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U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

nytimes.com

21–30 of 242 posts

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#22
post #14
post #8

Ah, I see I've arrived at Hacker/USA Government Abuses News. And I say that as somebody deeply interested in these stories.

Between here and Reddit, it's overkill...until you realize here the people might actually have the ability to execute to do something about it more quickly and over at Reddit well...just throw up the best meme you can and sit back and reap the karma.

On the other hand when Reddit does something, the talking heads notice that something happens (however badly it all comes out), while when HNN carps about things nobody cares.

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#23
post #14
post #8

Ah, I see I've arrived at Hacker/USA Government Abuses News. And I say that as somebody deeply interested in these stories.

Between here and Reddit, it's overkill...until you realize here the people might actually have the ability to execute to do something about it more quickly and over at Reddit well...just throw up the best meme you can and sit back and reap the karma.

Between your comment and loceng's, there seems to be an agenda, and the latent idea of co-opting programmers and decision makers to make "something" happen. I understand people are furious, but people are furious about all sorts of things that maybe folks here could intervene on if prodded. I think long-time HN users mostly care about where technology notably intersects with these scandals (or anything for that matter).

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#24
post #8

Ah, I see I've arrived at Hacker/USA Government Abuses News. And I say that as somebody deeply interested in these stories.

The fact that Obama declared on national TV that they only spy on non-US citizens (6.5+bn humans) without a warrant is the biggest news in the internet industry since the mass deployment of broadband a decade ago.

Knock it off. These specific government abuses may well destroy the bulk of the revenue streams for the largest companies in silicon valley. If that isn't on topic for HN, I don't know what is.

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#26
post #3

I also assume that Fedex and UPS et all are required to record your data as well?

I'm sure they record your data for other reasons, like checking to see where lost packages were actually delivered, optimizing delivery routes, etc. But yes, the government probably can request their data on you too.

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#27
post #6

I guess that the government's legal justification for this is that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy under the 4th Amendment re: the info on the outside of the mail (name, address, etc.). That is why the need a warrant to actually open the mail.

So does the same apply to email headers? "We didn't look at the body or subject".

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#28
post #15

Guess Outbox isn't looking so bad? :P https://outboxmail.com https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5822052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5972640

Indeed! If the post office has the ability to scan all my mail before it is delivered they could at least give me a digital feed of that mail.

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#29
post #8

Ah, I see I've arrived at Hacker/USA Government Abuses News. And I say that as somebody deeply interested in these stories.

It's a bit on the heavy side, but on the other hand, the surveillance under discussion relies on technology, in many cases recent technology and products that 5-10 years ago many of us were really excited about and may not have seen the downsides of. It's pretty relevant.

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#30
post #3

I also assume that Fedex and UPS et all are required to record your data as well?

I have no idea if they are required to do so, but it's worth noting that while the government requires a warrant to open US mail and inspect the contents, your agreement with UPS/FedEx allows them to open anything they see fit to.
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