On October 17, 2022, we submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to Customs and Border Protection, for the glossary to explain their SEACATS spreadsheet column headings and designations. SEACATS stands for “Seized Asset and Case Tracking System” and details seizures of property by Federal agencies like the CBP. This FOIA request occurred after we earlier won a FOIA administrative appeal decision on September 30, 2022, when CBP provided us with a 13-page partially redacted SEACATS spreadsheet on their seizure of various items. But while the SEACATS spreadsheet listed 53 incidents where CBP seized coins between 2009 and 2021, their spreadsheet contained cryptic column headings and cryptic two and three letter designations that are unintelligible to the layman. In the meantime, however, we reached out to the Institute for Justice, at ij.org, a nonprofit public interest law firm that focuses on exposing government abuses and securing constitutional rights. The Institute, who earlier engaged in a multiyear legal battle with CBP for the SEACATS data codes, provided us with one of their reports which explained many of the SEACATS data codes. Now that we have most of the data codes and a better understanding of SEACATS list of CBP’s seizures, we plan to further examine the circumstances and outcomes of past CBP coin seizures.
