Big bucks, bunnies & bureaucrats run amok: Column

Almost three years ago, the Internal Revenue Service seized nearly half a milliondollars from a small family business on Long Island simply because the business deposited money in the bank in amounts under $10,000.

The government deemed the pattern of deposits suspicious, but did not seriously investigate prior to seizing the business's entire bank account. The government proceeded to hold the money for years without even alleging — much less seeking to prove — that the money was anything other than the lawful earnings of a legitimate small business.

Then, recently and with great speed, the government announced that it was returning everything it had seized.

What changed the government's mind? The brothers who run the business teamed up with my organization, the Institute for Justice, and brought suit against the government. The lawsuit was widely reported in the press, and the IRS received withering public criticism.

When the IRS took the money, it evidently forgot to apply the venerable "front page" principle: If you don't want to see it reported on the front page of the newspaper, don't do it in the first place.

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The IRS is hardly alone in its disregard for this "front page" principle. Just one month earlier, Savannah's city council met to urgently repeal a law that had been on the books for years. The law mandated that any tour guide aiming to work in the city first undergo examination by a doctor. When tour guides sued to challenge this extraordinary imposition on their First Amendment right to tell their stories to tourists in Savannah, the city was forced to publicly explain what exactly it viewed as the purpose of this law. The city decided, instead, to simply repeal the doctor exam requirement.

Or consider the U.S. Department of Agriculture's stunning reversal after it was reported that the agency was requiring magicians to develop "disaster plans" for their bunny rabbits. Magicians were being told to submit paperwork detailing how they would save their furry friends in case of fire, flood, storm or other such disasters. (Suggested plan: "Disappear.") After the press picked up the story, an embarrassed Secretary of Agriculture announced that the regulation would henceforth be applied consistent with "common sense."

All of which raises the question: When government officials respond to media attention by promising to employ common sense in the future, what were they doing before?

As heartwarming as it may be when government responds to public scrutiny by doing the right thing, government has to behave even when nobody is watching. The size and scope of government has increased to the point where it is simply impossible for the media to report on every government action. The stories that cross the threshold of public awareness are the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

Even the most obscure and anonymous civil servants should be expected to act as if they were in full view of the public eye.

And, just as important, we let government off too easy—and encourage future departures from the front page principle—if we congratulate government officials merely for backing down in the face of negative media attention. Government shouldn't be rewarded for stopping its bad behavior just because it got caught.

It is tempting to praise the IRS for returning money wrongfully seized from an innocent family business, but instead we have to ask: What took you so long?

Robert Everett Johnson is a fellow at the Institute for Justice.

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