You think that was fun?
Just wait until your ATM card expires. They won't even deliver those to a PO Box anymore. It gets either gets sent to a physical address, or to the bank, where you have to "call" for it (and get ID'ed yet again).
Even if your ATM card gets mailed directly to you, you still have to go to the bank to program your PIN.
Yeh, I can see that coming. I'm wondering if the people who think controlling PO Boxholders is key understand how many small towns, especially in the East, don't have mail delivery - everyone has a PO box. When the PO has different people working there, they often don't deliver things that don't have a PO Box number on them (not knowing who everyone is), and many institutions will NOT use the 4-line address formate, where your street address is one line and your PO box is the other. And, sometimes postal employees can just be ornery. 20 years ago (today) my father died. The Postmaster returned many Christmas cards AND sympathy cards, because they only had the street address and not the PO Box. The Postal Service isn't fully involved in the "know where everyone is" effort.
None of that has anything to do with the Patriot Act. It's called common sense and the postal regulations that you cite were instituted in 1999. Well before the Patriot Act was a glimmer in W's eye. Fraud prevention was the reason then. Unscrupulous persons would use POBoxes for scams. It's good to know who you are really sending money to, is it not?
Everyday inconveniences are blamed on the Patriot Act but they will not disappear if the Act sunsets.