Posted on 10/28/2014 9:12:14 AM PDT by Brother Cracker
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 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
When Reagan said big government is the enemy, he did not know how right he was....or did he? Government is become the enemy of American citizens in many ways now.
May as well just hand our mail to the fbi for them to look at before taking it to the post office.
Big Brother from another mother.
It’s reading addresses only, right?
They need to bring back lickable stamps so they can have your DNA,too.
Yeah. Can’t see inside the envelope.
In fact I wish it could read more addresses. The reject rates are still too high.
Surveillance = Owned
Indeed wonder where his next post will be?.
If I am correct those little bars stuck on all the mail you receive tell me that ALL mail is tracked in the US and I expect that the information is stored for further use.
You are absolutely correct.
A couple of years ago I sent a payment to our local newspaper for an ad I ran the week before.
I ran out of envelopes so I used one that I had received from the NRA. I attached a wide white label over their address and wrote in the address of the newspaper, put a stamp on it and thought all was well.
A couple weeks later the paper called and said they had not received payment yet. I sent out another check immediately.
Two days later the paper called and said they had received a phone call from the NRA and that they would be forwarding my check to them! Thanks, NRA!!!
It was the UPC code on the NRA envelope. I guess they’re magnetic and the machine at the post office read that as the destination point, not the actual address that I printed clearly on the label.
Yes, Chickensoup, Big Brother IS watching.
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