“In the documents that were sent to me, if you did not tell the whole truth by not putting all your personal information out there by Facebook, by Twitter, of your personal relationship with candidates and parties … it could be considered perjury and perjury carried jail time,” Stefano, 39, told ABC News.

“That was frightening and that’s why I shut it down. I shut my group down.”…

Zawistowski told ABC News that after applying for tax-exempt status in 2010, he heard nothing from the IRS until February 2012, when he received a lengthy questionnaire.

He wrote back to the IRS, refusing to answer the questions and suggesting they were politically motivated. Zawistowski heard from other groups who had received similar questionnaires and worked with the American Center for Law and Justice to coordinate their communication with the IRS.

“There’s a name for that – it’s called ‘opposition research,'” Zawistowski said of the questions IRS was asking, which included information on the groups with which his group associated.