question of whether a certain course of conduct was legal or criminal, it often took days of reading the statutes and decisions of the court for me to give a legal opinion of that character. Now, how can a Federal employee who is not an expert lawyer, or even if he is an expert lawyer, called upon to explain something to the inspector, possibly know whether or not he is entitled to counsel or whether there is a likelihood of criminal prosecution or criminal charge originating out of the investigation? All the evidence is in the hands of the

accusers.

Mr. GRAVES. The answer is very short, Senator. It is "No, he cannot," and this makes it all the more treacherous an arrangement. Senator ERVIN. The ultimate result of that regulation, it seems to me, could be designed to deny a man of the fundamental right to counsel.

Mr. GRAVES. It can and is, we have no doubt about it. The inspector to whom the discretion is granted by this regulation to which you adverted, is in no way competent to make the determination that he is supposed to make. Furthermore, even if he could make it there are no clear guidelines or precise standards laid down in the regulations. That is the thing it refuses to do.

Senator ERVIN. The man might well be denied, as a result of the investigation, the right to earn in the future a livelihood for himself and his family and be denied the right of counsel in the investigation that could lead to such a result.

Mr. GRAVES. It can and does, no doubt about that.

Senator ERVIN. It has a harsh result, it seems to me, of allowing one who is in an adversary position to determine whether the accused being interrogated, is going to be allowed counsel.

Mr. GRAVES. That is one of the ironies of the second-class citizenship and status of the Federal employee. Only if you are suspected of being a criminal do you enjoy the constitutional right of counsel. Senator ERVIN. Yes; and even aside from the issue of criminality the person may need the benefit of counsel to protect his right to the capacity to earn a livelihood. That is just as important to him as the right to counsel is to the person charged with a crime, justly or unjustly.

Mr. GRAVES. We think so. We think this discriminatory treatment should cease and that is one of the major impacts of the bill.

Senator ERVIN. I cannot dream of worse tyranny than to allow one who is in an adversary position to determine whether one has the right to have counsel or not. That principle ought to be the right of the individual who is being interrogated.

Mr. GRAVES. The IRS, as a matter of fact, employees may prefer to be suspected of a crime rather than to be under investigation merely for the loss of a job.

Senator ERVIN. In that case he could receive the benefit of a basic right of counsel that belongs to all Americans and ought to belong to them in all circumstances, even though he is not suspected of crime. Mr. GRAVES. We concur wholeheartedly, Senator.

Mr. AUTRY. Mr. Connery, do you know of any instances of conflict of interest that ever occurred in the Internal Revenue Service which have been prevented or which would have been prevented by the financial disclosure provisions?

Mr. CONNERY. I am not aware of any, Mr. Autry, specifically. Mr. AUTRY. Do you know of any employees in the Internal Reven Service who might have conflicts of interest who are going to reve them on a disclosure form?

Mr. CONNERY. I could think of that or would not imagine that wo be done, no. As a matter of fact, as I mentioned in my statemen actually, these statements of financial interest as distinguished f your ordinary financial statement that you would give to banks a so forth, actually, they result in little more than a needless embarr ment to employees, because they are forced to disclose the intimate tails of their personal householding accounts to this supervisory cha starting with their immediate supervisor. I have been in the busin so to speak-I am a senior Internal Revenue agent. I examine t returns of the largest corporations in the United States. I eng in supervised team audits of many agents over many months, exam ing the returns of large corporations, and I, in my experience, think of no good reason that these statements of financial interes would serve.

Mr. AUTRY. And it has created a morale problem?

Mr. CONNERY. Yes. As a matter of fact, as an example of this, i has been reported to me and to other officials of this organization t supervisors noting the status of these individuals financially, these statements pass through the chain for their perusal, have sug gested to some of these people that they could retire since they ar peared to be at least comfortably fixed, and that has been used as a arm-twisting device in some of the cases that we have in our f here.

