so far as to compare this to the rampant, nationwide voter registration fraud caused by the “community group” ACORN during the 2008 presidential election (read all about that in a Judicial Watch special report). “Remember all that talk from Republicans about voter fraud?  Well, it ain’t just for ACORN anymore,” the paper’s political reporter writes in a story published over the weekend. .   

Though any allegation of voter fraud is serious and must be thoroughly investigated by authorities, it seems a bit premature to compare this to the massive ACORN scandal that rocked the last presidential election. Seventy ACORN employees in 12 states have been convicted of voter registration fraud and a congressional report revealed that more than one-third of the 1.3 million registrants submitted by the group in the 2008 election cycle were invalid.

Whether the fraud is tied to Republicans or Democrats, Judicial Watch is monitoring this closely through its 2012 Election Integrity Project to assure that voter rolls are as clean as required by federal law. Through publicly available data, JW has already discovered that voter rolls in several states—including Mississippi, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Texas, Florida, Alabama, California and Colorado—contain the names of individuals who are not eligible to vote.

The recent payout was discovered in the course of Judicial Watch’s ongoing investigation of the Obama-tied community organization that operated fraudulent voter registration drives during the 2008 presidential campaign. Last year JW published a special report (“The Rebranding of ACORN”) outlining ACORN’s illegal activities, including its involvement in the housing market meltdown.

ACORN members also embezzled at least  $5 million under the helm of founder Wade Rathke and his brother, Dale Rathke, the group’s former chief financial officer. In fact, Dale got busted for stealing $1 million from ACORN in 2000 and the money came mostly from the nonprofit’s in-house retirement fund, known as the ACORN Beneficial Association (ABA). ACORN executives kept the crime from board members and law enforcement, according to media reports.

Last month the ABA liquidated and distributed more than $10 million in assets to ACORN veterans and union organizers, JW’s probe found. ACORN founder Wade Rathke actually brags about it on his blog, where he writes: “For some of the people who I hired in the early 70’s who logged in 10, 20, and even 30 years working with me, these transfers are serious money in the six figures. A couple of my long time union organizers with Local 100 are looking at enough money to think about trying to buy houses for the first time, retire debts, and put aside savings.” 

This is a disgrace considering that, despite a myriad of legal scandals, ACORN for years enjoyed a huge flow of taxpayer dollars to promote its various leftwing causes. Congress could no longer ignore the issue and finally passed a law in 2009 banning federal funding for the Chicago-based community activist organization. The measure specifically prohibits any federal contract, grant, cooperative agreement or other form of agreement from being awarded to any ACORN affiliate or associate.

The Obama Administration has still managed to slip its various spinoffs some cash, however. Last year JW uncovered documents that show an ACORN reincarnation called Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) got a $79,819 grant to “combat housing and lending discrimination.” The money came via the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as part of a $40 million effort to educate the public and combat discrimination.

Known as an advocate of education equality for poor minorities, Democrat Shirley Huntley got hauled away in handcuffs last week and slapped with a 20-count indictment that includes felonies such as tampering with evidence and falsifying business records. Huntley stole nearly $30,000 she steered to a fake charity that claimed to help poor parents navigate the city’s school system, according to the indictment.

The 74-year-old state senator named her sham nonprofit Parent Workshop, according to the New York Attorney General’s office.  The fake charity claimed to help low-income folks deal with the city’s huge and complicated public school system. Instead, authorities say, the money was pocketed by Huntley’s niece, who served as the group’s treasurer, and another man, who is listed as president. 

It turns out that Huntley ran for office on both the Democratic and Working Families Party (WFP) tickets, according to New York State election results reviewed by Judicial Watch. This is relevant because the WFP has very close ties to the famously corrupt nonprofit with close ties to President Obama, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). In fact, JW found that the WFP shares office space in Brooklyn with two ACORN spinoffs, New York Communities for Change (NYCC) and the Mutual Housing Association of New York. 

