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An engineer employed by one of the Federal Commissions wrote to the Executive Director "an official protest" concerning the request to furnish a record of his employment and financial interest. He had been informed he was not required to submit this financial statement. Then a supplemental order approved by the Commission required him to do so. He wrote that he had no choice but to submit the statement, although "I occupy a position nonsupervisory, nonpolicymaking, and noninfluential."

This is an instance of how administrative ardor can become overzealous. At first all employees of the Smithsonian Institution engaged in procurement work were required to file statements of employment and financial interests. This affected employees down to and including grade GS-3. I believe you yourself, Senator, had that corrected. When the patent absurdity of this requirement was discovered, officials admitted the error and immediately corrected it.

There are several aspects of employment in the Internal Revenue Service which appear to be striking violations of basic constitutional rights of certain employees in this Service. It is realized that this agency of the Government deals with the great majority of people in the United States and has the important function of providing the Government with needed revenues. It is also realized that the employees of IRS have a tremendous responsibility and, because their duties involve the enforcement of a law which can be and is readily violated, they must of necessity be above reproach in their personal conduct as well as in their official behavior. However, even under these conditions, it is my belief that they should still be accorded their enjoyment of fundamental constitutional rights and in no way be degraded as individual persons or as employees of the U.S. Government.

It has been clearly stated by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Mr. Sheldon S. Cohen, that IRS employees are subject to standards, prohibitions, and potential conflicts of interest to which the general public and the majority of Federal employees are not exposed. What is so disturbing about some of the prohibitions relating to employees of IRS directly engaged in tax matters is that they are denied the full enjoyment of their constitutional rights as American citizens even by the law itself. We need to look only into the Internal Revenue Code to find an example of how far the lawmakers have gone in legislating prohibitions affecting Internal Revenue Service employees which are incompatible with their basic constitutional rights.

I would like to cite section 7214 (a) of title 26, the Internal Revenue Code in the United States Code, contains a list of unlawful acts of revenue officers or agents. These employees realize that if it has been proved in a court of law that they have been guilty of such a crime as extortion or conspiracy to defraud the United States, they should be dealt with summarily. However, as the law is now written, it provides that if a revenue officer or agent commits any of the actions set forth in section 7214 (a) he "shall be dismissed from office or discharged from employment." The wording of the section goes on to state that "upon conviction thereof" he shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned more than 5 years or both.

Now, the great danger in this, as we see it, is that the man is first fired before he gets a trial, before he has had an opportunity to prove his innocence, and that can be very well read from this code. In other

words, the authority can be gained if we literally read this, and would like to read from this code just a line or so. It says, "Shall be dismissed from office or discharged from employment, and upon the conviction," and now, if upon conviction they shall be discharged of dismissed from employinent, I would not be here complaining of this provision today.

The point at issue is that under the law the employee would be dimissed from his employment upon the mere allegation, not proof but allegation, that he had committed any one of the acts set forth and not following conviction of a crime. He is placed in the position of having to prove his innocence after he has lost his employment. This does not seem to be consonant with the basic right to be considered innocent until one has been proved guilty of a crime.

Senator, to the best of my knowledge we have a number of people in New York who have been dismissed from the Internal Revenue Service who have not been given an administrative trial nor have they been given a court trial, and there has been a conspiracy between the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice that ther will not be given a court trial until they have been given an administrative trial, and that is left up to the agency as to when it is given. Now, if that is law, it is not the way I studied it.

Senator ERVIN. Well, that statute would seem to provide for what one report called the Lydford law:

I oft have heard of Lydford law

How in the morn they hang and draw
And sit in judgment after.

Mr. GRINER. Attention also may be directed to section 7608 (b) (2) (B) of the Internal Revenue Code which permits the Inspection Service of the Internal Revenue Service to make an arrest and to search and seize the property of an employee without a warran This subsection reads as follows:

(B) To make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States relating to the internal laws committed in his presence, or for any felony cognizable under such laws if he has reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing any such felony *

There can be varying interpretations of the phrase "reasonable grounds," and it is somewhat dangerous procedure to permit an arrest without a warrant.

