Intrusive inspectors: renters' privacy.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Citings - Housing inspection

IN RED WING, Minnesota," it is easier for the government to force its way into the homes of law-abiding citizens than it is to search the home of a suspected criminal" notes the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm. That's because a 2006 ordinance lets housing inspectors roam people's apartments to make sure they're up to code. In December the Minnesota Supreme Court agreed to hear a case in which the institute is challenging the ordinance as a violation of the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches.

The city requires the inspections as a condition of granting rental licenses to landlords. If a landlord or occupant does not agree to an inspection, the city can ask a judge for a warrant. But because the visits are classified as "administrative inspections" the city does not have to show there is any reason to suspect a particular building is substandard. Armed with administrative warrants, inspectors can poke their noses into tenants' bedrooms, bathrooms, closets, and even, until a recent revision of the law, refrigerators and medicine cabinets.

Although they are ostensibly looking for hazards that need to be corrected, they are expected to report evidence of certain...