[HN Gopher] The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Am...
___________________________________________________________________
The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social
media posts
Author : nahikoa
Score : 200 points
Date : 2021-04-21 16:53 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (news.yahoo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.yahoo.com)
| tengbretson wrote:
| I bet FedEx could operate a domestic intelligence agency for like
| a quarter of their budget.
| jjk166 wrote:
| You joke but private mail carriers don't have the same
| restrictions on monitoring your mail that the USPS does. They
| are free to open and inspect any package, as well as x-ray and
| other such methods, and don't need to disclose it. Except under
| some special circumstances, letters and parcels going through
| the USPS, on the other hand, need a warrant to be opened. One
| could easily imagine a program where private carriers report
| the contents of parcels sent to or from targeted individuals or
| even add things like listening devices or malware to items
| being shipped. While probably not useful for dealing with
| organized crime, if your goal is just general intelligence
| gathering or blackmail, private carriers could easily be a
| treasure trove.
| _jal wrote:
| > One could easily imagine a program where [...]
|
| One doesn't have to imagine.
|
| https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/03/cisco_shippin.
| ..
| thoughtstheseus wrote:
| More likely to improve targeted advertising.
| shuntress wrote:
| It's not complicated.
|
| Your data (we could debate whether "data about you" is
| actually "your data" but that is a tangent discussion) is
| valuable. FedEx can collect then sell it.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| International mail can be opened and inspected for customs
| purposes. Otherwise it makes sense that domestic mail would
| need a warrant to be opened.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| I'm not sure why this is such a persistent sicking point with
| people. The post office regularly operates with a 1-5 billion
| dollar loss. Both UPS and Fedex operate with a net 1-5 billion
| dollar profit. That represents a theoretical min-max profit
| difference of about 10 to 2 billion dollar difference in any
| given year. In a 20 trillion dollar economy it's not even a
| rounding error.
| logicslave wrote:
| Everyone has their tin foil hat with stuff on like this, but
| unless they are paying a 100 - 1000 engineers 250k-500k a year, I
| doubt theyve built anything useful with uptime. Maybe they could
| just scan a massive dataset of everyones posts, with some string
| searching, but still. I just dont see any entity like this being
| able to accomplish this task effectively.
| _Nat_ wrote:
| What would " _100 - 1000 engineers_ " even be doing?
|
| The story starts off saying that the work's being done by
| analysts:
|
| > The work involves having analysts trawl through social media
| sites to look for what the document describes as "inflammatory"
| postings and then sharing that information across government
| agencies.
|
| , so it sounds more like they've got some folks browsing
| social-media.
|
| Granted, a lot of the post-scanning would seem better done by
| bots, and stuff like sentiment-analysis could help classify
| posts for human inspection, so they'd probably want to hire a
| few engineers, but why hundreds? And why 250-500 kUSD/yr for
| such mundane work?
| millzlane wrote:
| The entity's only job is to create a RFP and pick one. It's the
| company they hire that you have to worry about. The one thing
| we can count on is the government will spend the money to get
| what they want.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Why do you believe that unless they're paying their developers
| "250k-500k a year", they wouldn't have built something useful?
| netfortius wrote:
| The things that troubles me the most is abysmal record when it
| comes to delivery (pun intended) of fundamental services, e.g.
| interruptions in delivery of mail for weeks, then only partial
| delivery, critical documents lost, medication lost, credit cards
| "lost", etc., etc.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Pretty much any federal agency you have heard of has an
| investigative dept that employs federal special agents. These are
| law enforcement roles with the same training, authority, and
| responsibilities as investigative agents in the FBI, etc.
|
| They were created to meet the specific law enforcement needs of
| each agency. Dept of Education agents investigate misuse of Dept
| of Education funds, for example. The Postal Inspectors
| investigate illegal use of, or threats to, the mail system.
|
| After 9/11 a lot of these depts got new infusions of resources,
| and instructions to do a lot more information sharing. There was
| a feeling that the attacks of 9/11 could have been prevented if
| existing disparate info had been better collected and collated.
|
| So it's not that surprising that these agencies will seem to
| stray out of their lanes. If Postal is monitoring broadly for
| threats against their systems, but sees other concerning info,
| they are supposed to share it.
|
| This is all intended to be explanatory; I'm not saying that it's
| how things should be.
