ACLU: IRS Says It Can Read Taxpayer Email Without a Warrant

ACLU, IRS New Documents Suggest IRS Reads Emails Without a Warrant:

Everyone knows the IRS is our nation’s tax collector, but it is also a law enforcement organization tasked with investigating criminal violations of the tax laws. New documents released to the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the IRS Criminal Tax Division has long taken the position that the IRS can read your emails without a warrant—a practice that one appeals court has said violates the Fourth Amendment (and we think most Americans would agree).

Last year, the ACLU sent a FOIA request to the IRS seeking records regarding whether it gets a warrant before reading people’s email, text messages and other private electronic communications. The IRS has now responded by sending us 247 pages of records describing the policies and practices of its criminal investigative arm when seeking the contents of emails and other electronic communications.

So does the IRS always get a warrant? Unfortunately, while the documents we have obtained do not answer this question point blank, they suggest otherwise.... Let’s hope you never end up on the wrong end of an IRS criminal tax investigation. But if you do, you should be able to trust that the IRS will obey the Fourth Amendment when it seeks the contents of your private emails. Until now, that hasn’t been the case.

• Accounting Today, IRS Reads Taxpayer Emails Without a Warrant
• CNet, IRS Claims it Can Read Your E-mail Without a Warrant
• The Hill, IRS: We Can Read Emails Without Warrant
• Human Events, IRS: We Can Read Your Emails Without a Warrant
• Info World, What Could be Worse Than the IRS's Grubby Hands? Its Spying Eyes
• New York Daily News, ACLU Accuses the IRS of Reading Americans’ Private Email Without a Search Warrant
• Slate, The IRS Doesn’t Think “Reasonable Expectation of Privacy” Applies to Your Emails
• Washington Times, IRS to Taxpayers: We Don’t Need a Warrant for Email Snooping, GPS Tracking

(Hat Tip: David J. Herzig.)