The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by blitz_skull » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 2:28 PM UTC

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #123

el_dev_hell wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a wild read. > Q. Suppose the thief was apparently unarmed but was running away? > A. Call halt twice at the top of your voice, and if he does not halt, fire one warning shot; and if he does not obey this, shoot to hit him. There was no chill during the great depression: > Q. If I hear the command 'Hands Up,' am I justified in obeying this order? > A. No; fall to the ground and start shooting.

Asides from all that stuff about ordering soldiers to kill American civilians, I'm just boggled that it had a FAQ. How old is the FAQ structure? Wikipedia suggests a history going back to the 1600s, and much further if you stretch the definition to Plato.

American civilians who had made a decided effort to commit a federal felony. Also "ordering soliders to kill American civilians" attempts to color the situation in an unfavorable light, as if the soldiers had alternatives, or the situation didn't fully warrant it.

There's no reason that killing armed gangsters wasn't totally justified in this case.

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

#222

Post by Kalium » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

tacocataco wrote: post #217

morpheuskafka wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait till you hear about privately-owned company and railroad police departments...

Do these private police have more authority than the private security hired by other businesses?

Yes. They're actually police, with attendant legal status and powers.

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

#223

Post by Kalium » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

sunshineforever wrote: post #206

fastball wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so countries the size of a single US state.

The US divides it's police by town, not by state. And France and Germany are each twice as populous as the most populous US state. So you're not really correct. There's absolutely no reason why having a single bureaucracy wouldn't work well. It actually seems like it would be much easier to have a single bureaucracy.

Also, counties often have their own sheriffs with a separate set of powers and responsibilities. Sometimes court systems have their own enforcement arms, separate from other agencies.

The US often seems to have more layers of administration and law-making than some other places. Making individual officers work through which set of powers and laws they're dealing with in a given moment seems like it might at times be a daunting prospect. You could in theory organize them into a single bureau, but I suspect you'd inevitably wind up with specialized sections to deal with the particular laws in given cities.

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

#224

Post by boston_clone » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

ROARosen wrote: post #146

GCA10 wrote: post #47

Lots of sentiment today that the USPS is way out of its zone of expertise in doing this -- and that is possible. But it's worth noting that the USPS has had its own legion of postal inspectors going back to the 19th century, when they were a (comparatively) huge part of the U.S. government, and the FBI, etc. did not exist. Some 1,200 postal inspectors are still around, and they play important roles on federal prosecu…

the 19th century was also the time when the USPS was not having net losses of $9.2 billion per year.[1] How about having the FBI monitoring the security instead and them notifying USPS. [1] https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/1113-... .

Do you think all public services ought to be profitable? Or can we entertain the thought that our taxes help offset costs of (or directly fund) critical public services?

As an aside, I genuinely dislike seeing misinformation from the Trump/Russia era on HN.

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

#225

Post by colllectorof » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

oblib wrote: post #100

This is a tough issue for a government. We do have crazies out there and we do need to investigate potential dangerous groups and individuals and reel them in before they do something crazy. On my FB feed I have seen friends and friends of friends call for armed revolt many times over the past few years. Most all of them are blowing steam and many are in their 60s or older and couldn't run a block in gym shorts, and…

>The ordeal at our Capital proves there's a problem that needs to be monitored.

Unlike, say, nightly riots in Portland, that require neither monitoring nor federal response of any kind?

It would be one thing if posts like the one above honestly argued for some necessary level of general surveillance in good faith. It's entirely different story, however, when they sneakily imply a certain set of hyper-partisan assumptions.

If you can't demonstrate to me that surveillance of social media is politically neutral and aims at preventing harm, rather than suppressing speech through harassment, I'd rather have no surveillance of that kind at all.

Edit:

It's bizarre that despite all these "concerns" about social media there is no investigation (that I know of) into the origins of the whole QAnon degeneracy.

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

#226

Post by jchanimal » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:16 PM UTC

drak0n1c wrote: post #194

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When our Corps goes in as guards over the mail, that mail must be delivered," wrote Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby. "Or there must be a Marine dead at the post of duty. There can be no compromise." https://www.military.com/off-duty/2020/08/25/intense-rules-u... The mail is serious business.

People were shocked last summer when federal agents started doing night patrols around a vandalized and firebombed federal courthouse in Portland, deterring and detaining people left and right. Not many are aware of how seriously the federal government takes protecting its properties and duties, and how lethally serious such encounters were not too many decades ago.

Except the US Capitol.

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

#227

Post by thamalama » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

> The postmaster general is the second-highest paid U.S. government official, > based on publicly available salary information, after the President of the > United States.[13]

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

PmG is a very powerful position.

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

#228

Post by tims33 » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 5:00 PM UTC

agogdog wrote: post #75

tims33 wrote: post #31

This is a truly bizarre story. I agree with others that other government agencies should run this particularly given USPS already well known financial challenges.

This is in no way related to their financial struggles. The USPS was breaking even regularly (phenomenal considering what they do) until they were forced to save up funding for 75 years of pensions within a 10 year span. Not only that, but they have to exclusively rely on the US Treasuries to fund the retiree medial fund, so it's more expensive out of the gate. So they're doing more for their employees, paying more f…

I'm aware of the pension rules and to your point I'm sure the cost is minimal. It just seems so long as they are being managed by the government in this way, they should get some "free" services elsewhere.

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

#229

Post by tmccrary55 » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

hattar wrote: post #218

alisonatwork wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, there are plenty of countries that do just have a national police force, or a handful of regional departments, and don't have tens of thousands of independent police forces like America does. They tend to do just fine.

Any with a population and land spread comparable to the US? I imagine that would make more sense in a small country with low diversity of terrain/population/etc.

Plus a national police force is basically illegal and unconstitutional in the US.

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

#230

Post by smsm42 » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #45

Pretty much any federal agency you have heard of has an investigative dept that employs federal special agents. These are law enforcement roles with the same training, authority, and responsibilities as investigative agents in the FBI, etc. They were created to meet the specific law enforcement needs of each agency. Dept of Education agents investigate misuse of Dept of Education funds, for example. The Postal Inspec…

> If Postal is monitoring broadly for threats against their systems

If, however, they are running a wide-net surveillance program under the guise of "anybody could be threatening our systems at any time, so we better monitor everyone just in case", thats a bit different sound. It's easy to say "well, we have to protect our systems" but so far there's zero evidence anything that USPS has been monitoring was threatening their system, and yet they keep the surveillance. With zero oversight or control from the people.