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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

#71

Post by [deleted] »

enko wrote: post #58
eli wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This particular linked story really isn't very big news.

Well maybe not for you, but for me it's another piece of a jigsaw which is beginning to show a very ugly picture indeed. You're a US citizen I see. Well, maybe you don't understand or give a shit, but from the outside, the opinion of your country is being revised dramatically downwards. Very dramatically. All of this human rights, freedom of speech, fourth amendment stuff is being exposed for the bullshit that it is.…

[deleted]

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

#73

Post by run4yourlives »

oinksoft wrote: 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.

Agreed, although the top comment here was actually quite interesting.

HN has made an exception for all things US gov't spying related. I even lost my flagging rights for flagging all the snowden stuff (which I thought was exactly what you were supposed to do when you thought something was off topic... not my fault it was the entire front page!)

It's an important topic, but like you I preferred when HN was an oasis of tech away from this nonsense.

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

#74

Post by tokenadult »

ck2 wrote: post #54
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…

Except I've never, ever heard of this used to solve a crime. Definitely never used in court or we'd hear about it but they probably wouldn't risk the constitutionality of that. So they are just collecting it for the sake of spying on everyone. Lovely.

Except I've never, ever heard of this used to solve a crime.

Reading the fine submitted article would solve that problem.

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

#75

Post by javajosh »

mistercow wrote: post #61
malandrew wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, they might suspect that I value the freedoms that so many have fought and died for that I would, shockingly, moderately inconvenience myself to do so.

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

#76

Post by AutoCorrect »

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…

this was a Linux system, I remember reading the articles taking about it (but it's been a while)...

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

#77

Post by unclebucknasty »

anigbrowl wrote: post #52
sneak wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No it isn't, that was going on all through the Cold War. It's just more efficient now. This isn't just a government problem either; people in europe are at least as unhappy about firms like Google and Facebook warehousing their data, but at least over in Europe they have robust privacy laws that service providers have to comply with. See for example these stories, in which (some) American users express puzzlement ove…

Interesting points.

One thing all of this brings to mind is that we appear to be nearing a crossroads (perhaps we've already passed it).

That is, we'll have to very soon decide en masse whether we are OK with the demise of privacy or not. This is irrespective of whether our privacy is lost to companies, government, or both.

Because it seems that by default, people are simply becoming accustomed to a world without personal privacy. In fact, stories such as that referenced on this thread are coming out with such frequency and ferocity now that one wonders whether it has the effect of simply jading people with sheer volume (whether designed for this intent or not).

In any event, we've been moving in this direction for some time. And, after some point those who still care about privacy won't be able to summon the support needed to effect a return to its protection.

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

#78

Post by kordless »

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…

> I can't even imagine what they're doing now.

Not delivering as much mail? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service#Re...

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

#79

Post by asdf3 »

elmuchoprez wrote: post #34

Maybe I'm alone here, but I never had an expectation of privacy in regards to what I write on the outside of a envelope and drop into a public receptacle (mailbox). I expect the contents to be considered highly private, but not the outside. There's also this issue of willing disclosure of information to an entity. When I put a stamp on something and drop it in the mailbox, I know I'm handing that information over to…

Abortion protesters used to write down the license plates... just some publicly available meta-data, right?

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

#80

Post by javajosh »

tokenadult wrote: post #41

I have lived in a country (Taiwan under its previous dictatorial regime in the early 1980s) where I assumed that all my postal mail, domestic or foreign, was read by the ruling party's secret police as part of the delivery process. The postal service in Taiwan was always awesomely efficient when I lived there, with residential mail delivery twice a day all days of the week, year-round except for a brief set of holida…

> ...courage is what it takes to undermine a dictatorship

Yes, and thanks for a great comment. I'm going to read that link, http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsde07.html.

Anger and hatred after 9/11 is what led us down this spiral, and more anger and hatred would only change the names, not the system.

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