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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

#131

Post by Timothee »

nostromo wrote: post #59

If you need to send an anonymous letter - hopefully for good (say, whistle blowing) and not evil - you can still do so. Use a fake return address (duh). Drive to a mailbox far away from your work or home. Pick a mailbox that has no security cameras. Don't go into a Post Office, where there will be security cameras. Turn off your phone before going anywhere near the drop location. (This is all coming from a PBS docume…

Instead of just driving to some far away place and come back, I'd pick a mailbox that's close to something where you might go sometimes but that's not close to your house either.

For example, you could go to Ikea buy something there (with a credit card to leave a log of a transaction) and mail your letter. Ikea because they aren't that many Ikea stores but it's not out of the ordinary to drive quite a while to go to one.

My point is that if you have reasons to want to send an anonymous letter, you might want to make sure that a drive that doesn't fit your regular patterns can be explained by something reasonable.

edit: I'm not sure the credit card is a good idea. Likely not. It might be better to pay cash, and keep the receipt. This way, you can't be immediately cross-referenced, but if asked, you have an alibi. Yeah, I really don't know. :)

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

#133

Post by krapp »

guruz wrote: post #129

Everytime I read things like this, I'm wondering why the US still has no strong Pirate Party. (Yes, I know, Winner-takes-it-all-2-party-system..) Are you guys not getting fed up at some point? Land of the free, please be it again.

Well, people getting fed up (with how left-wing and liberal the US was getting) is how we ended up with the Tea Party, which is now apparently enough of a force that it controls the Republicans by proxy, and meanwhile Occupy seems to be so much dust in the wind, so make of that what you will.

I would vote for the Pirate Party. Unfortunately I can't.

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

#134

Post by mpyne »

IanDrake wrote: post #108
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'm sure with the right light frequency, x-ray or other, they can partially read mail through the envelope. Not saying they're doing it, just saying it's possible.

Well there's ways to pull the paper out without disturbing the envelope if they really wanted to go that far.

As it stands what you're suggesting is at least already illegal, FWIW.

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

#135

Post by anigbrowl »

rayiner wrote: post #122
unclebucknasty wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 per…

I don't think we're seeing the demise of personal privacy. For most of American history, "privacy" meant that what happened in the walls of your home or in the confines of some other private place remained private. You could expect privacy in your house and your coat pocket and in conversations you had with people in a private setting. And by and large, that's still the case. If you live on a farm like most people di…

As a Euro myself I hew to the more expansive version of privacy, in which you have a right to know what data others (private) actors store about you (not unlike an FOIA request to a public body in the US), and to have that data expunged. In general, EU citizens enjoy much more robust privacy protections, even when arrested (no perp walks or publication of mugshots, for example).

I agree that technology rather than competing philosophies of law or governance is the main driver here - witness the threads I linked to above where some people consider the work of EU-nation data commissioners to be an unwarranted intrusion on the private business relationships of internet entrepreneurs.

It's too bad we live on opposite coasts, as I feel we could enjoy a long conversation on this issue.

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

#136

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

anigbrowl wrote: post #112
bentcorner wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mail proxy is what is needed (I have no idea if these exist today). Put your letter inside an envelope to a mailing proxy. Mailing proxy opens your letter, and sends your recipient a letter from them. There are more opportunities for misdirection - the mailing proxy service can internally shuffle letters around and add mailing delays to discourage external analysis. Although, even with all that, I'm unsure of the e…

Does the gov't need a second warrant to open a letter-in-a-letter? Interesting question; I'm guessing no, unless the interior letter contained obviously privileged material (eg 'Dear Father, I hope you are well; enclosed is a letter I received from your lawyer after you departed, which I forward to you unopened. Your Loving Son.'), in which case a warrant would probably not issue for the contents.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/06/30/us/30postal-ma...

Section I B - allows the contents of unsealed classes of mail "as allowed by law"

Section II B - "...Mail Covers do not authorize the search, seizure, or opening of any class of mail."

Section III B 6 - addresses attorney-client privilege.

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

#137

Post by RyanMcGreal »

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 wonder if they fed the human-matched addresses back into the OCR system to train it to be better at reading handwriting.

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

#138

Post by anigbrowl »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #136
anigbrowl wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the gov't need a second warrant to open a letter-in-a-letter? Interesting question; I'm guessing no, unless the interior letter contained obviously privileged material (eg 'Dear Father, I hope you are well; enclosed is a letter I received from your lawyer after you departed, which I forward to you unopened. Your Loving Son.'), in which case a warrant would probably not issue for the contents.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/06/30/us/30postal-ma... Section I B - allows the contents of unsealed classes of mail "as allowed by law" Section II B - "...Mail Covers do not authorize the search, seizure, or opening of any class of mail." Section III B 6 - addresses attorney-client privilege.

None of which is responsive to the question asked above, which was about a letter that was lawfully opened pursuant to a warrant, but which contained a second, sealed letter.

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

#139

Post by ChuckMcM »

If its an image it suggests that it might be fun to print QR codes on your mail which refer to specific URLs. If the URL is accessed you get a hit on who looked it up. Sort of like putting a 1x1 gif in an email which is loaded from your web site as cheap analytics (pro tip, don't do this if you work at Google, the security guys don't like it :-).

Always interesting if you can get the other side to reveal information by playing on the fact that they are trying to get as much information about you as possible.

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

#140

Post by betterunix »

rayiner wrote: post #122
unclebucknasty wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 per…

I don't think we're seeing the demise of personal privacy. For most of American history, "privacy" meant that what happened in the walls of your home or in the confines of some other private place remained private. You could expect privacy in your house and your coat pocket and in conversations you had with people in a private setting. And by and large, that's still the case. If you live on a farm like most people di…

"For most of American history, "privacy" meant that what happened in the walls of your home or in the confines of some other private place remained private"

The problem is that today there are very few private places, and it is very hard to get to a private place unnoticed. Private, secluded places are becoming rare as security cameras are installed. Even if you can find such a place, your trip to it might be recorded by security cameras and license plate scanners. Even if records of postal mail had been kept in the past, it would have been very difficult to make use of that data -- but data mining techniques are changing that.

"The internet is really not designed to keep communications over it secret or private in any way, and platforms like Google and Facebook are built on exposing as much private information about users as possible."

I once had this view, but I have come to see that it is flawed. Most people are not making an informed decision about this, and there is almost no effort to teach the background needed to make such an informed choice. What we are seeing are governments and corporations taking advantage of the general population's ignorance. It is not that people do not value privacy, it is that they do not even realize the extent to which they are giving it up.

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