Comment by sologoub | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sologoub | Hacker News Reader

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As many have stated, the problem is with inevitable abuse of power. It may or may not be happening now, but it will. Recent IRS disclosure that they targeted Tea Party-linked organizations for audits is one example. I doubt it was deliberately ordered by the administration, but someone, somewhere thought it was a good idea.

Search queries alone will probably tell you which way a person is leaning in an election. That by itself is not good in a democratic process hinged on secret ballot. What if the information of everyone that voted for a given candidate is collected, passed under the table to another "bad guy" in another agency, such as IRS, and then used to inflict financial harm. Yes, very far fetched, but such power is an enabler.

It seems that having courts grant warrants provides a necessary level of review by a psudo-independent body, as to sufficiently protect against undue invasion of privacy.

Based on the description in the article, I'm not sure if there are a lot of protections against personal use, like spying on a girlfriend. (When I used ChoicePoint for background investigations, it only recorded my "permissible purpose" selection, but no real validation, just an audit log of the search.)

Tea party groups weren't targeted for audits. Groups that applied for tax exempt status on basis of providing social welfare were sent for additional screening to ensure the group was not primarily a political group. There were over 300 applications sent for additional screening. 1/3 were conservative groups. 1/3 were liberal. The whole problem was the selection criteria for being reviewed - based on the name of the group.

Which was a problem because its nearly impossible to review these groups properly anyway - the criteria are so broad that it's practically a subjective decision. Of course, Congress could amend the tax code to provide clear instructions to the IRS on what should and should not trigger review and what should be reviewed, but that all sounds a little bit too much like actually doing their jobs.

Where does your 1/3 liberal come from? I cannot find that anywhere. You are corrected they were not targeted for AUDITS, but they were targeted.

It is not just the problem that they were targeted based on name (I actually think that's pretty reasonable) but the questions that were asked, the time it took to get approved (or denied) and the fact that IRS lied to congress about it.

Your argument fails when it's noted that famous "Social Welfare" 501(c)(4) organizations include the NRA's lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, and the new version of Obama's Organizing for America, Organizing for Action. Perhaps ironically, the latter's first major action was to campaign for gun control after Newtown.

In other words, the parameters of 501(c)(4) organizations were already well established, and being primarily "political" (when you think about it, a rather vaguely broad term) is just fine, you're focusing too much on the words of art "social welfare" vs. what they mean in practice.

Even Obamacon (con as in "conservative") Peggy Nonan has woken up and realized the implications of this (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732441260457851...):

"What does it mean when half the country—literally half the country—understands that the revenue-gathering arm of its federal government is politically corrupt, sees them as targets, and will shoot at them if they try to raise their heads? That is the kind of thing that can kill a country, letting half its citizens believe that they no longer have full political rights."

Do you really think that's OK?

My bad, not audits, but still...

Think it through! Every politician, not just the conservative ones, was happy when somebody finally noticed this story. IRS agents have done whatever they wanted to private citizens, with no consequences, for decades. Then they questioned (they didn't fine, prosecute, garnish, imprison, or confiscate) political groups that claimed to be educational groups, and as a result the agents got censured, fired, and prosecuted. The media and most people are too lazy to think through the inevitable consequences, but don't dream that the politicians are. Will political groups ever be investigated by the IRS again?

"Every politician, not just the conservative ones"

Are there any other politicians in power at the federal level these days?

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