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

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

#91

Post by jjgreen »

stefan_ wrote: post #27
mattmanser wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"In 1975, no one died, ..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUoT5AxFpRs

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

#92

Post by gnicholas »

pixl97 wrote: post #89
gnicholas wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not surprised they have inspectors. I'm surprised they think that social media surveillance is within their purview. I hope their inspectors continue to investigate mail theft, mail fraud, and other things related to the physical delivery of mail. But I don't want them shifting into digital snooping that is totally unrelated to mail.

You do know mail fraud is commonly initiated by online groups, many times on social media, right?

> The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings and then sharing that information across government agencies.

“Analysts with the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) monitored significant activity regarding planned protests occurring internationally and domestically on March 20, 2021,” says the March 16 government bulletin

Sounds like they're focused on issues other than mail fraud.

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

#93

Post by pixl97 »

wtallis wrote: post #62
shadowgovt wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The postal service, as a Constitutionally-mandated requirement of the federal government (though the post itself is a private company, responsibility for ensuring there is a post and that it works is Congress's), is some very old and very serious law and enforcement. The Postal Inspection Service traces its lineage to 1772; the FBI to 1908. USPIS being separate from the FBI is one of those quirks of American enforcem…

> Constitutionally-mandated requirement of the federal government The constitution says: "The Congress shall have Power [...] To establish Post Offices and post Roads;" This is not a constitutional mandate. It is constitutional authorization. The federal government is not obligated to fully exercise every power it is granted.

Lol, a government will always exercise any power it is given, and that's why your laws must be overly limited in the first place.

Just see the interstate commerce clause and what's happened with that

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

#94

Post by ryandrake »

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…

> I will say that personally I have fewer concerns about programs to monitor public content on the Internet, than programs that seek to access, monitor, and store content that people intended to be privately communicated to other people.

This distinction is disappearing quickly in the current Internet, where conversations are increasingly company-mediated and facilitated. There's no such thing as a "private" conversation on Facebook or similar hosted platforms. You might address a message to your friend, but you are sending it to Facebook, and they ultimately get to decide how private it is. It's likely a single "is_private" bit in a database!

I'm more and more defaulting to a very strict rule: Never send anything to the Internet that I intend to be private. Whether it be a forum post, a message board, an E-mail, or a chat message. Keep my private pictures off of "secure, private" cloud storage. Don't do anything on a web site that I wouldn't want talked about in my local newspaper. Consider it all public knowledge because it's one leak or subpoena away from actually being public knowledge.

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

#96

Post by dataflow »

belval wrote: post #90
dataflow wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Maybe worth noting that USPIS is older than the FBI. It's the oldest federal law enforcement agency.

That's a fantastic trivia fact, I guess threats to the postal service are a very old problem so it makes sense.

Not merely threats to the postal service itself, but threats via the postal service. I imagine the best to get away with (say) fraud has always been to avoid physical presence, i.e. using mail.

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

#97

Post by Thorentis »

ryandrake wrote: post #94
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…

> I will say that personally I have fewer concerns about programs to monitor public content on the Internet, than programs that seek to access, monitor, and store content that people intended to be privately communicated to other people. This distinction is disappearing quickly in the current Internet, where conversations are increasingly company-mediated and facilitated. There's no such thing as a "private" conversa…

Yes, but I think OP is saying that the law should protect intent. Just like with the physical mail system. It is illegal to open a letter addressed to somebody else (though, warrants can override this). But I am fine with the principle.

On the other hand, if you stick a huge banner out the front of your house, that information is fair game. Just like posting on your Twitter profile or blog. The intent was never for it to be private.

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

#98

Post by tqi »

> The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings

What exactly constitutes "monitoring"? This sounds like some agents spent a few hours using Twitter's built in search to look for certain keywords...

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

#99

Post by _-david-_ »

filoleg wrote: post #51
stefan_ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Bombs in packages isn't the only thing that threatens postal workers that USPS is trying to protect. For example, look at this[0]. Two people physically attacked a postal worker after accusing her of "stealing their stimulus checks"[1]. Sure, you can say that this case had nothing to do with USPS surveillance. But it just goes to show that there are plenty of serious dangers to postal workers other than just nigh-non…

That has nothing to do with this issue. The article is about USPS investigating online threats. Do you really think people who are going to beat USPS workers are going to post about it online and that the USPS would be better equipped than agencies whose sole purpose is to deal with these kind of things?

If you think every postal worker should have some sort of security / police going with them on their routes that is one thing, but that is not at all what this article is about.

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

#100

Post by oblib »

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 much less if they were carrying any kind of real military gear, but they like to think they can. We all grew up with "Rambo" movies.

But some of those who's comments I've seen I don't know at all.

The ordeal at our Capital proves there's a problem that needs to be monitored. Most of those who went there were not armed or dangerous, but there were enough kooks to cause some real damage and lives were lost. And last year we had the guy who blew himself and his motorhome up on a Downtown street.

If we had another "Timothy McVeigh" event people would be howling, and if we had several they'd be freaking out and demanding something be done.

We all have good reason to be wary of "Big Brother" type surveillance but we also have to acknowledge that we have a problem with people getting crazy and shooting into crowds and blowing things up.

There's not always a good solution to a shitty situation.

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