You’re totally missing the point. See adaher’s response.
Correct. It is the curtailing of a grassroots political movement that is the issue. That grassroots movement can be left or right, radical or reactionary. It is the political use ofa non political body that is the issue. A body that decided who it should “approve” of and at what part of the election cycle it gets approval. If a movement is gearing up for mid term elections it is a curtailing of rights when such a movement is unfairly persecuted.
Some folk continue to use the excuse that these Tea Party groups all got approval. This in itself tells me something different. That if all passed then many were unfairly targetted. If say, one out of three Tea party applications failed then I can see where an argument comes in that Tea Party groups were consistenly flouting laws. That they needed inspected closely. Yet, it turns out none of them were breaking such laws.
And on a similarly egg-sucking, principle-lacking note, we have this:
Well how are we going to brainwash the youth if they have access to freedom-loving luminaries like Alex Jones and Glenn Beck?
I have worked at large and wealthy comapnies and at one of them, all emails were deleted within 60 to 180 days, unless we were required by law to keep them any longer. An employee could keep them for up to 2 years if they really wanted to, but corporate policy mandated that they (along with most other types of records or data) be destroyed in that timeframe unless we were required by law to keep them any longer (or by recommendation of our own attorneys). None of this was done to save space on a hard drive.
The kid’s actually admitting he can’t get through the firewall?
Oh, the shame he must feel. 
So the Teabaggers were unable to get their word out? Oh my! They were completely shut out of the electoral process? They couldn’t do what they were doing all along while the tax status played itself out? They couldn’t have (gasp) paid taxes? Nope, the ONLY way to oppose the tyranny of Obama was to do so in tax exempt groups. Which they all got, and they still have a persecution complex.
Some Tea PArty groups say they are still waiting.
Gotta say, this sounds like horseshit. We have the word of one 18 yr old student? The reporter didn’t bother to get corroboration from other students? Meet the kid in the library and see for himself? See what the message was? (web security programs like Websense and Blue Coat will give a message when you try to access a blocked site. It states the reason it was blocked. I have been blocked by Websense on certain threads here at SDMB, but not others)
The article said the kid asked the Superintendent about it, but the* reporter* didn’t??? Took everything the kid said at face value? Made no attempt to verify facts or get a comment from anyone at the school??? This serves as an example of the horrid state journalism is in.
It is pretty bad. YOu find that out anytime the media reports on something you know a lot about. They almost always get it wrong.
This is not my experience at all. Do you work at a small company? Less than 100 employees? I’ve been working at large companies for more than 20 years. We have always had our own e-mail servers. Each employee gets their own mailbox and e-mail resides there till deleted or moved. They only reason they delete or move is because the box is size restricted.
Employees are encouraged to save important e-mails (received and sent) to PST folders on shared network drives. The network drives are backed up to tape nightly, weekly and monthly. These backups are kept for a minimum of 7 years. As far as I can tell from the IT and Insurance companies I have worked with, this is pretty much standard.
This includes backup of the mail servers. We have had to retrieve tapes to locate e-mails that we had to produce for litigation
So…let me follow you. In 2007, Bush did something that liberals think is pretty bad (ruining people’s careers for political reasons, some of which are tied toward protecting policies of torture). In 2013, the IRS did something that liberals don’t think is that bad (subjecting Tea Party and Occupy 501(c)(3) applications to increased scrutiny). In both cases, emails were lost, or perhaps “lost”. There weren’t many posts about the 2007 issue, and there aren’t many liberal posts about the 2013 issue. This proves liberal hypocrisy because…
I like how you see this as me tying myself in knots.
This paragraph is wrong from the first sentence to the last sarcasm.
Under no circumstances was this a case wherein conservatives couldn’t get their message out.
I’ve applied for tax exempt status (for two charitable corporations). Once the application is filed, the organization is allowed to act as if the exemption has been granted. It must though disclose to the public and to donors that its status is ‘pending’. And it must agree to pay any taxes due should the application be denied. (I’ve offered this information in previous threads.)
The organizations (conservative or liberal) whose applications were delayed were not prevented from conducting business in the interim. If any negative effect existed at all, it would be a possible chilling of donations due to the possibility that donors might have been denied tax-deductions for making them. I suspect that few donors were dissuaded by the small possibility that their gifts would some day be declared not charitable. Thus the actual extent of pain felt by these organizations was almost certainly minimal.
Assuming they were professional and knew what they could and couldn’t do. While I’m sure this is true of a large Koch backed organization, the smaller Tea Party organizations were probably unaware of it. Remember, these are people who think that there’s a plot to build an inter-American highway.
Please. The applications I made were for tiny organizations compared to anything Koch-related. And I’m not a lawyer, just a biologist. I suspect any google search for “start your own 501© corp” will provide that information within a few clicks. The fact that these types are delusional about objective reality doesn’t excuse them for not asking any tax lawyer in the yellow pages about the rules for exempt applicants.
And I’d say that any idiot should be able to vote properly without assistance, but the system makes allowances for idiots. It should be the same when people get together to exercise their 1st amendment rights. I find it hard to believe that Lerner wasn’t aware that her actions were supposed to have a chilling effect, especially when she was sending out intimidating questionnaires. Maybe we should start doing that for voters when they register if we aren’t sure about their applications.
I don’t know what analogy you think you’re drawing with voting rights, but it’s a failure. As for questionnaires being intimidating, I had to reply to specific questions and concerns from the IRS too. There are qualifications for exempt status, and often statements made in the application aren’t sufficient to make a determination. The idea is to prevent, you know, unqualified parties from gaining special status. So asking additional questions provides clarification. How can you object to the IRS actually upholding their mandate?
So fine, show us the organization that curtailed their activities while their status was pending. Specific organization, specific activities, please.
Because that’s the thing: despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the last few years, I have yet to see anyone offer the specific harm caused.
They aren’t supposed to ask for donor lists, for one. The other problem was the length of some of these questionnaires, with a lot of questions that couldn’t easily be answered without professional legal advice. While not illegal in itself, the fact that Tea Party groups were singled out for this treatment was obviously to create a chilling effect.
Furthermore, we know that Lerner sent Tea Party group info to the Justice Department. She was actually out to get them.
Litigation could take months or years and for some like Devereaux, time isn’t on their side.
While initially waiting for IRS approval, Devereaux dipped into his own bank account, maxed out credit cards and even borrowed money from friends so his group could put on a civic-engagement training session at the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington. His goal was to eventually set up a steady stream of revenue for a tax-exempt nonprofit.
The next time Devereaux heard from the IRS, they had requested details and credentials on every single speaker and all the educational materials provided in the 78 classes held at the hotel. The IRS also wanted information on all 45 vendors, their credentials and a donor list.
Devereaux refused.
Five rounds of IRS letters later, and United in Action’s tax-exempt status is still in limbo.
If they are denied, Devereaux’s group would owe the federal government “somewhere in the neighborhood of $70,000 in back taxes,” he said, referring to money he would owe the government on donations.
“It’s more than we have in our bank account,” he said.
He’s not alone.
**
The next time Devereaux heard from the IRS, they had requested details and credentials on every single speaker and all the educational materials provided in the 78 classes held at the hotel. The IRS also wanted information on all 45 vendors, their credentials and a donor list.
**
There is no way in hell that wasn’t designed to create an impossible obstacle to gain approval.