Taxes As early as the Boston Tea Party, where Americans banded together to toss tea into the river as a protest unfair British taxes, taxation has been a delicate, and sometimes contentious, subject for US citizens. While many US citizens would likely concede that taxes are necessary for the adequate function of government, it is equally true of our American ethos that we expect the taxation powers of government to be carried out in a fair and constitutional manner. At the heart of the Boston Tea Party protest, for instance, was the refusal of Americans to be taxed without being adequately represented, the latter of which is a constitutional right. Recently, the American Civil Liberties Union reported that they believed that the nation's largest tax collection body- the Internal Revenue Service-might, however, be engaging in some questionable, if not unconstitutional behavior, in their efforts to collect taxes from United States citizens. Indeed, the ACLU recently reported that the IRS, as a matter of policy, accessed taxpayers emails without a warrant when conducting criminal investigations. The ACLU cited correspondence from the IRS that contended that this was because the fourth amendment does not cover emails. The following analyzes the alleged actions of the IRS in light of the fourth amendment and concludes that such actions should be construed by the courts and the public to constitute an infringement of Americans' fourth amendment rights.

As noted in the New York Daily News story relaying the ACLU's accusation, the statute that is supposed to cover activities such as that described above is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. However, the report also notes that the Act only covers unopened emails or those that are more than 180 days old. While the Act would ideally have more expansive coverage, the IRS' activity may, more importantly, violate the the Fourth Amendment, which reads, " The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The text of the amendment establishes that Americans are protected against searches of their papers and effects in their house. Of course, being written in the 18th century, the amendment makes no mention of email. However, the fact remains that were the contents of email written on paper and kept in the home, they would be protected. Why is email, therefore, different, at least as per the IRS' view?

The New York Daily News reports that IRS counsel has said that users have no expectation of privacy when their electronic data, such as email, is stored on servers. The theory behind this argument is that servers are owned by a third party and there can be no expectation of privacy where a third party is involved. The article elaborates that this "right" of the IRS to obtain and use electronic communications and expression may also extend to Twitter and other forms of social media. Of course, the IRS suggests that it will choose to conduct audits on the basis of tax returns and not social media, but are the American people willing to trust a government agency with their personal communications, especially one with broad taxation powers, as well as the ability to exact civil and criminal penalties? Another aspect of the IRS' activity that is troubling is its alleged flaunting of the requirement of a warrant. Indeed, the Fourth Amendment allows government to engage in certain invasive activities provided that the government obtains a warrant. The purpose of the warrant is to protect US citizens from precisely the type of activity that the IRS is undertaking. A warrant requires a judge to review the evidence and establish that the search is reasonable. The point of the Bill of Rights is to protect citizens from unreasonable government intrusion. This would seem to be particularly applicable in the case of the IRS where the penalties can be severe, such as monetary penalties and, in some cases, even imprisonment. We should also be reminded that tax liability continues throughout one's life, at least in theory.

The question as to whether there is an expectation of privacy may also be more complex in this case than in others. While it is a legal term, it is doubtful that many users do not have an expectation of privacy in regards to their email. Why else do we give our email accounts passwords? In many ways email can be more "personal" than other aspects of citizens rights protected by the fourth amendment. Emails not only reflect what we wish to communicate to one another, but also, in some cases reflect our deepest thoughts. There is also an argument that much of the content of "papers and effects" mentioned in the Fourth Amendment may now take place electronically. Indeed, whereas people may have kept their tax returns and related correspondence on paper in the past, the government itself has even supported the move towards increasingly using the internet and third party servers. Users are encouraged, for instance, to file their returns online and can email questions to the IRS.

Given the widespread usage of electronic communications, in fact, it is arguable that many Americans tend to view their right to privacy in regards to email closer to the way that they might review a phone conversation or so-called "snail mail," other ways of communicating that have traditionally required a warrant. Perhaps our conceptions of rights have not yet adequately evolved to include the modern information age. In response to the ACLUs, accusation, the IRS has recently denied claims that it requests access to the contents of emails without a warrant. In the meantime, however, perhaps users would do well to be wary and engage in data encryption or at least take important emails off of third party servers.