section. As a matter of public relations, it might be a good idea to change that. You know most people think of intelligence, they perceive it as something like the National Security Administration or the FBI, spies, saboteurs, all those evil things. You are really talking about criminal tax cases. Maybe you could come up a with a euphemism which will do just as well without triggering the negative public feeling, that "Here are these tax people delving into things that are not their business at all." I do know all of your criminal cases, I guess, have a collateral civil case, and many of your civil cases evolve into a criminal case. You have two different diciplines, but you might just call it your criminal division. The Justice Department does, and gets away with it. Now one final question. How many checks are drawn in a year? Do you have any idea? Mr. ALEXANDER. I have no idea. Mr. DANIELSON. It must be an unpronounceable "illion" of them. All of those are in computers? Mr. ALEXANDER. Well, a series, I would hope, of computers somewhere. But we can ask the American Bankers Association. I am not sure how good our relations are. Mr. DANIELSON. I do not want you to waste your time to satisfy a curiosity on my part, but it must be an incredible number. Mr. ALEXANDER. It certainly would be. I was thinking about my household, considering the number of checks that my bookkeeper-namely, my wife-draws. Mr. DANIELSON. You pay the water bill and all those things and they are lodged forever, I guess, in a computer someplace. Well, I will be happy if you will just answer the two questions that I posed to you. This other one is astronomical so I will not ask you. Thank you. Mr. KASTENMEIER. In conclusion, the Chair would like to say that we this morning have focused on one aspect of the Internal Revenue Service, investigating private financial records of individuals maintained by banking and other institutions and the right of privacy in that connection. We are not unmindful that the jurisdiction of this committee does reach other questions of invasion of privacy, surveillance, wiretapping, and the view which Internal Revenue Service in terms of past operations has been associated with, at least in public, but which I gathered have been discontinued at the present time, which we did not touch on this morning. Nonetheless, the committee is interested in other tactics used as well as the maintenance of bank records and access to these records. For purposes of H.R. 214, that is our primary concern; I would like to maintain a future relationship with your office in terms of considering some other potential pieces of legislation or variations of the legislation before us, and their effect upon you. We can do this subsequent, of course, to this meeting. In conclusion, further, I would like to thank Commissioner Donald Alexander and his very competent staff for their intelligence and for the right testimony this morning. Gentlemen, you have all been very helpful. Thank you. Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you. Mr. KASTENMEIER. This concludes the meeting this morning. We stand adjourned. The committee will meet at 10 o'clock on Wednesday for the purpose of discussing H.R. 214. [Whereupon, at 11:43 a.m., the subcommittee adjourned.] |