When ACORN finally got busted for fraud, Congress cut its federal funding (Defund ACORN Act) and the group simply rebranded, creating a series of spinoffs operated by the same crooked people. Read all about it in a Judicial Watch special report born out of an extensive investigation that tracked the group and its affiliated organizations throughout the United States. The probe also revealed that tens of millions of dollars in ACORN’s funds and other assets are still unaccounted for.

Additionally, Huntley’s WFP is essentially a political operation of various unions, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  In fact, the WFP was co-founded by Patrick Gaspard, the SEIU’s political vice president before moving on the White House and the Democratic National Committee, former ACORN chairwoman Bertha Lewis and two other union bigwigs. Between 2006 and 2010, the SEIU gave $29,000 to Sen. Huntley’s campaign, JW’s probe found.

Here’s an interesting side note on the indicted state senator; in a show of solidarity with a black juvenile delinquent shot in Florida by a Hispanic man after an altercation, Huntley posted an amusing photo of herself on her official government website. She appears in a hooded sweatshirt, similar to the one worn by the teen, who had been suspended from school, when he got shot. In the caption, Senator Huntley claims “I am Trayvon Martin.”   

Interest Group Urges Justice Official to “make some headway” with Attorney General Holder

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the organization that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that it has received additional documents about meetings held between Estelle Rogers, Director of Advocacy for the ACORN-affiliated organization Project Vote, and officials from the Obama White House and the Department of Justice (DOJ). Judicial Watch is investigating the extent to which Project Vote, which once employed Barack Obama, has been working with the Obama administration to use voter registration laws to register greater numbers of low-income voters, widely considered to be an important voting demographic for the Obama presidential campaign.

The additional documents, provided in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch on August 19, 2011, detail email communications between Rogers and high ranking officials from the Obama White House and DOJ. The following are highlights from the records:

• On April 27, 2009, Estelle Rogers wrote to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sam Hirsh regarding an upcoming meeting on April 30, 2009. In addition to Rogers and Hirsh, other  attendees included: Nicole Kovite, Director of Public Agency Project for Project Vote; Spencer Overton, Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy; and two officials from the Obama White House: Celia Muñoz, then-Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and recently promoted to Director of the Domestic Policy Council; and Tino Cuellar, Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy.

In her email, Rogers references documents she forwarded in preparation for the upcoming meeting on the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), to which Hirsch replies that he looks forward to “reading these materials” and to “seeing everyone on Thursday.”

• On February 23, 2011, Rogers wrote to Associate Deputy Attorney General Robert Weiner, asking him to “make some headway with Attorney General [Eric] Holder in enforcing Section 7 of the NVRA.” The email notes that the DOJ had not yet filed any Section 7 lawsuits, which Rogers dubbed “deeply disappointing.”  The first such DOJ lawsuit (against Rhode Island) was filed on March 18, 2011, less than one month later. Of particular note, is Rogers’ comment that “We have received oral assurances from [Assistant Attorney General Thomas] Perez on several occasions that enforcement action was imminent,” suggesting that Rogers was privy to internal discussions inside the DOJ regarding pending legal action.

• On March 29, 2011, Rogers wrote to Associate Attorney General [Thomas] Perrelli, urging him to review and “make improvements” to a document she was sending following another meeting held on March 17, 2011 between Project Vote and the DOJ on Section 7 compliance with the NRVA.  Accompanying the document was a previous letter she had sent to the Civil Rights Division plus “additional comments on the Q and A.”

On December 14, 2011, Judicial Watch released a separate batch of documents which also detail the partnership between the Obama DOJ and Project Vote.

As Director of Advocacy for Project Vote, Estelle Rogers ‒ a former attorney for ACORN, which was besieged with charges of corruption before declaring bankruptcy in November 2010 ‒ is a primary contact person on policy matters at Project Vote on both state and federal levels and has been actively involved in voter registration issues. Using the threat of a lawsuit under the NVRA, Project Vote has aggressively sought to manipulate voter registration laws in various states to increase the registration of people receiving public assistance.

On August 4, 2011, Judicial Watch released documents obtained from the Colorado Department of State showing that ACORN and Project Vote successfully pressured Colorado officials into implementing new policies for increasing the registration of public assistance recipients during the 2008 and 2010 election seasons. Following the policy changes, the percentage of invalid voter registration forms from Colorado public assistance agencies was four times the national average. Project Vote also sought a “legislative fix” to allow people without a driver’s license or state identification to register to vote online.

