A CEO who resisted NSA spying is out of prison. And he feels ‘vindicated’ by Snowden leaks.
Just one major telecommunications company refused to participate in a legally dubious NSA surveillance program in 2001. A few years later, its CEO was indicted by federal prosecutors. He was convicted, served four and a half years of his sentence and was released this month.

Prosecutors claim Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio was guilty of insider trading, and that his prosecution had nothing to do with his refusal to allow spying on his customers without the permission of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. But to this day, Nacchio insists that his prosecution was retaliation for refusing to break the law on the NSA's behalf.

After his release from custody Sept. 20, Nacchio told the Wall Street Journal that he feels "vindicated" by the content of the leaks that show that the agency was collecting American's phone records....

Ben Carson: ‘I had my first encounter with the IRS’ after challenging Obama
At an event in Birmingham, Ala. Monday night, former Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Ben Carson revealed that he had received a visit from the Internal Revenue Service following his much-noted remarks at a National Prayer Breakfast earlier this year.

“I had my first encounter with the IRS this year, unsurprisingly after the prayer breakfast,” Carson told an audience that at the annual Business Council of Alabama Chairman’s Dinner, according to a report from Cliff Sims of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Yellowhammer News....

Ben Carson's IRS Audit Can't Possibly Be Coincidence
Maybe there was never an explicit order. Considering the threat of being overheard, it's part of the job of the capos to know what the boss wants and make him happy by giving it to him without him even having to ask.

The IRS and the Obama administration are on the same page when it comes to big government: Tea Partiers and other conservatives threaten the massive state they love, and the IRS' powerful army of bureaucrats is a pretty handy weapon for use against them.

In the already blossoming IRS scandal, political organizations' applications for tax-exempt status were delayed or denied during last year's presidential campaign, and well into this year, simply because their names sounded too conservative. The IRS audit of renowned neurosurgeon Carson looks like exactly the same kind of abuse, and it must be subject to a formal independent investigation.

Carson on Wednesday told Fox's Bill O'Reilly that the IRS began examining his real estate holdings after his speech to the National Prayer Breakfast in February, in which he used tithing in the Bible to make a compelling case against progressive taxation. A humiliated Obama sat steaming a couple of seats away....

Lerner's Pension Could Be as Much as $102,600/Year, $3.96 Million Lifetime
Even before she retired last week, scandalized IRS official Lois Lerner's compensation was already attracting attention. While on administrative leave, federal rules allowed her to keep collecting a salary, one that reportedly totaled $177,000. So it was no surprise when speculation arose over how much Lerner could collect in federal pension benefits.

Unfortunately, that speculation, which initially projected a benefit of over $50,000, might be off by about half ... and in the wrong direction.

National Taxpayers Union calculations show that Lerner could qualify for a starting pension at the annual equivalent of as much as $102,600, and up to $3.96 million over her lifetime....

IRS must turn over improperly obtained conservative donor lists
The Internal Revenue Service is still in possession of improperly obtained conservative donor lists, according to congressional investigators.

“The Committee on Ways and Means (Committee) has discovered that inappropriately obtained donor lists still remain in taxpayer case files, despite assurances from then-Acting Commissioner Miller at our May 17, 2013 hearing,” according to a memo Wednesday from House Ways and Means chairman Rep. Dave Camp to acting IRS commissioner and Obama appointee Danny Werfel.

“In testimony before the Oversight Subcommittee on September 18, 2013, you said you ‘learned last night about the potential presence of these donor lists, which were intended to be destroyed,’” Camp wrote to Werfel....