I love it. An IRS audit based on trawling public data is more likely to wake up the moronic "I've got nothing to hide" clowns than any total surveillance by the NSA or the massive cyberstalking by Facebook, Google e.a.
It probably won't bother the ones that diligently and conservatively determine their tax liability. I would guess there is quite some intersection between those groups.
There's a large subset of that intersection that puts a bizarre halo effect around the NSA (everything they do is good) and the opposite for the IRS. So I do think this will wake them up.
> wake up the moronic "I've got nothing to hide" clowns
I take objection to this. The NSA stuff is indeed questionable. Reading your gmail, that's very clearly a breach. But the IRS does have legitimate interest in knowing about when money changes hands. It's kind of their job.
Let's take away some of the linkbait and media sensationalism about this article. IRS already gets a privileged amount of information on the "usual" way in which money changes hands. Bank transfers, stock sales, dividends, your paycheck, interest - they're getting that info already. So how might social media fit into this? I say if a modern day Al Capone figures out a way to launder money based on Farmville credits, yes, I want the IRS to know about it. If sites like Facebook are introducing things like payment platforms, I don't see why the IRS should not be notified that money is changing hands, the same way they are notified for other transactions. That's not the same as reading your messages.
Which brings me to another point:
> An IRS audit based on trawling public data
A fluffy MSN article about what IRS might be doing is not the same as evidence that this is actually happening. If someone has evidence of innocent people being subjected to this in any substantial number, then please, let them come forward. Absent that kind of evidence I don't find it very believable.