In addition to pursuing public agency registration cases in Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, Georgia and New Mexico, Project Vote and the NAACP filed a lawsuit on April 19, 2011, against the State of Louisiana alleging violations of the NVRA. Less than three months later, on July 12, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division/Voting Section sued Louisiana on the same grounds, claiming that “Louisiana officials have not routinely offered voter registration forms, assistance and services to the state’s eligible citizens who apply, recertify or provide a change address for public assistance or disability services.”

The DOJ’s March 11, 2011, lawsuit against Rhode Island led to policy changes intended to increase the number of voter registration applications processed by “public assistance and disability service officers.” These two lawsuits, filed within five months of each other, are the first such lawsuits filed by the DOJ since 2007.

Project Vote and ACORN have both been linked to massive voter registration fraud. A total of 70 ACORN employees in 12 states have been convicted of voter registration fraud. And as documented in a July 2009 report by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, of the 1.3 million registrations Project Vote/ACORN submitted in the 2008 election cycle, more than one-third were invalid.

“These documents raise fundamental questions about the politicization of the Justice Department under Eric Holder and demonstrate that the ACORN-connected Project Vote is throwing its weight around the Justice Department and driving the agency’s voting rights agenda. And evidently the Obama White House is now directly implicated in this growing scandal,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. “It is now clear that Project Vote and the Obama/Holder Justice Department are conspiring to file Justice Department lawsuits to help re-elect Barack Obama. This collusion between Project Vote and the Obama administration is a significant threat to the integrity of the 2012 elections. To have Project Vote involved in the Justice voting rights enforcement is like having the Mafia run the FBI.”

It marks the latest of several controversies for the DOJ’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) which has managed to maintain a copious budget through the years despite multiple allegations of cronyism. During the George W. Bush Administration, the OJJDP was accused of giving money to politically-connected groups that didn’t necessarily meet the agency’s goals.

This week the DOJ Inspector General released a report that exposes corruption surrounding a $138,130 grant that OJJDP awarded to an ACORN branch in New York City. The audit found that there were internal control weaknesses, unsupported grant expenditures, lack of contractor monitoring, weaknesses in budget management, inadequate grant reporting, unmet conditions and deficiencies with the program’s overall performance.

The IG also describes the New York group as a “pass-through entity” for ACORN, the crooked nonprofit that’s raked in huge sums of taxpayer dollars over the years. In 2009 Congress actually passed a law (Defund ACORN Act) to ban federal funding for ACORN after a series of exposés about the group’s illegal activities, which include fraudulent voter registration drives and involvement in the housing market meltdown. The group also has close ties to President Barack Obama.

Earlier this year a Judicial Watch probe found that the Obama Administration violated the ban on federal funding for ACORN by giving the beleaguered group nearly $80,000 to “combat housing and lending discrimination” against minorities. After sorting through droves of government records, Judicial Watch investigators discovered that an ACORN affiliate in New Orleans, ACORN Housing Corporation Inc., got $79,819 as part of a larger $40 million allocation to “fair housing organizations” that educate the public and combat discrimination.

This year Judicial Watch also published a special report (“The Rebranding of ACORN”) about the organization’s transformation into various spinoffs and affiliated groups. Amid a massive fraud scandal and a series of criminal probes, ACORN supposedly dismantled but the reality is that it simply changed its name. For instance, under the rebranding New England United 4 Justice, ACORN has been one of the driving forces behind the movement to end economic segregation and social injustice in the U.S. (Occupy Wall Street).

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the public interest organization that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released “The Rebranding of ACORN,” a special report on the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) network, following an extensive investigation of the organization’s transformation into various “spinoffs” and affiliated organizations.

The ACORN-affiliated groups existing today are ACORN in all but name. These groups tend to occupy ACORN’s former offices, are staffed in many cases with former ACORN employees, and remain committed to ACORN’s mission. Judicial Watch has documented 17 ACORN-affiliated organizations in the following states/regions:  Arizona, Arkansas, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, New England, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington.