|
| I will say that personally I have fewer concerns about programs
| to monitor public content on the Internet, than programs that
| seek to access, monitor, and store content that people intended
| to be privately communicated to other people.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > I will say that personally I have fewer concerns about
| programs to monitor public content on the Internet, than
| programs that seek to access, monitor, and store content that
| people intended to be privately communicated to other people.
|
| This distinction is disappearing quickly in the current
| Internet, where conversations are increasingly company-mediated
| and facilitated. There's no such thing as a "private"
| conversation on Facebook or similar hosted platforms. You might
| _address_ a message to your friend, but you are _sending it_ to
| Facebook, and they ultimately get to decide how private it is.
| It 's likely a single "is_private" bit in a database!
|
| I'm more and more defaulting to a very strict rule: Never send
| anything to the Internet that I intend to be private. Whether
| it be a forum post, a message board, an E-mail, or a chat
| message. Keep my private pictures off of "secure, private"
| cloud storage. Don't do anything on a web site that I wouldn't
| want talked about in my local newspaper. Consider it all public
| knowledge because it's one leak or subpoena away from actually
| being public knowledge.
| Thorentis wrote:
| Yes, but I think OP is saying that the law should protect
| intent. Just like with the physical mail system. It is
| illegal to open a letter addressed to somebody else (though,
| warrants can override this). But I am fine with the
| principle.
|
| On the other hand, if you stick a huge banner out the front
| of your house, that information is fair game. Just like
| posting on your Twitter profile or blog. The intent was never
| for it to be private.
| threatofrain wrote:
| And these are their stories. Dun dun.
| tim-- wrote:
| You joke, but they actually made a TV series.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inspectors
| wombatmobile wrote:
| > I will say that personally I have fewer concerns about
| programs to monitor public content on the Internet, than
| programs that seek to access, monitor, and store content that
| people intended to be privately communicated to other people.
|
| You may have fewer concerns about public monitoring vs private
| spying, presumably because in the latter case privacy is being
| violated in a way that isn't the case for the former.
|
| But both cases are nefarious, and you don't have to choose
| between them.
|
| Both are examples of using public funds to abuse access to
| information from end users for political purposes.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Public vs Private:
|
| Public: I can think of an example. If the USPS finds out that
| in a certain area of a certain city, there is a big chance to
| have riots "tomorrow after 10am" (protests because of X-Y-Z
| resason), they can alert their local teams to e.g. deliver
| the post at 7am instead of 11am. Yes, some operations would
| be impacted (e.g. noon delivery won't happen), but this will
| protect the staff, protect the items (letters, parcels), the
| vehicles, etc.
|
| If they just hoard data to feed a bigger best (e.g. NSA)
| then, the data is still out there (my public blog, your
| public blog, HN comments, etc.) and they are up for the
| taking. In which case it doesn't matter if it is a federal
| agent carrying a NSA or a USPS badge.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Pretty much any federal agency you have heard of has an
| investigative dept that employs federal special agents. These
| are law enforcement roles with the same training, authority,
| and responsibilities as investigative agents in the FBI, etc.
|
| Maybe worth noting that USPIS is older than the FBI. It's the
| oldest federal law enforcement agency.
| belval wrote:
| That's a fantastic trivia fact, I guess threats to the postal
| service are a very old problem so it makes sense.
| dataflow wrote:
| Not merely threats to the postal service itself, but
| threats _via_ the postal service. I imagine the best to get
| away with (say) fraud has always been to avoid physical
| presence, i.e. using mail.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| If they're disinterested in private comms, it's because they're
| very interested in public comms. If they're wondering what the
| public thinks and would make improvements, great, but if
| they're targeting the public because what they say is too true
| to handle, ugh.
| GCA10 wrote:
| Lots of sentiment today that the USPS is way out of its zone of
| expertise in doing this -- and that is possible.
|
| But it's worth noting that the USPS has had its own legion of
| postal inspectors going back to the 19th century, when they were
| a (comparatively) huge part of the U.S. government, and the FBI,
| etc. did not exist.
|
| Some 1,200 postal inspectors are still around, and they play
| important roles on federal prosecutions related to mail fraud,
| drug shipments, etc. There's a good Wikipedia entry on it all:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Inspectio...
| realityIsntHere wrote:
| A total monopoly on daily mail and we get snooped.
