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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsU.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement
WASHINGTON 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. Pickerings 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 with his wife 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. Pickerings mail but told him nothing else."
Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, 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.
Together, the two programs show that postal mail is subject to the same kind of scrutiny that the National Security Agency has given to telephone calls and e-mail."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)I think our country is being run by a bunch of extremely paranoid people.
damnedifIknow
(3,183 posts)ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)MotherPetrie
(3,145 posts)Guilty until proven innocent.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)I ALWAYS put a return address label on the back of any envelope, on the seal.
In our humid weatehr, sometimes envelopes can come unstuck, the label makes sure they stay closed.
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)bluestate10
(10,942 posts)A foil cap with a spinning multi-colored propeller on top will keep the black helicopters at bay. Now, I return to the fact based, sane world.
As a former postal worker - there is NO way everyone's mail can be tracked. The subject line of the OP is misleading at best.