Mr. AUTRY. We have 92 complaints contained in one letter from the State of Michigan. From the State of Ohio we have at least many. These are from individual employees in the Internal Revenu Service who have filed complaints with the subcommittee. So I thin you are right.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator ERVIN. In your statement you alluded to the hazard of employee making any complaint. We have pursued innumerable co plaints and we will not disclose the identity of any person who make the complaint when he feels he might suffer some reprisal. But I ar astounded by this questionnaire that I referred to before which says"List all assets"-or everything-"Make a search the second time. List all assets or everything you and your immediate family own on the effective date of this statement."

"Among all other things, all personal effects and household furniture." In other words, if a person complies with the directions contained here, he would have to count the number of socks and shoes, pocket handkerchiefs, every personal item-every single item of house hold furniture.

Mr. CONNERY. That is well taken, Senator, and in addition, this form provides for quarterly adjustment up and down. And there is more insidious thing involved here, I feel, from my experience and it is this: That since these statements are required to be submitted und oath, it is very easy, very easy to omit inadvertently small items, sir this is so all-inclusive, and you are at the mercy of the interrogator or

avestigator as to whether or not you forgot $200 or $300 series E jonds when you made this out. There is a very grave danger there, as think Mr. Graves alluded to previously.

Mr. BURSACH. When this first came out-we had an agent-when his first came out he was in the midst of an audit of a certain corporaion and he owned two shares of stock in that corporation. He asked what to do. It developed he had to sell his stock and take a loss in order to complete his audit of the company.

Senator ERVIN. I have had a good deal of correspondence with officials who have initiated some of these questionnaires that have been circulated. I shall refer to one in particular called Minority group status questionnaire. I was assured that this was going to be confidential, and yet there was none with respect to those who did not fill it out and return it. They could identify them in two different ways: their name and social security number. It is like the man who was absent from home and he got a telegram and it said, "Your mother-inlaw died, shall we cremate her or bury her?" He said, "Take no chances, cremate her and bury her."

So, to make sure, they have him give his social security number, yet they assured me this was perfectly voluntary.

I have a letter here from a long-time Internal Revenue employee who did not fill out his. He said he thought it was voluntary. He was very trusting, as I was, when I was assured it was perfectly voluntary. For his failure to fill out the form he gets this, with another copy of it, with his name and social security number on it-and this was going to be kept confidential.

It reads as follows:

During the latter part of May, 1966, a blue card questionnaire form was distributed which asked each employee to provide information about his race or national origin. The records indicate that a usable questionnaire card for you Las not been processed to date. This may be due to your not having previously been furnished a card; the Data Center not receiving a card, if submitted; or the card, if received, could not be processed. With your cooperation a current and Complete record can be established. Please complete the questionnaire card in privacy in accordance with the instructions printed thereon. Place the card in an

envelope and promptly return the sealed envelope to your time keeper.

In the light of the old adage that a "request from a superior is equivalent to a command," do you think an employee of the Internal Revenue Service receiving this notice could possibly come to the conclusion that he was free to ignore the notice and still persist in refraining from filling out and returning the questionnaire?

Mr. CONNERY. No, sir; we do not. We agree with you wholeheartedly.

As a matter of fact, these followups, the original request for this information came through on a white 4-by-8 card and the followups were indentifiable by virtue of being in blue.

The other point that you made there, we are completely in agreement with, because the information, and we have seen it, that circulated in IRS offices was directed down to the supervisory level only, making known the fact that these were voluntary. Now, the same distribution could have been made to employees generally, because many of the items have even less import, the distribution is across the board to

everyone.

In this particular instance that you are referring to, it was peculiar that this distribution would be limited to the supervisory chain and not made known to the employee as such that this was supposed to be a voluntary action. The supervisors in handing these cards to the employees they supervised, to our knowledge, we know of none that mentioned the fact that this was in fact voluntary. And, of course, the followup matters that you mentioned, I think even cement that particular feeling, and I might also cite the information notice of May 20, 1966, by the Commissioner relating to heading a statistical system for minority group information, that as I read this and I have read it many times I do not get in it the thrust of a voluntary situation, and as you say, it is commonly regarded by people generally, that when their superiors and high officials make a request for certain information, that that request is that it is not voluntary on the part of the subordinates to supply it. We do have a position relative to section 1(a) of the bill that we have prepared and with your permission I would make the statement, that NAIRE supports this subsection and that we realize there is a strong Federal policy in favor of equal employment, which we endorse. It seems to us, however, that the ethnic and religious questionnaire is not needed for the implementation of this policy. There is now an adequate remedy open to any aggrieved Federal employee who contends that he is the victim of racial or religious discrimination. This is contained in Executive Order 11246 which vests in the Civil Service Commissioner strong enforcement powers with respect to the equal employment and promotional policy. We see no reason for the questionnaires, particularly in view of the adequate remedy of the Commission and the traditional merit system require

ment.