|
| I can't tell if this is corruption or genuine work.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| "When our Corps goes in as guards over the mail, that mail must
| be delivered," wrote Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby. "Or
| there must be a Marine dead at the post of duty. There can be
| no compromise."
|
| https://www.military.com/off-duty/2020/08/25/intense-rules-u...
|
| The mail is serious business.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Sure, but the 19th century ended over 120 years ago. So that's
| _kind of_ not relevant to how they 're structured and operate
| today?
| JJMcJ wrote:
| I think 1,200 investigators for the entirety of the USPS's
| operations isn't out of line.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Not relevant? Do you somehow imagine that how things were
| done in the past _doesn 't_ affect "how they're structured
| and operate today"?
| DanBC wrote:
| People forget that spying on citizens by the post office goes
| back _hundreds_ of years. This doesn 't make it in any way
| acceptable, but people shouldn't act surprised that post
| offices spy on citizens when it's an activity that's baked
| into the service from the very early days.
|
| https://pasttenseblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/03/today-in-
| lond...
|
| > The Post office was of central importance to this
| surveillance. The 'Secret Office' - an arm of what was
| basically a secret service, dedicated to opening post to
| discover plots against the government - was formed around
| 1653 under Cromwell's post-Civil War republican Protectorate;
| but it proved so handy, the Office was continued after the
| restoration of the monarchy.
|
| [...]
|
| > Morland also recorded what he saw as the basic function of
| his devices and of surveillance in general: "a skilful prince
| ought to make a watch tower of his general post office... and
| there place such careful sentinels as that, by their care and
| diligence, he may have a constant view of all that passes."
|
| Samuel Morland was interesting and has some early computing
| devices.
|
| https://history-computer.com/samuel-morland/
|
| https://history-computer.com/samuel-morland-biography-
| histor...
|
| https://www.headstuff.org/culture/history/terrible-people-
| fr...
|
| One of the links talks about letters sealed in the Spanish
| manner.
|
| https://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/sealing-
| wa...
|
| > It was then that the superior qualities of the new
| "Spanish" wax came to be highly valued. The basic formula of
| this new sealing compound was a blend of shellac, mastic,
| turpentine, chalk or gypsum, and a coloring agent, to which
| essential oils and/or fragrant balsams might be added to
| facilitate melting and impart a pleasant fragrance. This
| "sealing wax" could be melted to a thick viscous fluid which
| would readily and firmly adhere to the parchment or paper on
| which it was placed. While warm, it would take a clear
| impression of any seal that was pressed in to it. It would
| remain solid, even in the heat of summer, and was flexible
| enough to remain intact while affixed to the document on
| which it had been placed. However, it was extremely difficult
| to remove a seal made of this material and replace it after
| the contents of the sealed document had been read. This
| compound was more brittle than beeswax so it could be easily
| broken, thus providing clear evidence of tampering. Even if
| the seal could be removed unbroken, any attempt to re-affix a
| seal was nearly impossible, since, with such a low melting
| point, the image which had been impressed into it would loose
| its crispness, if not melt completely, if additional hot wax
| was used to re-attach it, yet another sign of tampering.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Can't help thinking of W.A.S.T.E. though.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crying_of_Lot_49
| TameAntelope wrote:
| One thing I haven't really seen discussed (or maybe I'm just
| blind) is the fact that the USPS _isn 't_ a government
| organization quite like the others. It's supposed to be a more-
| private entity that competes in a market.
|
| Feels weird to give them law enforcement powers while still
| putting them up against private industry as competition, couldn't
| they just arrest all the UPS workers or something (gross
| oversimplification but still)?
| jfengel wrote:
| News flash: people read things that you make public on the Web.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| There is a qualitative difference between "people reading
| things you make public on the web" and "a government-funded
| agency uses extensive technological means to read, categorize
| and threat-assess your statements on the net, and have the
| power to throw you into jail for an indeterminate length of
| time - or worse."
| [deleted]
| _-david-_ wrote:
| It seems like this should be the job of the FBI, DHS or some
| other agency like that. The Post Office should deliver mail and
| packages not investigate material on the internet.
| mattmanser wrote:
| To be fair, look at it from totally the opposite direction to
| see their point of view.
