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US Post Office Increases Secret Tracking of Mail
HughPickens.com writes: Ron Nixon reports in the NY Times that the United States Postal Service says it approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its own internal inspection unit to secretly monitor the mail of Americans for use in criminal and national security investigations, in many cases without adequately describing the reason or having proper written authorization. In addition to raising privacy concerns, the audit questioned the efficiency and accuracy of the Postal Service in handling the requests. The surveillance program, officially called mail covers, is more than a century old, but is still considered a powerful investigative tool. The Postal Service said that from 2001 through 2012, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies made more than 100,000 requests to monitor the mail of Americans. That would amount to an average of some 8,000 requests a year — far fewer than the nearly 50,000 requests in 2013 that the Postal Service reported in the audit (PDF).
In Arizona in 2011, Mary Rose Wilcox, a Maricopa County supervisor, discovered that her mail was being monitored by the county's sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Wilcox had been a frequent critic of Arpaio, objecting to what she considered the targeting of Hispanics in his immigration sweeps. Wilcox sued the county, was awarded nearly $1 million in a settlement in 2011 and received the money this June when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling. Andrew Thomas, the former county attorney, was disbarred for his role in investigations into the business dealings of Ms. Wilcox and other officials and for other unprofessional conduct. "I don't blame the Postal Service," says Wilcox, "but you shouldn't be able to just use these mail covers to go on a fishing expedition. There needs to be more control."
In Arizona in 2011, Mary Rose Wilcox, a Maricopa County supervisor, discovered that her mail was being monitored by the county's sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Wilcox had been a frequent critic of Arpaio, objecting to what she considered the targeting of Hispanics in his immigration sweeps. Wilcox sued the county, was awarded nearly $1 million in a settlement in 2011 and received the money this June when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling. Andrew Thomas, the former county attorney, was disbarred for his role in investigations into the business dealings of Ms. Wilcox and other officials and for other unprofessional conduct. "I don't blame the Postal Service," says Wilcox, "but you shouldn't be able to just use these mail covers to go on a fishing expedition. There needs to be more control."
Problem is there is very few third party candidates.
Because voting for Republican or democrat is voting for the exact same group of corrupt scumbags.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Next week's your big chance. Use it or lose it... All these "scandals" have been coming fast &furious. Let's see if it means anything. Clean the House, if you want it to. If not, I got a bucket of tomatoes just waiting for the first complainers.
How cute. I used to be this way, believe in the system. They only talk about change and doing what is right around election time. Once they get all the votes its back to business as usual. Look at O'bama. Promised change but what we got was pretty much more of the same and then some.
The system isn't gong to change till elected official can be held legally accountable for the laws they sponsor and vote on. If a elected official could be fined, lose his office, or even be jailed for sponsoring a bill that is later found to be unconstitutional then things would change. When ever the government does something unconstitutional against a citizen, someone should held accountable.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Funny, except for all those sex crimes that he left uninvestigated. http://www.azcentral.com/news/... He is big on every hot-button issue that can get him elected whether it's part of his role (actual crime) or not (immigration). He is a grandstander with an ego the size of Montana.
My dad retired 10 years ago from the USPS. Having grown up listening to the stories of what the people and management were like there, I find any conspiracy theories with USPS being involved (on any level) questionable at best!
It's nice to see you support your dad, but nobody else shares your bias.
Both the workers and management are either too lazy or too incompetent to tie their shoes.
Oh, never mind. I thought you were here to support your dad. Is he lazy or incompetent?
The USPS scans every single piece of mail which passes through a sorting facility. One of those lazy, incompetent postmasters told me (about a month before the revelation that the USPS was handing all this data to the feds) that they simply threw that data away when they were done with it, and that this was the reason that they couldn't give you any information about where your first class mail had been in its lifetime. But in actuality, none of that data has been thrown away, and only laziness and incompetence prevent giving you this information while it is still new and held on near-line storage.
The point is that it only takes a handful of nefarious fucks to hand all of that data over to the government for interpretation without a warrant. And that is what the USPS does; they hand all information on all mail that they route directly to the federal government, probably via the DHS now which is actually its job: tying together disparate law enforcement agencies.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"