For an understanding of precisely what this procedure means to an IRS employee one needs only to read the case of United States v. Laurel M. Bayley and others (including Grover Cooper). This case was decided in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and may be cited as 64 CR 857 42165 as reported in CCH, paragraph 9610, 1965.

Internal Revenue Service employees are further subjected to what may well be an overly rigorous standard relating to the right to be represented by counsel when a question has been raised concerning unlawful or irregular conduct. I direct attention to Policy State ment P-1940-6 in Policy of the Internal Revenue Service: Rights of Employees Investigating by Inspection:

If an employee requests permission to consult or to have counsel present at an interview in a case in which there is no reasonable expectation of prosecution for violation of a Federal criminal statute, the Regional Inspector will permit such representation as he deems

not the employee, as the regional inspector deems— n the best interests of both the Service and the employee.

Let me cite to you a couple of cases here that I think will illustrate the advantages that are being taken of this section. The Internal Revenue Service has a habit of making some neighborhood checks on employees. This occurs when the neighbors of the employees being investigated are questioned concerning the habits of the employees. No matter how careful the investigator is in questioning neighbors, commonsense would dictate that the neighbors will wonder what the employee has done and what would require his being investigated.

There is one case in New York where the neighbors of employees were asked if the employee-how the employee treated his adopted children. I do not know what effect that has. He was asked if he treated them as if they were his own blood children.

The tragic part of this situation is that neither the neighbor nor the children knew they were adopted.

Another case in New York: an Internal Revenue Service employee in New York was removed on the charge of receiving funds for assisting relatives in preparing their tax returns. He alleged that he was questioned intensely for several hours by Internal Revenue Service investigators with no counsel present or previous warning. He also alleged that he was not permitted to call his wife to tell her that he would be late in picking up to take her home. He had his wife standing on a street corner not knowing whether he had been in an accident or what had happened to him, for several hours, and then on top of that he was told or reminded that his wife also worked for the Internal Revenue Service.

Now, if that is not a veiled threat, I do not know what a threat is.

Let us go on further. The Internal Revenue Service, I was told, was putting stickers on telephones, and this sticker says, "This telephone is subject to monitoring for the purpose of spot checking OCF and taxpayers' assistance work.”

I could not believe it. Even though I knew some of the other things happening in the Internal Revenue Service, I just could not comprehend that something like this would happen, so I sent out and got a picture of it. It did happen.

Now, what was happening? The public would come up and talk to an employee about their tax problems. They would not be on the phone, but the first thing that was flashed in his face would be a sticker on that phone. I would not feel free to talk to an agent about my tax problems if I thought it was being monitored, because if that phone was monitored, how did I know that there was not a tape recorder planted in their desk someplace to take down every word that I was saying.

Now, the excuse, and I say "excuse," that the Internal Revenue Service has had or what the principal excuse is is that "We want to see that the public is being treated courteously."

Now, these monitorings were in the adjoining rooms. When a person called in on the phone, the supervisor would probably pick up the phone and listen. If he had been the right kind of supervisor he would have had business out and around and among his employees, and he would have known firsthand how the public was being treated, and

I might let you know that the public did not know that this phone was monitored because they were not in the office, and I think the law, if I remember it, is in a case of this nature that the people involved mus know that it is being monitored or being recorded.

Senator ERVIN. It would seem to me that if that was the objective `z view there was a very much simpler way to entertain that objective, and that was to post a notice there that could be read by the member of the public seeking the aid of the Federal employee in filling ou their tax forms to the effect that all employees of the Internal Rever Service who deal with the public are under an obligation to treat the public with courtesy, and that if you are not so treated to please rep it to the Department.