|
| Your workers are under threat from poorly made postal bombs
| that could easily blow up during processing, killing your
| workers. Due to the vast volume of post you process, the threat
| is real and non-trivial.
|
| Do you do nothing?
|
| I think you obviously have to do something, whether you go as
| far as they did is what's up for debate.
| cblackthornekc wrote:
| You don't even have to say bombs, the article lists a great
| example. They are tracking protests. I think I would like to
| be aware if where I normally deliver mail I'm walking into a
| protest that might get violent.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| If I turn the corner on my mail route and see an angry mob
| down the block, I turn around? It's not like people don't
| have eyes anymore.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| If there is a bomb threat why can't the FBI or DHS
| investigate? That is the entire purpose of those agencies.
|
| Should every government agency have a department to
| investigate threats towards their employees? Why limit it to
| just the USPS? Why not give investigative powers to the
| Agency for Global Media or the Administration for Community
| Living? Should those employees have to risk the very "real
| and non-trivial" threats they face?
|
| If this was just some sort of way of detecting bombs or
| anthrax or something I think most of us could get behind it.
| This is turning the post office into an investigative crime
| solving agency and not even strictly for the thing they do
| (mail delivery).
| jdavis703 wrote:
| Agency for Global Media has their own law enforcement that
| investigates threats against the agency and it's personnel.
| This ranges from securing HQ against protests to
| investigating what happens to broadcast infrastructure in
| war zones like Afghanistan to securing classified
| information.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| > Your workers are under threat from poorly made postal bombs
| that could easily blow up during processing
|
| How does that threat compare to threats the post office
| accepts for it's workers such as being killed in traffic
| accidents?
| stefan_ wrote:
| Yes, when will the USPS do something about the 0 postal
| workers killed from letter bombs this year, last year, the
| year before last, the year before last before last year, ...?
|
| More of them are endangered by their shitbox LLV trucks
| catching on fire.
| jjgreen wrote:
| "In 1975, no one died, ..."
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUoT5AxFpRs
| filoleg wrote:
| Bombs in packages isn't the only thing that threatens
| postal workers that USPS is trying to protect.
|
| For example, look at this[0]. Two people physically
| attacked a postal worker after accusing her of "stealing
| their stimulus checks"[1].
|
| Sure, you can say that this case had nothing to do with
| USPS surveillance. But it just goes to show that there are
| plenty of serious dangers to postal workers other than just
| nigh-non-existent "bomb in the mail" scenarios that you
| seem to be fixating on.
|
| 0. https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/police-make-arrest-
| after...
|
| 1. https://news.yahoo.com/usps-worker-beaten-michigan-
| alleged-1...
| _-david-_ wrote:
| That has nothing to do with this issue. The article is
| about USPS investigating online threats. Do you really
| think people who are going to beat USPS workers are going
| to post about it online and that the USPS would be better
| equipped than agencies whose sole purpose is to deal with
| these kind of things?
|
| If you think every postal worker should have some sort of
| security / police going with them on their routes that is
| one thing, but that is not at all what this article is
| about.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _when will the USPS do something about the 0 postal workers
| killed from letter bombs this year_
|
| And how do you think that number became zero? Magic bomb-
| negating fairies?
| kelnos wrote:
| Yes, you contact the FBI and get them to investigate, just
| like everyone else does when federal crimes are involved.
|
| (Also, echoing the sibling: where are all these poorly made
| postal bombs you're talking about? I can't remember anything
| in recent and not-so-recent memory.)
| yosito wrote:
| > Do you do nothing?
|
| No, you coordinate with the CIA or FBI to investigate threats
| against the government.
| popinman322 wrote:
| Postal inspectors can hand off to other teams for
| investigation of affairs that might affect more than the
| post system-- hence this memo.
|
| If postal workers are at risk then it's within their
| purview (as it has been for over 200 years) to investigate
| and warn local offices in addition to other government
| offices.
| GCA10 wrote:
| A couple postal workers died about 20 years ago when someone
| used the U.S. mails as an anthrax-delivery mechanism. Details
| are here:
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5239a2.htm Note
| that's there's also a deeper CDC analysis looking at whether
| mail sorting is a job with higher than usual mortality rates.
| (Answer: probably not).
