Government propagandist shown here attempting to convince Americans to assist federal agents in tracking their location!
According to documents recently uncovered by this blogger, it can now be incontrovertibly confirmed that every day, agents of the federal government personally sift through over 600 million pieces of our private correspondence.
With an annual budget of over 70 billions dollars, over half a million of agents in virtually every city and town in all 50 states and its own federalized police force, this innocuously named "Postal Service" stands on the brink of annihilating all liberty and privacy in the United States at the merest whim of the executive branch.
In a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision, the Court noted: "Each day, according to the Government's submissions here, the United States Postal Service delivers some 660 million pieces of mail to as many as 142 million delivery points."[32] As of 2011, the USPS operates 31,000 post offices and locations in the U.S., and delivers 177 billion pieces of mail annually.[5]
"It's true," said a highly placed insider who spoke to me on condition of anonymity. "In fact 'Linda' [the names of specific federal agents involved in this crime against Liberty are being withheld pending confirmation] is headin' to the back right now to sort out a whole bag of oddball junk."
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Of course without a properly executed court order it is still illegal for anyone but you (or, let's face it, your spouse) to open your mail, and any US postal service personnel caught opening your mail would be subject to immediate termination, fines and imprisonment, but since it is theoretically possible that the government could spontaneously decide to secretly do the opposite, we should all be terrified.
14 comments:
I heard this Greenwald person discussing his role in the overblown NSA story. I can't put my finger on it but I think I don't like this Greenwald fellow.... Something about his tone perhaps... His unjournalistic approach to journalism... His happiness.... No, his gleeful joy at being at the center of this non-story... It's a sort of narcissistic elation that's just not palatable... Worse still, I find his belligerent, nay, bellicose approach to those who disagree with him, I don't know, disagreeable. Personally I wish the story would have been turned over to someone like Candy Crowley, S.E. Cupp or Bob Schieffer.
Anyway, here is this blogger/advocate/lawyer/pseudo journalist holding court with a bunch of Socialists on the YouTube. See for yourself why listening to this man discuss this non-story is so unenjoyable:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uulv4ve6RJ8
My aunt works in the USPS priority mail center in Jacksonville. They really have to make sure every piece of mail goes through, or heads can roll. She said once someone tried to improperly ship live baby chicks, and the crate broke. She also said that they take every new employee through a "big brother is watching you" tour, which is part of the building safety and security tour. She said that they demonstrate that the cameras used can read addresses off mail being sorted. Listening to her talk, this is not only a matter of pride in their work, but there is also some fear of making mistakes.
My only actual concern was that anything with "funny writing" was sent through security. I asked her if they had any way of differentiating Arabic or Thai or Hindi. She said, "No. Anything squigggly."
Mike.K.
it is theoretically possible that the government could spontaneously decide to secretly do the opposite
Worse than that! They already get all the metadata!!
Driftglass, as someone well acquainted with the sophistry of false equivalence and the strawman argument, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Surely you are not equating mail delivery with the NSA's tracking of our metadata. Because as well know, the US Postal Service does not record the metadata of US citizens' mail (from and to where, how often, weight, etc.).
Because if you are, perhaps you "study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill." Apologies to Tolkien.
Haha! This is the best post ever, Driftglass.
Every Monday morning at work we start the day with a team roundtable. Part of this painful activity involves 15 minutes of small talk (on Monday morning) with other team members while we wait for the boss to show up.
Tomorrow I think I'll toss out, "so, did you hear about this invasive program in ALL FIFTY STATES that has tens of thousands of federal agents sifting through 600 million pieces of our private correspondence every day!!!1!"
80% of the people at the table are wingnuts, and 15% libertarians. Should be entertaining.
bluicebank: The only thing protecting the information on the outside of an envelope from collection and storage is infeasibility. That information actually has less legal protection than does your telephone metadata.
bluicebank: The only thing protecting the information on the outside of an envelope from collection and storage is infeasibility. That information actually has less legal protection than does your telephone metadata, for which the government can't obtain your name without a subpoena.
The NSA is just like the post office. We have figured it out. Go back to bed, America.
Yeah, I remember all those FBI agents sent to the slammer during the bad old days of COINTELPRO for illegal mail covers, sifting through correspondence without a warrant, and how all those officials like Hoover and Sullivan resigned in disgrace, stripped of their pay, pension and benefits, and died in miserable squalor.
Ha ha, you stupid paranoids!
* * *
Oh wait; that never happened at all. The government, through its Federal Bureau of Investigation, rummaged through the private papers of its citizens with gay abandon through much of the 20th century, didn't they?
Huh. Imagine that.
I knew it !!!!!
Gratuitous:
Right, they didn't collect all the metadata, just opened the mail of the people J. Edgar Hoover knew for a fact were communists or something similar, anyway. That's why Obama is worse than Nixon, right?
Some funny words from a quaint old document:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Prolly doesn't mean anything as long as some government official somewhere "knows for a fact" that someone's a commie or something similar.
Is Obama worse than Nixon? Couldn't say based on what is publicly known (and neither can you), but the current president seems to have gone a pretty far piece down a well-trodden crooked path.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?hp&_r=0
this IS a revalation, not a joke. the govt is putting in place the tools of a police state. this should be more important to liberals than the assbaggerry of greenwald et al. meta data and analysis is enough to invade privacy as protected in the constitution. secrecy is all that's needed to prevent constitutional challenges.
I came back to this post after seeing the same article that nick posted above.
This post was always frivolous. Comparing the USPS, whose job it is to transport the post, to the NSA, whose job does not entail transporting data or information on behalf of citizens, was always silly.
But this article really drives home how badly the post missed the point. I hope our host revisits this issue with more care.
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