[liberationtech] Postal mail monitoring

[Matt Johnson]

This NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?hp&_r=2&&pagewanted=all
reports that the USPS has been keeping images of the outside of mail
for years. It is used in criminal investigations and for national
security. This is some information about how often it is used in
criminal investigations, but no such information about national
security use.

>From the article: "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."


I thought this might be of interest to this list, especially to anyone
who thought they could be safe by not using digital communications.

--
Matt Johnson