Among the conclusions of Judicial Watch’s special report:

• ACORN lives on in the form of numerous state entities and in such affiliated organizations as Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA), The Advance Group, The Black Institute, and Project Vote.  In the words of Bertha Lewis, former chief executive officer of ACORN, “… these entities are carrying on ACORN’s work of organizing low- and moderate-income folks…  [We have created] bullet-proof community-organizing Frankensteins that they’re going to have a very hard time attacking.”

• Tens of millions of dollars in ACORN’s funds and other assets are still unaccounted for.  The Louisiana attorney general’s office and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, as well as Judicial Watch, continue to investigate what happened to these missing resources.

• Judicial Watch discovered that the Obama administration continues to bankroll ACORN and its affiliates in defiance of the federal government’s funding ban.  For example, on March 1, 2011, ACORN Housing Corporation ─ renamed Affordable Housing Centers of America (though it retained the same headquarters and many of the ACORN officers) ─ received a $79,819 grant from the Obama Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

• ACORN’s Project Vote, President Obama’s former employer, remains active in trying to register a “Food Stamp Army” of voters on public assistance to re-elect Obama and other leftist candidates.  In Colorado, for instance, Judicial Watch uncovered documents proving that ACORN/Project Vote successfully pressured Colorado officials into implementing new policies for increasing the registration of public assistance recipients during the 2008 and 2010 election seasons.  After the policy changes, the percentage of fraudulent voter registration forms from Colorado public assistance agencies was  four times the national average.  Evidence suggests the Obama Justice Department might be partnering with Project Vote in this campaign.

At its peak, ACORN had over 400,000 members and 1,200 chapters in more 100 cities.  Linked to serious scandals involving misuse of taxpayer funds, embezzlement, intimidation tactics, employee abuse, questionable hiring tactics, and fraudulent voter registrations, ACORN’s corrupt activities finally caught the attention of the American public and members of Congress, the final blow coming after explosive journalist videos were released showing ACORN employees advising undercover reporters on how to evade taxes, as well as immigration, housing, and child prostitution laws.

After the videos “went viral,” in October 2009, Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the Defund ACORN Act which effectively prohibited the federal government from funding “ACORN and any ACORN-related affiliate.”  ACORN subsequently filed for bankruptcy on November 2, 2010.   Long before its bankruptcy filing, however, ACORN’s leadership implemented a plan to ensure the survival of ACORN as independent state corporations and affiliated organizations.  The Judicial Watch report provides details on the individual organizations and their officers.

“As this report clearly shows, rumors of ACORN’s demise are vastly overstated.  The ACORN network, especially its partner in crime Project Vote, is alive and well and operating across the country,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton.  “The Obama, administration, sure enough, has begun funding the ACORN housing group in violation of the law.  We fear a taxpayer-funded repeat of the ACORN/Project Vote voter registration scandal in 2012.”

Barack Obama served as the Illinois executive director of the ACORN partner Project Vote in 1992. His campaign paid more than $800,000 to an ACORN organization to help “get out the vote” in his successful primary campaign against then-Sen. Hillary Clinton in 2008.  In November 2007, then-Senator Obama addressed ACORN and thanked the organization for its work: “I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”

“Barack Obama is truly ‘the president from ACORN,’” added Tom Fitton.

To review the comprehensive report by Judicial Watch entitled “The Rebranding of ACORN,” please visit www.judicialwatch.org. 

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Contact Information:
Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305g

1. Documents Uncovered

Percentage of Invalid Voter Registrations from Public Assistance Agencies in Colorado More Than Four Times the National Average in 2009-2010; Sought “Legislative Fix” to allow People without a Driver’s License or State Identification to Register to Vote Online

Contact Information:
Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it uncovered documents from the Colorado Department of State showing that ACORN and its affiliate, Project Vote, successfully pressured Colorado officials to implement new policies for increasing the registration of public assistance recipients during the 2008 and 2010 election seasons. Following the policy changes, the percentage of invalid voter registration forms from Colorado public assistance agencies was four times the national average.