Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in U.S.

[Omaha Steve]

Source: NYTimes

By RON NIXON

WASHINGTON — In a rare public accounting of its mass surveillance program, the United States Postal Service reported that it approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its own internal inspection unit to secretly monitor the mail of Americans for use in criminal and national security investigations.

The number of requests, contained in a little-noticed 2014 audit of the surveillance program by the Postal Service’s inspector general, shows that the surveillance program is more extensive than previously disclosed and that oversight protecting Americans from potential abuses is lax.

The audit, along with interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act, offers one of the first detailed looks at the scope of the program, which has played an important role in the nation’s vast surveillance effort since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The audit found that in many cases the Postal Service approved requests to monitor an individual’s mail without adequately describing the reason or having proper written authorization.

FULL story at link.



Mail handlers in Virginia. The Postal Service approved nearly 50,000 requests last year to track the mail of Americans. Credit Luke Sharrett for The New York Times


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/us/us-secretly-monitoring-mail-of-thousands.html?partner=EXCITE&ei=5043&_r=0

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At the bottom of the article is the time stamp: A version of this article appears in print on October 28, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in U.S..

[ReRe]

1. We live an illusion...

... of freedom.

[TBF]

2. An illusion at best -

the Patriot Act, passed by the Bush Administration, has taken away any freedom we might have thought we had.

[ReRe]

4. Yip...

... it wiped out the vestiges.

I make a motion that we abolish the Patriot Act.

[onyourleft]

7. I second...

...your motion.

[L0oniX]

3. ...and out of 50,000 they stopped "0" terrorists.

[Red State Rebel]

5. If you use a postage meter you are now forced to have your mail tracked.

As of January, we are required to switch to a postage meter that puts a barcode on every piece of mail so it can be traced. If you don't do this, you cannot get the metered mail rate.

Blackmail for spying..... We are installing our new meter today.

[pscot]

6. With 300 million customers

50,000 seems trivial. A fair number or those 50k are probably suspected of trafficking in child porn. Not sure how you get mass surveillance out of those numbers.

[KingCharlemagne]

8. The worrisome part isn't the raw number or the percentage, but rather this

little jewel bureid in the article:

The audit found that in many cases the Postal Service approved requests to monitor an individual’s mail without adequately describing the reason or having proper written authorization.

I know 'due process of the law' is now quaint and obsolete in this brave new world of Might Makes Right, but there are a few of us nostalgic for the good ole days.

[pscot]

9. Postal inspectors write their own rules

I don't think "due Process" is part of their lexicon. I'm not defending the PO here; just commenting on the numbers.

[KingCharlemagne]

10. Fair enough. Whenever I'm engaged in terroristical plotting by mail with my Dad (who for

reasons having to do with age, crankiness and stuborness, refuses to get either a phone or a computer), I'm always careful to use a substitution cipher based upon the Gettysburg Address. Because one can never be too careful around those crafty postal inspectors.

So they'll be reading a lot of 'Four score' this and 'hallowed ground' that and they won't have the slightest idea WTF we're really talking about.

Kidding about the 'terroristical' part, but only half-kidding about the Gettysburg Address references.