U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement
July 3rd, 2013Via: New York Times:
Leslie James Pickering noticed something odd in his mail last September: A handwritten card, apparently delivered by mistake, with instructions for postal workers to pay special attention to the letters and packages sent to his home.
“Show all mail to supv” — supervisor — “for copying prior to going out on the street,” read the card. It included Mr. Pickering’s name, address and the type of mail that needed to be monitored. The word “confidential” was highlighted in green.
“It was a bit of a shock to see it,” said Mr. Pickering, who owns a small bookstore in Buffalo. More than a decade ago, he was a spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group labeled eco-terrorists by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Postal officials subsequently confirmed they were indeed tracking Mr. Pickering’s mail but told him nothing else.
As the world focuses on the high-tech spying of the National Security Agency, the misplaced card offers a rare glimpse inside the seemingly low-tech but prevalent snooping of the United States Postal Service.
Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, but that is only a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.
Well I’m sure this comment is way behind the times and probably will not be read by anyone but holy cow. How much does this cost the post office? Stupid numbnuts. Does anyone still have a brain or can make a management decision that just
says NO re the costs versus the benefits re this snoooing and spying into.. un whatever.. how often humans in the USA /WORLD take a shit, wherever?
Where does this stupid terror shit end? Cost versus benefits. Yuh like they say in the Wizard of Oz, if I only had a brain. Post office, get a clue.
Eileen, I agree with your comment. The Postal Service is supposedly already on the verge of bankruptcy, yet it has the resources for this crap.