The Obama administration plans to require large employers to peel back the curtain on how much they pay men and women in a push to narrow long-standing earning gaps between the genders.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will roll out details of the plan Friday to begin gathering a summary of pay data from employers with 100 or more workers.

Leave aside the lack of validity of the data so confiscated by the government.

Statisticians and economists note…that analyzing wage disparities is a complex undertaking, and that aggregating data about many occupations is especially tricky.

“You can’t compare apples and oranges in the same group and draw meaningful conclusions,” said David Cohen, president of DCI Consulting Group, a Washington, DC, firm that conducts pay-equity analyses for companies. “You’re going to get too many false positives and too many false negatives.”

Beyond that, far beyond that, the data are none of the government’s business absent a specific allegation of wrong-doing. If there is a specific complaint—not a blanket fishing expedition borne of this administration’s FDR-esque paranoia about business in general—then get a warrant upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized, just like the 4^th Amendment requires.