|
| Granted, that's a long time ago, and it doesn't happen
| habitually. But if you're going to have a workforce safety
| team (good idea), they will likely want to either actually do
| something to stop the threats, or at least signal to
| management that they aren't totally clueless
| java-man wrote:
| Just don't ask where that anthrax strain came from.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The postal service, as a Constitutionally-mandated requirement
| of the federal government (though the post itself is a private
| company, responsibility for ensuring there _is_ a post and that
| it _works_ is Congress 's), is some very old and very serious
| law and enforcement.
|
| The Postal Inspection Service traces its lineage to 1772; the
| FBI to 1908. USPIS being separate from the FBI is one of those
| quirks of American enforcement, like how the Secret Service is
| responsible for physical security of the President and other
| political figures... And financial services.
| wtallis wrote:
| > Constitutionally-mandated requirement of the federal
| government
|
| The constitution says: "The Congress shall have Power [...]
| To establish Post Offices and post Roads;"
|
| This is not a constitutional mandate. It is constitutional
| authorization. The federal government is not obligated to
| fully exercise every power it is granted.
| renewiltord wrote:
| There are loads of intelligence services in America. Coup
| d'Etat has a non-exhaustive list. I'm pretty sure even the NOAA
| does homeland security stuff.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans'
| social media posts_
|
| Of course it is. Why wouldn't it? Crazy people put all kinds of
| crazy things in the mail. Have we so quickly forgotten the
| Unabomber? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski
|
| The next time anthrax or ricin shows up in a politician's
| mailbox, the same people gritting their teeth about this will
| bark about why more wasn't done to detect and prevent it.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Why would you spend billions monitoring 300 million people when
| you could swab politicians' mail for anthrax?
| tqi wrote:
| > The work involves having analysts trawl through social media
| sites to look for what the document describes as "inflammatory"
| postings
|
| What exactly constitutes "monitoring"? This sounds like some
| agents spent a few hours using Twitter's built in search to look
| for certain keywords...
| sneak wrote:
| > _"Analysts with the United States Postal Inspection Service
| (USPIS) Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) monitored
| significant activity regarding planned protests occurring
| internationally and domestically on March 20, 2021," says the
| March 16 government bulletin, marked as "law enforcement
| sensitive" and distributed through the Department of Homeland
| Security's fusion centers. "Locations and times have been
| identified for these protests, which are being distributed online
| across multiple social media platforms, to include right-wing
| leaning Parler and Telegram accounts."_
|
| > _A number of groups were expected to gather in cities around
| the globe on March 20 as part of a World Wide Rally for Freedom
| and Democracy, to protest everything from lockdown measures to
| 5G. "Parler users have commented about their intent to use the
| rallies to engage in violence. Image 3 on the right is a
| screenshot from Parler indicating two users discussing the event
| as an opportunity to engage in a 'fight' and to 'do serious
| damage,'" says the bulletin._
|
| > _"No intelligence is available to suggest the legitimacy of
| these threats," it adds._
|
| Oh, that doesn't seem like an asymmetric allocation of resources
| at all. It's totally not trivially exploitable like the ticket
| presales in Tulsa or anything.
|
| This "we have to respond to all potential threats, no matter how
| trivial" doctrine is a ridiculous waste of time and resources
| even in the best case. In the worst case, it overcommits to an
| impossible task.
|
| I think it's reasonable to rate their competence level at "the
| cybers" around the same level as their ability to keep a "covert"
| operation off of Yahoo News.
| tims33 wrote:
| This is a truly bizarre story. I agree with others that other
| government agencies should run this particularly given USPS
| already well known financial challenges.
| agogdog wrote:
| This is in no way related to their financial struggles.
|
| The USPS was breaking even regularly (phenomenal considering
| what they do) until they were forced to save up funding for 75
| years of pensions within a 10 year span. Not only that, but
| they have to exclusively rely on the US Treasuries to fund the
| retiree medial fund, so it's more expensive out of the gate.
|
| So they're doing more for their employees, paying more for it,
| and are required to do so in a shorter amount of time than just
| about any private company out there.
|
| I'd be surprised if this covert program cost more than 1% of
| what the pension fund does.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| Hah, remember this story?
| https://apnews.com/article/1e42c1a6fd324f5784c414fcd2adbd17
|
| > The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
| lost track of most of the guns, including two found at the scene
| where a U.S. Border Patrol Agent was fatally shot in the Arizona
| desert. The operation sparked a political backlash against the
| Obama administration.
