Open door policy

In dispatching employees of the district attorney’s office to conduct surprise “walk-throughs” through the residences of welfare applicants, San Diego County may be violating more privacy than is necessary to deter fraud. Perhaps the element of surprise isn’t needed to verify whether an applicant is caring for a child and is not concealing financial assets or the presence of a supposedly “absent” parent.

But even if the San Diego policy is unwise or insensitive, it doesn’t follow that it violates the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. That was the sensible conclusion of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which the Supreme Court this week refused to review. Both courts are being accused of eviscerating Americans’ privacy rights, but it’s a bum rap.

Contrary to popular belief, not every search by an agent of the government requires a warrant based on probable cause of criminal wrongdoing. Otherwise health and safety inspectors couldn’t conduct unannounced inspections of schools, restaurants and workplaces. Americans do have an elevated expectation of privacy in their homes, but even there the Supreme Court has held that government may inspect the premises -- without a warrant -- to ensure that the residents aren’t wrongly claiming government benefits.

That was the issue in a 1971 case in which the high court ruled that New York officials didn’t violate the privacy rights of a mother by terminating her benefits when she refused to allow a caseworker to visit the home where she lived with her 2-year-old son. Although it isn’t a perfect match, San Diego County’s policy is sufficiently similar to fall under the same constitutional rule.

Like New York, San Diego County cuts off benefits to welfare recipients who refuse to open the door to government employees -- in this case, an investigator from the district attorney’s office. Applicants for assistance are told that a home visit will take place during business hours, but they aren’t provided with the date or time. Typically the walk-through occurs within 10 days of the filing of an application. (Los Angeles County also requires applicants to consent to a home visit -- by an employee of the Department of Public Social Services rather than an employee of the D.A.)

We recognize that an investigator from the district attorney’s office may cast a more intrusive shadow than a caseworker. But in both instances, the object is the same: to determine whether a recipient is eligible for public funds, not to engage in a fishing expedition for evidence of criminal wrongdoing. In San Diego County, the information gathered is turned over to a “welfare eligibility technician,” not a law enforcement officer.

San Diego County may decide that walk-throughs -- even those scheduled for a particular time -- aren’t necessary to detect and deter welfare fraud. School records, for example, might be an alternative way of confirming the existence of a dependent child. But the issue before the courts wasn’t the wisdom of the county’s policy, it was whether it violated the Constitution. It’s not surprising that even liberal members of the Supreme Court saw no need to revisit that question.