PRIVACY: The Hill: House lawmaker questions IRS over email search policy. “In a letter to the IRS on Thursday, Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), chairman of the Ways and Means subcommittee on Oversight, asked for the IRS to explain when it believes it can search emails without a warrant and how many searches it has conducted since 2010. He asked the agency to provide all internal memos and guidelines on its email search policy. Boustany also asked the IRS to provide information about whether it mines Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites for information on tax payers. . . . The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released internal IRS documents on Wednesday in which the agency claimed that, in many cases, it does not need a warrant to access emails, text messages and other electronic communications. The ACLU obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request.”