This is the Kido Daily Podcast for Tuesday, May 24, 2022.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Trying to get a handle on the size and scope of civil forfeiture in America means

getting your hands on the data. The Institute for Justice

has been fighting with the IRS for seven years to get access to a single database

containing forfeiture data. Kathy Sanchez is a researcher at the Institute for Justice, She's happy to report that the data is now forthcoming.

We spoke last week.

How long has the Institute for Justice been trying to get this information out of the IRS and why were you trying to get it?

So we filed a FOIA request in March of 2015, so that was seven years ago.

We asked for the information as part of our research on forfeiture, partly for our flagship report and placing for profit. It's a report on forfeiture.

So at the time, we were just requesting forfeiture data

from the states and from the federal agencies.

So we were really interested in getting a picture

of what forfeiture looks like at these levels.

And I think Treasury was really the one

that gave us the biggest issue, and it ended up as a seven-year battle.

Okay, so what was the argument from the agencies about not providing the data?

So they originally said that the request was overbroad and it would disclose sensitive information.

So they argued that they would have to go basically sell by sell to redact and it would take 96 years to do so and cost $750,000 in fees.

So it did not take 96 years.

So what changed between then and now?

Well, what changed? It was the lawsuit that we filed in December of 2016. So that was really what took the longest time.

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