“We got a good glimpse of abuse of power when Lois Lerner was running the IRS, but this kind of seems like that,” said Rep. Andy Biggs, Arizona Republican.
Former IRS unit director Lois G. Lerner targeted conservative and tea party groups during the Obama administration and was held in contempt of Congress after not testifying at a congressional hearing. The Justice Department later decided not to bring a criminal case against her.
Much was left unclear after the closed-door briefing, including whether the suspected spying targeted only conservatives.
The Postal Service did not answer when it started monitoring Americans’ social media posts, how much taxpayer money was spent on the program or what legal authority the agency had to operate the program, said Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican who attended the virtual briefing.
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The lawmakers from the House Committees on Oversight and Reform and the Judiciary added, “The United States is not lacking in its availability of intelligence agencies, and it should be left to those professionals to engage in this sort of behavior, if it is even necessary at all.”
Earlier this week, a bulletin from iCOP published by Yahoo! News showed iCOP was monitoring planned protest activity in March 2021, including via information distributed through the social media platforms Parler, Facebook, Twitter, and the cloud-based messaging service Telegram.
Parler became popular with supporters of former President Donald Trump amid actions by more prominent social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to restrict content online.
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