The Census Bureau may have pioneered the development of modern computers, but it wants no part of innovative people-counting - it won't be using the Internet to gather America's millennial number.
"We've decided that we're not going to be a leader in this area," said Judith W. Waldrop, a Census Bureau official. "Census 2000 is just too important for us to be finding new pathways."
The Census Bureau - where Herman Hollerith developed the punch card system and the first successful computer, used to help tabulate the 1890 count - said it couldn't count on current electronic security.
"Any perception of a security problem is likely to have the Americans ... reduce their response rate," said Waldrop. "It's a big issue."
Waldrop said the bureau probably would use the Net to count heads in 2010.
