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The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts

news.yahoo.com

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Re: The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts

#21

Post by mattmanser »

_-david-_ wrote: post #14

It seems like this should be the job of the FBI, DHS or some other agency like that. The Post Office should deliver mail and packages not investigate material on the internet.

To be fair, look at it from totally the opposite direction to see their point of view.

Your workers are under threat from poorly made postal bombs that could easily blow up during processing, killing your workers. Due to the vast volume of post you process, the threat is real and non-trivial.

Do you do nothing?

I think you obviously have to do something, whether you go as far as they did is what's up for debate.

Re: The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts

#22

Post by logicslave »

Everyone has their tin foil hat with stuff on like this, but unless they are paying a 100 - 1000 engineers 250k-500k a year, I doubt theyve built anything useful with uptime. Maybe they could just scan a massive dataset of everyones posts, with some string searching, but still. I just dont see any entity like this being able to accomplish this task effectively.

Re: The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts

#23

Post by shuntress »

jjk166 wrote: post #12
tengbretson wrote: post #10

I bet FedEx could operate a domestic intelligence agency for like a quarter of their budget.

You joke but private mail carriers don't have the same restrictions on monitoring your mail that the USPS does. They are free to open and inspect any package, as well as x-ray and other such methods, and don't need to disclose it. Except under some special circumstances, letters and parcels going through the USPS, on the other hand, need a warrant to be opened. One could easily imagine a program where private carrier…

It's not complicated.

Your data (we could debate whether "data about you" is actually "your data" but that is a tangent discussion) is valuable. FedEx can collect then sell it.

Re: The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts

#24

Post by chrisco255 »

saurik wrote: post #11

I feel like the key sentence in this article (edit: which is ironically no longer verbatim in this article, which I see hours later has been heavily expanded) which purports to answer the "but... why the USPS?"--is: > The agency told Yahoo News the Inspection Service collaborates with law-enforcement agencies to identify and assess threats to the Postal Service and its "overall mail processing and transportation netw…

Now I'm worried they might find out that I've been using this newfangled technology called "email" for the past 25 years and I haven't licked a stamp in over a decade. Some say its only used for money laundering and drug dealing, but I think it's rather convenient and more innovative than what the government can offer.

Re: The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts

#25

Post by colonelxc »

chrisco255 wrote: post #24
saurik wrote: post #11

I feel like the key sentence in this article (edit: which is ironically no longer verbatim in this article, which I see hours later has been heavily expanded) which purports to answer the "but... why the USPS?"--is: > The agency told Yahoo News the Inspection Service collaborates with law-enforcement agencies to identify and assess threats to the Postal Service and its "overall mail processing and transportation netw…

Now I'm worried they might find out that I've been using this newfangled technology called "email" for the past 25 years and I haven't licked a stamp in over a decade. Some say its only used for money laundering and drug dealing, but I think it's rather convenient and more innovative than what the government can offer.

It truly has been a long time for you, as you don't even need to lick stamps, they are sticky on their own.

Re: The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts

#26

Post by millzlane »

logicslave wrote: post #22

Everyone has their tin foil hat with stuff on like this, but unless they are paying a 100 - 1000 engineers 250k-500k a year, I doubt theyve built anything useful with uptime. Maybe they could just scan a massive dataset of everyones posts, with some string searching, but still. I just dont see any entity like this being able to accomplish this task effectively.

The entity's only job is to create a RFP and pick one. It's the company they hire that you have to worry about. The one thing we can count on is the government will spend the money to get what they want.

Re: The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts

#27

Post by stefan_ »

mattmanser wrote: post #21
_-david-_ wrote: post #14

It seems like this should be the job of the FBI, DHS or some other agency like that. The Post Office should deliver mail and packages not investigate material on the internet.

To be fair, look at it from totally the opposite direction to see their point of view. Your workers are under threat from poorly made postal bombs that could easily blow up during processing, killing your workers. Due to the vast volume of post you process, the threat is real and non-trivial. Do you do nothing? I think you obviously have to do something, whether you go as far as they did is what's up for debate.

Yes, when will the USPS do something about the 0 postal workers killed from letter bombs this year, last year, the year before last, the year before last before last year, ...?

More of them are endangered by their shitbox LLV trucks catching on fire.

Re: The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts

#28

Post by pessimizer »

ska wrote: post #17
sitkack wrote: post #7

This is a power grab by the USPS to inject themselves into the industrial surveillance complex. It most likely tries to tie a social media profile to a physical address and provides a pen register of all the mail sent and received by that citizen along with a collection of the "inflammatory opinions". It is unconstitutional and folks at the USPS and organizations they shared the data with should go to jail.

> to inject themselves into the industrial surveillance complex. Haven't they been de-facto participating for decades?

They were the earliest, really, searching mail first to find information about birth control being shared and pornography (Comstock Act, 1873), then sedition. I assume that all of the first precedents for mass surveillance and data collection come from the USPS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws

Re: The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts

#29

Post by barbazoo »

logicslave wrote: post #22

Everyone has their tin foil hat with stuff on like this, but unless they are paying a 100 - 1000 engineers 250k-500k a year, I doubt theyve built anything useful with uptime. Maybe they could just scan a massive dataset of everyones posts, with some string searching, but still. I just dont see any entity like this being able to accomplish this task effectively.

Why do you believe that unless they're paying their developers "250k-500k a year", they wouldn't have built something useful?

Re: The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts

#30

Post by Taniwha »

colonelxc wrote: post #25
chrisco255 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I'm worried they might find out that I've been using this newfangled technology called "email" for the past 25 years and I haven't licked a stamp in over a decade. Some say its only used for money laundering and drug dealing, but I think it's rather convenient and more innovative than what the government can offer.

It truly has been a long time for you, as you don't even need to lick stamps, they are sticky on their own.

oh, that may explain why I get them stuck on my tongue ...
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