In the United States, money spent on candidates, politics, or public policy is protected speech under the First Amendment. What happens when protected speech is wrapped in a cloak of secrecy?How to reconcile Citizens United, which gave corporations the same rights as individuals with regard to political speech while shielding them for any accountability for that speech?This is the story of how one government agency struggled with these questions and how it was defanged before it could implement rules to force nonprofit organizations who are spending on political campaigns to disclose donors.It is also a story about the unbridled freedom given to political nonprofits in the absence of campaign-finance laws or Internal Revenue Service rules regulating disclosure.Continue Reading...