Semiannual Report, Sept 2008: “The ability of the U.S. Census Bureau to successfully conduct its constitutionally mandated decennial count of U.S. residents in 2010 is at serious risk. After spending 8 years developing a completely new approach to census-taking—one that was to automate major field operations—the bureau scrapped plans for using handheld computer technology for the largest and most expensive of these operations, known as nonresponse follow-up, because of significant performance problems and loss of confidence in the Field Data Collection Automation (FDCA) contractor. It will now conduct this operation using paper and pencil, as it has done in previous censuses.”