|
| > Attkisson left CBS in 2014 and is now the host of "Full Measure
| with Sharyl Attkisson," a weekly Sunday news program broadcast by
| the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group.
|
| > In her lawsuit, Attkisson says that two computer forensics
| teams identified an unauthorized communications channel opened
| into her laptop was connected to an IP address belonging to the
| U.S. Postal Service, "indicating unauthorized surveillance."
|
| > Government lawyers argue that Attkisson's lawsuit does not
| include any evidence that Holder and Donahoe had direct
| involvement in spying on her.
|
| > "At best, plaintiffs' complaint suggests a mere possibility
| that Holder and Donahoe could have participated in developing or
| enforcing policies concerning electronic surveillance generally;
| there are no allegations that they conducted or ordered the
| particular incursions about which plaintiffs complain," Justice
| Department lawyers argue in a legal brief filed in the 4th
| Circuit.
|
| The Obama administration used USPS to spy on journalists
| investigating Fast and Furious. It sounded ridiculous at the time
| -- "The USPS is spying on journalists, and not the NSA, and not
| the FBI, and not the CIA? Suuure."
|
| Not so ridiculous anymore.
|
| I'm tired of being angry about this, I've been asking for change
| for most of my adult life. Our constitution isn't worth anything
| anymore. The federal government needs to shrink. Asking nicely to
| not be spied on does not work.
|
| On a more silly note, this whole scenario reminds me of this
| Seinfeld clip. https://youtu.be/On3cQ0sPvSY?t=46
| starkd wrote:
| Not too much to ask at all. Every American should be outraged.
| throwaway8581 wrote:
| Half of Americans, and the vast majority of powerful
| institutions, are just fine with this because the targets are
| right-wingers.
| adamrezich wrote:
| completely forgot about that story--great catch.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I'm not very certain that a nation of 350 million people can be
| kept stable without some amount of internal espionage.
|
| Most human constructs of that size have espionage going on
| between them (for example, that's more than the population of
| Germany and Russia combined, and those nations are definitely
| spying on each other). The fact that they have a thick border
| drawn on the map between them and the US has thin borders drawn
| on its map probably implies the US should spy on itself less...
| But how much less?
|
| Internal espionage has been key at several points in the
| history of the US for preventing internal power structures from
| overriding law and order (the Chicago mafia, for example). It
| has, obviously, also been leveraged against the rights of law-
| abiding citizens.
| Lammy wrote:
| Were the 2001 "Amerithrax" letters the justification for this
| program? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks
| gentleman11 wrote:
| I read that in the 60s to the 80s, a lot of civil unrest was
| taking place and there were so many "protest" bombings (whatever
| that means) that it became a almost normal in some cities
| (according to articles I found). This might have been a
| precaution against something like that, considering the current
| political climate in the USA?
|
| https://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-burrough/
|
| Edited to add a reference and correct a detail
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Weird, and scary.
|
| But maybe I can kind of see it. Here's a protest. Let's say it's
| Proud Boys, and Antifa shows up. And here's a mail carrier out
| trying to deliver the mail, who drives (or worse, walks) right
| into the middle of it. The Post Office might have a legitimate
| reason for wanting to know, so they can keep their on-duty
| employees from harm.
|
| Is that what's going on? Is that _all_ that 's going on? I don't
| know.
| shuntress wrote:
| You should try to re-word your comment so that it reads less
| like an _" I'm just asking questions"_ conspiracy theory.
| paxys wrote:
| It's possible for employees of every government agency and
| every private company to get caught up in the middle of a
| protest. Should they all start their own surveillance programs?
| Black101 wrote:
| > Is that what's going on? Is that all that's going on? I don't
| know.
|
| Doesn't sound like it. Maybe they are trying to shift money to
| surveillance with all the packages going around because of
| Covid (I.E: USPS trying to get rid of that "surplus")? Either
| way, it sounds crazy.
| sitkack wrote:
| This is a power grab by the USPS to inject themselves into the
| industrial surveillance complex.
|
| It most likely tries to tie a social media profile to a physical
| address and provides a pen register of all the mail sent and
| received by that citizen along with a collection of the
| "inflammatory opinions".
|
| It is unconstitutional and folks at the USPS and organizations
| they shared the data with should go to jail.
