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

nytimes.com

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

#61

Post by mistercow »

malandrew wrote: post #49
mistercow wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially what you're proposing is a DoS of the tracking system. The problem with that (at least with physical mail) is that it takes far more resources to generate physical mail than to scan it. A DoS shaped like that will never work unless you have some way of massively amplifying the effect you are having. Postage on a post card is currently 33 cents. How many postcards do you reckon you'd have to send before th…

I would imagine the DoS is half of the benefit. The other half is manufactured reasonable doubt. If a person were to send periodic letters with real and fake cryptographic messages to random individuals of importance, barring a warrant to read the contents of each letter, that would constitute reasonable doubt as to whether or not that person was legitimately communicating with another person of interest.

It would also likely be taken as suspicious in its own right.

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

#63

Post by dchichkov »

eli wrote: post #43
chime wrote: post #40

About seven years ago, I was at a sushi bar and struck up a conversation with an older gentleman sitting next to me. He told me he was a developer and created systems for USPS. I am always fascinated by the technology used in large scale systems so I picked his brain for a good hour. From what I recall, he said at the key distribution centers, USPS scans every single mail (in standard envelop sizes) and in under a se…

Better OCR (and, cynically, perhaps a higher tolerance of error to cut costs) is making the human handwriting readers obsolete. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/us/where-mail-with-illegib...

I wouldn't be surprised if modern domain specific OCR can give you an error rate that beats that of a time-constrained human reader.

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

#64

Post by unclebucknasty »

EliAndrewC wrote: post #7
rayiner wrote: post #4

Couldn't they pick a more sympathetic guy to talk about: "Mr. Pickering said that although he was arrested two dozen times for acts of civil disobedience and convicted of a handful of misdemeanors, he was never involved in the arson attacks the Earth Liberation Front carried out." Gee, this guy was a member of a group that conducted arson attacks and the government is keeping track of the mail he gives to the governm…

> Couldn't they pick a more sympathetic guy to talk about "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H.L. Mencken

I've seldom seen a better timed or more appropriate quote offered in reply.

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

#65

Post by enraged_camel »

malandrew wrote: post #42
enraged_camel wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will simply allocate more resources to it and you as the taxpayer will end up paying for it. The only real solution is to have end-to-end encryption that is easy to understand and use.

You really need both. Creating noise reduces the perceived ROI on the current programs, making them harder to justify.

Nothing is difficult to justify when you can just say "but... but... terrorists!" and get away with everything.

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

#66

Post by rdp »

carsonreinke wrote: post #27
rdp wrote: 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".

The best analogy re: address info on mail is to garbage that you leave on the curb for the trash collector. You probably don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in that garbage because you exposed it to the public by leaving it out on the curb. There is case law to back this up. Similarly, if you hand over a letter to a postal carrier, you arguably wouldn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the info on the envelope since that info can be gleaned by anybody who looks at the letter. Email would be different since that is presumably store on your computer or a server or some other place or thing that would fall under the 4th Amendment protections (and require a warrant).

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

#67

Post by sageikosa »

rcavezza wrote: post #38
javajosh wrote: post #5

Goddamnit this is NOT OK. This is the dark side of the technological improvements to "productivity": we have enabled a level of productivity that allows the few to track the many. It's time we technologists all sat down and though about ways to turn the tide - they are using technology to track us, how can we use technology to thwart them? My best answer is: data flak. We should all start building system that include…

I agree with the notion that this is "NOT OK". I generally feel that about most things that have surfaced in the past few weeks. My problem is that I really have no idea what I can do to help or show my disapproval. I think we really need to go back to a checks and balances type of government instead of a top heavy executive branch. This lack of checks and balances is the root cause of the issues but I really don't k…

Start an illegible letter writing campaign?

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

#68

Post by anigbrowl »

bediger4000 wrote: post #39

Is the "Mail Isolation Control and Tracking System" ever used to do anything other than decide guilt by assocation? That is, does the to/from data they collect ever get used to exonerate someone from a crime, or is it just used to decide who to put on "no fly" lists and other such un-American things? Can this data have any use other than providing guilt by assocation? Can this data be used to say "no, not a terrorist…

Prosecutors are required to hand over all evidence to defense counsel on request, and almost invariably do (which is why it's news when a conviction is overturned on the grounds of a prosecutor concealing evidence from the defense). Likewise, a defense lawyer could subpoena this information from the USPS if it was likely to be probative.

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

#69

Post by robeasthope »

btbuildem wrote: post #16
javajosh wrote: post #5

Goddamnit this is NOT OK. This is the dark side of the technological improvements to "productivity": we have enabled a level of productivity that allows the few to track the many. It's time we technologists all sat down and though about ways to turn the tide - they are using technology to track us, how can we use technology to thwart them? My best answer is: data flak. We should all start building system that include…

Not sure, they'll just throw more resources at the problem. I think the problem is in "the few". If they snoop on us, we should be able to snoop on them -- especially since it's our tax dollars that pay their salaries and (although yes it's a joke of a broken system) we elect these officials more or less directly. Just to level the field a little bit. For example, London is full of CCTV cameras -- why is it that only…

It's a bit much to call bored security staff perverts and opening up the data to the public is guaranteed to attract the crazies - Would you want your (crazy) ex to be able to follow your new love life with a new partner via CCTV?

FYI it's not all bad: the UK automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) CCTV network run by the police (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police-enforced_ANPR_in_the_UK) is currently being legislated by the Coalition to bring it under statutory regulation - considering the revelations about police conduct over undercover cops it can't come to soon either.

P.S. Bless the UK gov, a full surveillance state can't happen because it's rubbish at IT: 'The current restraints on police use of ANPR data have been dictated by pragmatism rather than a concern for civil liberties. Giving every police officer free access to the system would overload the system, "make it unstable, slow it down", said John Dean, National ANPR co-ordinator for the Association of Chief Police Officers.'

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