Pelican Institute Comments on Privacy Rights, New IRS Rule

The right to support organizations that you believe in is a core American principle. The First Amendment supports our rights to associate and financially support groups and causes we believe in. But due to today’s political climate, many people are worried that supporting the causes they believe in could result in them facing harassment or intimidation either online or in the real world.

As a result, many people simply don’t support the causes they believe in.

But, this doesn’t have to be the case.

The IRS is considering a rule where it will no longer collect supporter information for certain types of non-profit groups. This data isn’t being used to enforce tax law but could be used to intimidate supporters, as seen with the IRS Tea Party scandal.

The Pelican Institute believes in the privacy of not only its supporters, but of supporters of all other non-profits.

As a result, the Pelican Institute submitted comments in support of this rule.