| ababoaoabaa wrote:
| Go to jail? Who is going to make them? You have a centralized
| compartmentalized military and society where one literally
| controls many. The top has been corrupted by over a hundred
| years of printing money out of thin air and the use of usury to
| control everything. Wake up and smell the new world order. It
| reeks.
| ska wrote:
| > to inject themselves into the industrial surveillance
| complex.
|
| Haven't they been de-facto participating for decades?
| pessimizer wrote:
| They were the earliest, really, searching mail first to find
| information about birth control being shared and pornography
| (Comstock Act, 1873), then sedition. I assume that all of the
| first precedents for mass surveillance and data collection
| come from the USPS.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws
| liminal wrote:
| Do others also find it strange that the postal service has their
| own police force?
| pixl97 wrote:
| No, they in fact have one of the oldest police forces in the
| US.
|
| Mail fraud and mail theft is a crime as old as mail.
| fmakunbound wrote:
| Heh and here I was worried about my weed shipments from
| California. Would iCop be the same organization that enforces
| that kind of thing?
| [deleted]
| saurik wrote:
| I feel like the key sentence in this article (edit: which is
| ironically no longer verbatim in this article, which I see hours
| later has been heavily expanded) which purports to answer the
| "but... why the USPS?"--is: > The agency told Yahoo News the
| Inspection Service collaborates with law-enforcement agencies to
| identify and assess threats to the Postal Service and its
| "overall mail processing and transportation network.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Now I'm worried they might find out that I've been using this
| newfangled technology called "email" for the past 25 years and
| I haven't licked a stamp in over a decade. Some say its only
| used for money laundering and drug dealing, but I think it's
| rather convenient and more innovative than what the government
| can offer.
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| If only some other kind of mail had become popular to replace
| the lost letter volume...
| colonelxc wrote:
| It truly has been a long time for you, as you don't even need
| to lick stamps, they are sticky on their own.
| Taniwha wrote:
| oh, that may explain why I get them stuck on my tongue ...
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| > which purports to answer the "but... why the USPS?"
|
| Yes, that's the burning question I took away from this article.
| robocat wrote:
| Perhaps it is a hack to route around federal laws - the USPS
| could have exceptions (or grandfathered laws) that give it
| more leeway than other departments?
| Kharvok wrote:
| Oh so this is why they were so concerned about the post office
| funding in 2020.
| slt2021 wrote:
| I work in cyber security ML engineering (open for interviews,
| hmu) and frequently see federal contractor firms hiring for cyber
| data/engineer positions for USPS. Always puzzled me.
|
| example:
| https://jobs.rtx.com/job/-/-/4679/4267185376?codes=INDEED
| sergiomattei wrote:
| I don't see why this is hard to understand.
|
| Nationwide logistics aren't simple. They have to evolve with
| the times to modernize/automate their operations and adapt to
| new, unknown cyber threats.
|
| The mail is quite important.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| What is cyber data?
| seppin wrote:
| The Post Office is a tech company, etc.
| bigth wrote:
| I'm surprised by the comments here. People seem clueless to real
| threats the USPS faces and are puzzled why they have inspectors.
|
| Last year or maybe it was 2019 a delivery worker was murdered.
| Agg robberies of delivery workers has been going up. Breaking
| into mail boxes and mail theft has been going up. Using mail
| service to conduct fraud and other criminal transactions is going
| up. I'm on mobile so it's hard to get the links but just google
| it, not hard to find.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I'm not surprised they have inspectors. I'm surprised they
| think that social media surveillance is within their purview.
|
| I hope their inspectors continue to investigate mail theft,
| mail fraud, and other things related to the physical delivery
| of mail. But I don't want them shifting into digital snooping
| that is totally unrelated to mail.
| pixl97 wrote:
| You do know mail fraud is commonly initiated by online
| groups, many times on social media, right?
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _The work involves having analysts trawl through social
| media sites to look for what the document describes as
| "inflammatory" postings and then sharing that information
| across government agencies.
|
| "Analysts with the United States Postal Inspection Service
| (USPIS) Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) monitored
| significant activity regarding planned protests occurring
| internationally and domestically on March 20, 2021," says
| the March 16 government bulletin_
|
| Sounds like they're focused on issues other than mail
| fraud.
| f430 wrote:
| USPS is the new DEA
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