So a few have seen the " Taxpayers can take the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to federal court for gathering private financial information about his use of virtual currency from third-party exchanges without a lawful subpoena "

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In a nutshell, basically we can take the IRS to court if the use an unlawful subpoena to get info about us.

Problems

* There is a pretty good chance you will NEVER know this was done.

Like unless if they use it against you in an audit or some way. Like they might audit you to try to find a link. Where they know what you did, but they are trying to find some legal way to prove it.

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* Many times companies get what is called an information request.

Sometimes they are legally you will give us x. But a lot of time it is them asking for info but if you don't get it then it's OK. The problem is, many companies give the information.

Like with this. lets say you trade on Coinbase and move the crypto off platform or do whatever. The IRS can give a simple request, and it's up to Coinbase to give that info or not. If they do, then it was freely given. If not, then no harm in asking.

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* Another major way gov bodies get info is by buying it.

Like ISP do this all the time where they flat out sell user data. The buyer could be an ad company or maybe the gov. This means the IRS could simply work a business deal with the exchanges to collect info.

* Another way that is used with other things like FBI is other countries.

Basically, it is illegal to spy on our own citizens without the proper paperwork. HOWEVER, the country can spy all day long on other citizens in most other counties. Countries with similar laws they work deals with us where we spy on their citizen and they spy on ours. On paper, no law has been broken and no warrant or anything needed.

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* The last way is data collection programs in intelligent communities. For example PRISM

PRISM is a tool used by the US National Security Agency (NSA) to collect private electronic data belonging to users of major internet services like Gmail, Facebook, Outlook, and others. It’s the latest evolution of the US government’s post-9/11 electronic surveillance efforts, which began under President Bush with the Patriot Act, and expanded to include the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) enacted in 2006 and 2007.

https://www.theverge.com/2013/7/17/4517480/nsa-spying-prism-surveillance-cheat-sheet

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IDK if PRISM is still around, but there is a TON of multiple monitoring programs now so its all rather convoluted

• What has changed is that the NSA was challenged on using PRISM and other method for bulk collection and storage of data in the US
• That has been stopped (it was stopped many years ago) so bulk collection no longer happens in the US
• Now court order must be issued before the NSA can actively monitor you.
• If you are a criminal then beware that getting a court order in the US is so trivial that it is practically issued automatically

So on paper bulk data collection stopped, but it is still going. There is so many of these court orders and virtually none of them get rejected and they get approved so fast that it's bulk collection but with extra steps.

And you will never know if they got one of these orders against you.

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When I say there is so many of these request and orders. Apple, Google, and Facebook people complain about it all the time. Where they will get hundreds to thousands per day at week. During given events this can be per day.

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TLDR

Unless if they flat out admit it or they start taking you to court and you have a lawyer trying to figure out how they figured out what about you and if it was legal. You will never know

1. what the IRS knows about you
2. what they will use with that knowledge
3. when they find out about it
4. what false info they know about you (like screwed up data or putting the wrong 2 and 2 together)

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Keep in mind, the gov has the ability to go after you for anything at the time and choice of their choosing.