IRS policy and government surveillance

Government snooping and overt actions to recreate evidence to cover up the data trail was going on long before Obama's team rolled into power.

Reuters reports the practice was detailed in IRS manuals during the Bush years, before being quietly removed in 2007.

A 350-word entry in the Internal Revenue Manual instructed agents of the U.S. tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA's Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court proceedings or investigative files. The entry was published and posted online in 2005 and 2006, and was removed in early 2007. The IRS is among two dozen arms of the government working with the Special Operations Division, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.

This was flying out in the open and no one noticed? No one in the Congress was aware?

Gotta wean ourselves off the Left v Right, Republican v Democrat political gamesmanship. Instead focus on the concept that the people we elect and send to Washington seem more interested in protecting and expanding the tools of the federal bureaucracy than they are about protecting your rights under the Constitution.