IRS Follows In Footsteps Of TSA Success In Crumpling Up Constitution
Fourth Amendment right not to be searched without a warrant? Pfffft! The IRS' attitude: "We don't need no stinkin' warrants." And "All your email are belong to us."

Declan McCullagh blogs at CNET:

The Internal Revenue Service doesn't believe it needs a search warrant to read your e-mail.

Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers say that Americans enjoy "generally no privacy" in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications -- meaning that they can be perused without obtaining a search warrant signed by a judge.

That places the IRS at odds with a growing sentiment among many judges and legislators who believe that Americans' e-mail messages should be protected from warrantless search and seizure. They say e-mail should be protected by the same Fourth Amendment privacy standards that require search warrants for hard drives in someone's home, or a physical letter in a filing cabinet.

Nathan Wessler, a staff attorney at the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, blogs, "The IRS Owes the American Public an Explanation--and a Warrant Requirement":

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. The IRS should let the American public know whether it obtains warrants across the board when accessing people's email. And even more important, the IRS should formally amend its policies to require its agents to obtain warrants when seeking the contents of emails, without regard to their age.