Mr. GRINER. Senator, I worked for 26 years with the Railroad Retirement Board. More than half of those 26 years was spent in liais work between the public and the Board, and there is one thing that I have found, that if a Federal employee does not treat the public wit the courtesy that the public deserves, and they deserve every courtesy. your agency is going to know it, and this is especially true in the Iternal Revenue Service because when an employee or the public go into an office of the Internal Revenue Service he is, in all probability, aggrieved about some tax problem, he is having to pay out money, and if he finds an excuse to report the employee he is going to repo him. Even such a sign, Senator, even though it would be good, I d not believe is necessary under those conditions.

Senator ERVIN. I would have to say that I concur. I have dealt with Federal employees all of my life, and I would have to confess that I have been uniformly treated with courtesy on all occasions I think that is the experience of the average American.

Mr. GRINER. It has been my experience that the Federal Government should be proud of its employees. They have a group of the most concientious, hard-working and courteous employees that there are in the United States. I am proud to represent them.

There is another example of an employee being denied a bas right. He should be given the choice to have counsel or not to have counsel-I am talking about where the agency now determines whether or not a man has counsel as he sees fit and not as an employer may so dictate.

On April 23, 1965, there appeared in the Government Standardand I would just read from it-our official publication, an editorial which set forth a number of injustices existing within the Internal Revenue Service. In reply to that editorial, the IRS Director of its Personnel Division, Mr. A. J. Schaffer, in a letter addressed to me. stated that in postponing hearings on adverse action appeals he was instified in doing so because there was no legal requirement that the hearings be held promptly. In other words, it looked like we were going to have to write into law-and, as I said before, of course, it seemed to be absolutely absurd for the necessity of such a law, but under those conditions it looked like we were going to have to write into the law-some provision that would force the Internal Revenue Service to give these people their rights.

Thus, again we have a situation wherein an employee is denied the enjoyment of his property and basic justice, as well as the rights

guaranteed to all citizens under the Federal Constitution, simply because he is an employee of the Internal Revenue Service. This is clear evidence as to the need for a law which specifically and clearly requires administrative officials to assure the employee the rights which are inherent in his citizenship.

We have reason to believe that there are documents within the Internal Revenue Service which set forth policies, procedures, or practices which go even beyond the examples I have already cited of employees being denied their most basic civil rights. Perhaps if members of this subcommittee would inquire of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue for these documents they would be forthcoming. I am in no position to submit them.

Again, Senator, I would like to point out an incident which has caused me quite some concern. Over the last 2 or 3 years there have been some cases up in New York where there is no doubt in my mind but what the employee has been wrong, maybe in accepting some bribes, and I say to you that they should be fired summarily, but they should be given a trial before they are fired.

There was one tax consultant-they have a different name for them that reported a number of these cases in which he gave the bribes. This consultant has been licensed by the Treasury Department. The employee has been fired, and this man is still recognized by the Treasury Department, his card has not been taken up, and they tell me it will not be taken up. Now, maybe again, it has been a long time since I studied law, but to the best of my recollection he is just as guilty as the man who accepted the bribe, and yet we are defending him. There has been no evidence shown that he was a plant.

Another example may be cited, if one be needed, of the manner in which the Internal Revenue Service has implemented Executive Order 11222. The Civil Service Commission in setting forth the guidelines for the use of the "Confidential Statement of Employment and Financial Interest," outlined the conditions under which this report was to be submitted. It was also clearly and specifically stated that the extent of this Federal employee's interest was not required to be stated. However, form TD 3087, and that is the form used by the Internal Revenue Service, has an additional part, in other words, they supplemented the form put out by the Commission, part 1.C. which calls for a statement of "extent of interest" in which an employee is to indicate if holdings in a company are under $10,000, between $10,000 and $50,000, or above $50,000. Maybe there is good reason for that, but so far I have been unable to find it.

The rules of conduct for Internal Revenue Service employees, as set forth in Document No. 5467, section 1941.701, revised October 1963, state that "employees are required to testify and respond to questions in matters of official interest and employees must give such testimony or respond to questions under oath when required or requested to do

so."

The rules are silent as to what constitutes official interest. Anything can constitute official interest. It is my opinion that whatever the supervisor or the head of-the regional director or the head ofthe office says is official interest at any given time is official interest.

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