Government Snooping Not Limited To High Tech

If you think that the government is out of control as we do, the following story will only serve to strengthen your beliefs.   We were concerned when Edward Snowden disclosed that the government in the name of the NSA was snooping on all of our emails, phone calls and all electronic communication. However, we are outraged when we find out that the US Post Office (you know that agency that operates unprofitably each and every year and takes days to deliver a letter across town) has been photographing every piece of mail that it receives.

On this the day before we celebrate the 4th of July, it seems ironic that the government imposes itself more and more in our lives with each passing day. Should we also be looking for our own Declaration of Independence?

This latest report should scare anyone, even those who believe that they have nothing to hide because even innocent correspondence can be pieced together to look sinister. Besides, who gave the US Post Office the right to photograph our mail? 

Conservative Tom

The Feds Are Spying On Your Snail Mail Too

July 3, 2013 by Sam Rolley 

“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.” – The 4^th Amendment to the United States Constitution

Amid reports of the National Security Agency’s sweeping surveillance efforts centered on collecting electronic communications data, many Americans have expressed concern about their privacy on the technological front.

But a report out Wednesday from The New York Times offers a reminder: The NSA is not the only government agency spying on Americans.

Leslie James Pickering, a former member of a radical environmental group labeled eco-terrorists by the Federal Bureau of Investigation called the Earth Liberation Front, told the Times that he found a misplaced card in his mailbox last September that indicated that the United States Postal Service was monitoring his mail.

Via the Times:

Postal officials subsequently confirmed they were indeed tracking Mr. Pickering’s mail but told him nothing else.

As the world focuses on the high-tech spying of the National Security Agency, the misplaced card offers a rare glimpse inside the seemingly low-tech but prevalent snooping of the United States Postal Service.

Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, but that is only 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 snail mail is subject to the same kind of scrutiny that the National Security Agency has given to telephone calls and e-mail.