I.R.S. HARASSING TEA PARTIES? “Send Us Everything.”

The Waco Tea Party submitted an application for tax-exempt status in 2010. Nearly two years after the IRS’s 90-day response window elapsed, the group finally received a reply — a list of over 50 demands. The three-year-old organization was asked to compile every Facebook post and tweet it had ever produced. It was told to submit transcriptions of its weekly radio show — a request that would cost $25,000 to comply with, more than twice the group’s annual budget. It was ordered to explain any “close relationships” with candidates. And when the Waco Tea Party asked the IRS to clarify “close relationship” and “candidate,” the IRS replied, “Send us everything.”

To make the demands even more egregious, the over 30,000 pages of demanded information was to be compiled in just 14 days.

Is this harassment? Or is it just the usual run of business at the IRS? And if it’s the latter, isn’t that actually worse?