BENGHAZI, THE IRS, & THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ISSA's ISSUE Frankly, I can't get excited about the endless attacks about what the Benghazi disaster was called for several days or a week after it happened.  I think that calling it a terrorist attack or a violent demonstration is a fine point.  Attacks on U.S. Embassies and Consulates have gone on for a long time, including 7 during the presidency of George W. Bush with many deaths and injuries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack)  I suspect that terrorists are laughing themselves silly about how this small attack in a backwater of Libya is tying our government into knots.  What appears to be a good, almost blow by blow account of the Benghazi disaster, appears at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack for those interested.  It may even come as a surprise that 6 state department members were rescued and 30 other Americans evacuated.

Now, I would like to see an early assessment how the 29 State Department security improvement recommendations are coming along.  Granted it is early days being less than five months since the recommendations were made, but some recommendations were probably easy to implement but others take a long time.  "The Marine Corps, for example, has said it would take years to assign more  of its troops to embassy and consulate staffs." (http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/may/12/tp-gop-skeptical-about-diplomatic-security-efforts/)

THE IRS and 501.C4  ORGANIZATIONS This item concerns the IRS review of the qualifications of 501.C4 organizations with the words Tea Party of Liberty in their title.  Since the Supreme Court ruling that companies are people in the Citizens United case,  a plethora of organizations have applied for 501.C4 status.  This status is for Civic Leagues, Social Welfare Organizations, and Local Associations of Employees.  Perhaps the most famous 501.C4 organization is the American Civil Liberties Union or ACLU.  Though these organizations must be non-profit, donors cannot take a tax deduction for donations to them.  These organizations can participate in political actions (e.g. TV ads) and lobbying, as long as the main business of the organization is for social welfare, but any advocacy of a political candidate is taxable.  A main attraction of the new organizations for this status appears to be that the names of donors need not be revealed.  Apparently these organizations do not have to have pre-approval by the IRS  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)_organization#501.28c.29.284.29)

It is easy to believe that the 501.C4 status is abused.  Recently it was admitted that the IRS was investigating "harassing" new organizations with Tea Party and Liberty in their titles though most applicants were eventually granted.  There is a claim that the investigations of conservative groups went much farther than these two titles (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/13/irs-scrutiny-went-beyond-tea-party-criteria-broader-than-thought/)  Although I feel that every administration does this sort of thing, I think it is not right, and it would be good if somehow something could be done to do away with targeting of political organizations for harassment.  Though I don't view this with the righteous indignation of many politicians, current thought is that this may be the most serious action of the three items considered here.

 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (AP) PHONE RECORDS  Personally, I think that the case of the subpoenas of reporter's work and home phone records is the most serious item in view that it seems to violate the DOJ's own guidelines.  (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/ap-phone-record-scandal-justice-department-law.html).  Though this may not be as bad as wire tapping without a warrant (which is allowed in some cases by the Patriot Act.*), it is pretty close.  We will have to see how this plays out, but I'm not very sympathetic about such intimidation of news sources.  There have been cases of reporters going to jail to protect their sources.

Because of my contact with Soviet scientists in the early and mid 1970s, I assumed that my phone was being tapped for many years, and I don't know what else.  If so, I doubt they found anything of interest.  In fact I felt much better when detente was over, and we were no longer sort of friends again with the Soviet Union.

* http://www.aclu.org/national-security/surveillance-under-usa-patriot-act