I’ve heard the story before that Rep. Michelle Bachmann had once said that the census would be used to put Americans in internment camps, the latest from Ron Reagan last night on Hardball (emphasis mine):
REAGAN: And you know this is—you know, Michele Bachmann is a woman who just a little while ago, sitting with Glenn Beck—and when you make Glenn Beck look sane, you know you‘re really doing something. She suggested that the Census form was actually a secret plot by the government to place Americans in internment camps. Now, you know, this is not the sort of stuff that‘s going to fly with most Americans out there — 20 percent of America, maybe half the Republican Party, perhaps, but not most Americans. This isn‘t going to get the job done in 2012, that‘s for sure.
No, that’s not what she said. Here’s the video and transcript:
“Take this into consideration. If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that’s how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps,” said Bachmann. “I’m not saying that that’s what the Administration is planning to do, but I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up, in a violation of their constitutional rights, and put the Japanese in internment camps.”
So, she didn’t say what Reagan said she said. She voiced a worry on how the Census is being conducted and the privacy of that data. What’s so crazy about this?