The IRS claims it can read American citizens' emails without a warrant

IRS documents released Wednesday suggest that the tax collection agency believes it can read American citizens' emails without a warrant.

The files were released to the American Civil Liberties Union under a Freedom of Information Act request. The organization is working to determine just how broadly federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI or the IRS' Criminal Tax Division interpret their authority to snoop through inboxes.

The idea of IRS agents poking through your email account might sound at the very least creepy, and maybe unconstitutional. But the IRS does have a legal leg to stand on: the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 allows government agencies to in many cases obtain emails older than 180 days without a warrant.

That's why an internal 2009 IRS document claimed that "the government may obtain the contents of electronic communication that has been in storage for more than 180 days" without a warrant.

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