Renting away our rights: Bureaucrats shouldn’t be able to drop into homes, uninvited

The Washington Times reports:

The city of Red Wing, Minn., adopted a city ordinance authorizing local bureaucrats to barge into the home of anyone who happens to be a renter. The purported intent was to identify building code violations — in the name of safety, naturally. The regulation even specified “containers, drawers, or medicine cabinets” could not be opened and their contents examined unless “reasonably necessary.” Once these nosy civil servants started having a look around, they didn’t identify serious, life-threatening flaws in crumbling buildings. Instead, they took note of missing doorstops and dirty stovetops, situations for which they demanded correction. Understandably, some residents and landlords had a problem with this practice. With the help of the Institute for Justice (IJ), those affected filed a lawsuit in 2006 to force the city to respect their privacy.

The struggle against Big Brother.