U.S. POSTAL SERVICE ADMITS PHOTOGRAPHING ALL MAIL FOR FBI

AS IF MONITORING OUR PHONE CALLS AND EMAILS ISN'T ENOUGH, OUR "SNAIL-MAIL" IS ALSO BEING SCRUTINIZED.
"MAIL ISOLATION CONTROL AND TRACKING" REQUIRES THAT USPS COMPUTERS PHOTOGRAPH EVERY PIECE OF PAPER MAIL PROCESSED IN THE U.S.
OVER 160 BILLION PIECES OF MAIL WERE PHOTOGRAPHED LAST YEAR.
OTHER LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES BESIDES THE FBI CAN REQUEST COPIES OF THE PHOTOGRAPHED MAIL.
ANOTHER 'PROGRAM' FOR TRACKING OUR MAIL, CALLED "MAIL COVERS" HAS BEEN IN USE FOR A CENTURY...100 YEARS... BUT WAS ONCE ONLY APPLIED IF SOMEONE WAS SUSPECTED OF A CRIME.
SUSPECTED? JUST SUSPECTED?
AND NO WARRANTS REQUIRED!
IF THIS IS NOT AN INVASION OF OUR RIGHT TO PRIVACY, WHAT IS?
THIS REDEFINES THE WORD PARANOIA, AND OUR GOVERNMENT IS CERTIFIABLY PARANOID!
THE FEDS KNOW EVERYONE WE SEND MAIL TO OR GET MAIL FROM!
HOW CONVENIENT IS THAT?
THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES IS ALSO USING THIS 'PROGRAM' TO CHECK UP ON MEDICARE FRAUD!
WHAT?
THEY'RE WATCHING SENIOR CITIZENS' MAIL?
<<“It’s a treasure trove of information,” said James J. Wedick, a former F.B.I. agent who spent 34 years at the agency and who said he used mail covers in a number of investigations, including one that led to the prosecution of several elected officials in California on corruption charges. “Looking at just the outside of letters and other mail, I can see who you bank with, who you communicate with — all kinds of useful information that gives investigators leads that they can then follow up on with a subpoena.”
But, he said: “It can be easily abused because it’s so easy to use and you don’t have to go through a judge to get the information. You just fill out a form.”>>
BLOODY HELL!
THAT MEANS WE CANNOT COMMUNICATE IN ANY WAY IN AMERICA WITHOUT "BIG BROTHER" KNOWING EVERY DETAIL!!!
AND YET THEY "LOSE" UP TO 4% OF CUSTOMER MAIL EACH YEAR? HOW?
THERE ARE OVER 520,000 POSTAL EMPLOYEES. HOW MANY OF THEM HAVE ACCESS TO OUR PHOTOGRAPHED INFORMATION?

AND THEY'RE INTO POLITICS?
<<Inspectors conducted mail screening for the Department of Homeland Security’s National Special Security Events, such as the National Democratic and Republican Conventions, screening more than 37,400 mailpieces — and detecting no hazards.>>
[SOURCE : http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/
DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE TO ANYONE?
"SCREENING" MAIL FROM NATIONAL CONVENTIONS?
SO, CAN, SAY THE REPUBLICANS, IF THEY'RE IN OFFICE, CHECK OUT THE DEMOCRATS' MAIL, OR COULD THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION REQUEST INFORMATION ON THE 'PUBLICANS?

<<Leslie James Pickering noticed something odd in his mail last September: a handwritten card, apparently delivered by mistake, with instructions for postal workers to pay special attention to the letters and packages sent to his home.

“Show all mail to supv” — supervisor — “for copying prior to going out on the street,” read the card. It included Mr. Pickering’s name, address and the type of mail that needed to be monitored. The word “confidential” was highlighted in green.

“It was a bit of a shock to see it,” said Mr. Pickering, who with his wife owns a small bookstore in Buffalo. More than a decade ago, he was a spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group labeled eco-terrorists by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Postal officials subsequently confirmed they were indeed tracking Mr. Pickering’s mail but told him nothing else.
Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.

Together, the two programs show that postal mail is subject to the same kind of scrutiny that the National Security Agency has given to telephone calls and e-mail.

The mail covers program, used to monitor Mr. Pickering, is more than a century old but is still considered a powerful tool. At the request of law enforcement officials, postal workers record information from the outside of letters and parcels before they are delivered. (Opening the mail would require a warrant.) The information is sent to the law enforcement agency that asked for it. Tens of thousands of pieces of mail each year undergo this scrutiny.

The Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program was created after the anthrax attacks in late 2001 that killed five people, including two postal workers. Highly secret, it seeped into public view last month when the F.B.I. cited it in its investigation of ricin-laced letters sent to President Obama and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. It enables the Postal Service to retrace the path of mail at the request of law enforcement. No one disputes that it is sweeping.>>

<<There are two kinds of mail covers: those related to criminal activity and those requested to protect national security. Criminal activity requests average 15,000 to 20,000 per year, said law enforcement officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are prohibited by law from discussing them. The number of requests for anti-terrorism mail covers has not been made public.
Law enforcement officials need warrants to open the mail, although President George W. Bush asserted in a signing statement in 2007 that the federal government had the authority to open mail without warrants in emergencies or in foreign intelligence cases.>>
[SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?_r=0 ]
WHO DECIDES WHAT AN "EMERGENCY" IS?

ALSO FROM THE USPS WEBSITE,
http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/Forensics. Crime Scenes. Evidence.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service operates a cutting-edge National Forensic
Laboratory in Dulles, VA, staffed with highly trained foreign forensic scientists and
technical specialists. These employees play a key role in identifying, apprehending,
prosecuting, and convicting individuals responsible for postal-related crimes.
[FOREIGN FORENSIC SCIENTISTS??? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?]

Criminal and security investigations of prohibited and dangerous mail (mail containing contraband or harmful items or substances), mail theft, mail fraud, revenue fraud, robberies, burglaries and workplace violence all rely on the National Forensic Lab for scientific and technical assistance and expertise.
Its services include four distinct units:
Questioned Documents Unit,
Fingerprint Unit,
Physical Sciences Unit
and Digital Evidence Unit,
which in 2012 delivered these results:
Forensic scientists examined more than 50,000 documents, fingerprints, controlled substances, audio, video, digital media and other items of physical evidence. The examinations resulted in the identification of 494 criminal subjects.
Forensic computer analysts recovered approximately 145,000 pieces of data from mobile devices using cell phone kiosks. The kiosks were deployed to 18 field locations to address the increasing prevalence of mobile devices in criminal investigations.

IN JUST 2012, Postal Inspectors reported 7,845 arrests and indictments related to postal crime.

DO WE FEEL SAFER KNOWING UNCLE SAM IS WATCHING ALL OUR MAIL?
NO.
IS THIS "NECESSARY FOR HOMELAND SECURITY"?
NO.
WILL PEOPLE DEMAND IT STOPS?
NO.