Senator ERVIN. Now, it has been the custom in times past, as I understand it, in civil service examinations, that there should be no requirement for any disclosure of race or religion and the objective of that policy was that these matters should be totally ignored. It was based on the principle that, as a perspective employee, he should have his qualifications judged solely upon the basis of his ability to do the work to which he would be assigned. Does this not seem to run counter to that policy?

Mr. CONNERY. Yes, Senator.

Senator ERVIN. What is the status of the proposed manual, do you know?

Mr. CONNERY. As I stated in regard to a previous question, we do not know the precise status of this manual. From previous experience in being requested to comment on certain manual changes, it is possibly some months away from issuance because we were asked to submit our comments, as I recall, by something like July 24 of this year. We submitted our comments and as to the exact status of this proposal within the agency, we do not have any information on that, Senator. Senator ERVIN. The subcommittee has information that one of the agencies issued a flat directive telling their employees "requesting them"-again I think this request is equivalent to a demand made by the superior to participate in certain activities, with a view toward certain objectives that had nothing whatever to do with their employment. The directive directed them to report what activities they

engaged in, in these particular fields, to the head of the agency. The contemplated preparation, or the preparation of this contemplated use of a manual of this kind would indicate that there is some kind of scheme or plan afoot in Internal Revenue Service to direct, even though they put it in the guise of a request, the outside activities of their employees in certain particular respects. I cannot see any other objective of the proposed manual.

Mr. CONNERY. It certainly appears that way, Senator.

I might say, from my own personal knowledge in this regard, that I am aware of one district in the Internal Revenue, at least, that provided during the last tax-filing season for the managers of that office to go on a twice-a-week basis, as I recall-nights to a community action center and assist in the preparation of returns. Our office is really not very far from these centers-within walking distance-and I did note that in regard to your question. I certainly agree with

it.

Mr. BURSACH. Senator, at recent group meetings we, as employees, have been told that such outside activities are encouraged and are indeed quite legal. That is before this bill.

Senator ERVIN. Counsel just called my attention to the fact that the U.S. Civil Service Commission sent circulars to the departments and intimated-well, it is a little more than intimated-stated that there should be participation at the community level with other employees, with schools, universities, and other public and private groups in cooperative action to improve employment opportunities and community conditions that affect employability. No one is more wedded to the idea than I that the Federal Government has a right and duty to require Federal employees to be diligent and capable in their respective positions. But I happen to believe that the most precious value of civilization is freedom of the individual, and I do not think it is any business of the Federal Government what its employees do in what I call the "off hours," as long as just like other citizens of the country, they obey the laws. Again, I don't think it is any business of the Federal Government. I would oppose it with every ounce of energy I possess even if they issued a directive to support me in my political activity. I am opposed to the Federal Government's directing its employees as to what views they shall hold, or what activities they shall engage in, even if they were the most righteous views and activities obtainable, because I think that is a basic interference with freedom.

Mr. CONNERY. We are, too.

Senator ERVIN. I am astounded at a reference in the proposed manual to urge the employees to support fair housing ordinances or fair housing laws. For example, we had a fair-housing proposal in the Senate here a short time ago and about 45 percent of the Senate thought it was so contrary to basic freedoms that it did not merit the Senate's time. Why should employees of the Internal Revenue Service not have the same rights as U.S. Senators have to favor or oppose fair-housing laws?

Mr. CONNERY. We heartily agree.

Senator ERVIN. I think it is tyranny for the Federal Government to try to direct the outside activities of employees of the Federal Government. I think it is interference with the basic freedom of people