We are regularly told that we, as citizens, should become more active in public affairs. We are told that this would make us more informed about the issues of the day, and that being more informed, we could make better decisions as citizens, and force our elected officials to make better decisions as well.

By and large, all of this is true. And of course, with blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social media, we can be more involved in public life. As individual citizens, we are empowered as never before to impact what goes on in our communities, in our cities, in our states, and in our country.

But any advice to get more involved in public affairs--and to do so with the help of social media--should come with a warning: If you do get involved, be prepared to pay lots of money to be regulated by your state in flagrant violation of past Supreme Court rulings. Be prepared, in short, to have your First Amendment rights ignored and trampled upon by the state.

The Supreme Court has the opportunity to put a stop to this latest example of overregulation and liberty infringement. The question is, will they? Or will the First Amendment become more and more of a dead letter?

Tired of being told that the IRS scandal is a "fake" one? So is Bradley Smith, who takes apart false claims surrounding the issue:

The Internal Revenue Service's scandalous targeting of tea party and conservative groups refuses to die, as one by one the administration's explanations prove untrue.

We were told that the White House, like the rest of the country, learned about the program on May 10 through a planted question asked of then IRS official Lois Lerner at an American Bar Association conference. Turns out the White House knew earlier. We were told the targeting was the work of a few rogue IRS employees in Cincinnati. Then those employees insisted that they were being managed from Washington.

We were told that no political appointees were involved, but now we know the scandal goes at least to the office of Obama appointee and IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins. We were told that liberal groups were targeted, too. But then the IRS's inspector general, whose report exposed the harassment, clarified that only conservative groups were targeted.

Now the administration line is that the scandal is nonetheless "phony." That assertion is part of a Democratic counteroffensive contending that the tea party and conservative groups applying for "charitable" tax status never should have sought such IRS approval.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D., Calif.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, argued on "Meet the Press" on May 19 that conservative groups were, "under the guise of a charity, [using] undisclosed millions of dollars to do political campaigns." At a May hearing, Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.) claimed that the groups were supposed to spend their money on "charitable activities," and demanded of the IRS, "How could you all in the IRS allow the tax breaks funded basically by the taxpayer [to be spent] on these political campaign expenditures?"

Liberal columnist Jeffrey Toobin has also taken up the theme that the groups were seeking improper tax advantages. Writing in the May 14 issue of the New Yorker, Mr. Toobin argued that if approved by the IRS, the tea party groups would not pay taxes on contributions received. "In return for the tax advantage," he wrote, these groups "must refrain from traditional partisan political activity, like endorsing candidates."

This attack is wrong on the law, and cynical as politics. As these IRS apologists well know, liberal groups, such as Moveon.org, have long had the same tax status as that requested by the tea party and conservative groups—and that status is not of a "charity."