"We should focus security screening on young Islamic males. That's where we've had most terrorist attacks from."
"But we can't just assume that's the only threat, and whether or not you like them, only a small minority have been a demonstrated danger. It would be corrosive to fairness, our society, and our legal system, to single out just one group."
"We should focus 501(c)4 checking on Tea Party groups. That's where we have the most applicants from and where we've see the most trouble with political activity leaking across legal bounds."
"But we can't just assume that's the only threat, and whether or not you like them, only a small minority have been a demonstrated danger. It would be corrosive to fairness, our society, and our legal system, to single out just one group."
The irony here is that, to some degree, the parties involved making the arguments and counter-arguments have been been reversed.
Actually, Tea Party Groups Gave the IRS Lots of Good Reasons to Be Interested
IRS profiling was a fiasco. Yet, some tea party groups have left a trail of fiscal problems and possible tax-code abuse.
Well, except for the fact that the IRS has admitted to (and apologized for) specifically targeting Conservative groups.
Yes. The question is, were there reasons for doing so, and, even if so, did that justify it?
Similarly, there have been cases where Arabs and Muslims, individually and as a group, have been specifically targeted. Were there reasons for doing so, and, even if so, did that justify it?
Personally, I would have thought that if there were a reason (besides partisan politics), we might have heard it by now.
If there's a legitimate reason, I'd be interested in hearing what it was.
I agree with +Dave Hill . Playing partisan politics and jumping to conclusions is not the best approach.
From what I have initially heard +Mark Means , the IRS queried on Tea Party for the simple reason that at the time the vast majority of in-coming applications were from Tea Party groups. Think about the time this happened and the political climate. To make it easy to search they typed in "tea party". This doesn't let them off the hook IMO but just explains circumstances.
Again as Dave states, I expect the people decrying this situation would be the same people decrying treatment of Muslims and anyone else discriminated against.
I think I've posted a few reason:
Primarily, this took place at a time when the Tea Party Right was suddenly ascendant and growing and organizing. This was also the period in which Citizens United meant there was a large influx of money into political activism. The vast majority of political 501(c)4 applications at the time were for Right-wing groups (Left-wing groups were generally applying for 501(c)3 orgs, which allowed tax-deductable donations, but required donors be listed).
With the influx of money, there were concerns within the IRS about inappropriate use of the 501(c)4 status for political purposes. In looking for this, IRS departments handling applications looked for ways to identify those applications in general, originally choosing "Tea Party" and "Patriot" and "9/12" in the names, frankly, because those were such a large proportion of the political applicants. They — and some Left-wing groups we know about — were asked a variety of questions, some of which seem overreach, but which were an effort to determine that groups claiming that they were "social welfare" groups were, in fact, not simply means of driving undisclosed money into political campaigns.
While there are some tactical execution problems here, I think the reasons for what was done were legitimate.