If you don't want the strings, don't take the money

The above line is often given as a defense of government regulations that accompany subsidies. What typically happens is that the federal government steals your money, then refuses to give it back (not even to you, but to your state government) until you pass the laws it thinks you should. If you don't want your state to have stricter drunk-driving laws, well, then you should just refuse federal transportation money and get nothing from the federal tax you paid. That's fair!

It seems a DA in San Diego is using the same tactic with welfare recipients:

[The] D.A.'s office has been sending agents to conduct suspicionless, warrantless searches on the private homes of welfare applicants.

Yes, applicants were free to refuse the searches ... [but that] means forfeiting welfare benefits.

This is a little different from the tax example -- the welfare money didn't come from the welfare recipients the way that transportation money comes from the taxpayers it's being denied to. But it's the same bribe-them-to-give-up-their-core-rights principle, and it's sad the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. The government shouldn't use poverty relief as leverage against the Fourth Amendment.