Thu, Apr 29th 2021 10:44am
Tim Cushing
The United States Postal Service is still in the spying business. The USPS has been scanning pretty much every piece of mail that runs through its system, creating a massive database of metadata that serves whatever purpose the USPS imagines it does. National security or whatever the fuck.
When not helping the DEA find cash and the occasional drug shipment, the USPS is also apparently keeping tabs on social media users. This includes social media services with smaller, but perhaps more concerning, user bases. The name of the game is still national security, but it s unclear why the Postal Service which has a hard enough time divvying up its limited resources is engaged in this sort of surveillance.
Last week it was revealed that the United States Postal Service (USPS) is an active participant in the government-wide effort by the Biden administration to surreptitiously surveil social media postings by American citizens, with the apparent goal of identifying individuals inclined to protest government policies and activities; in other words, people who plan to exercise their First Amendment rights.
The response on Capitol Hill to this news of a special USPS intelligence unit called âiCOPâ (Internet Covert Operations Program) secretly surveilling social media usage by citizens, was predictable â Democrats yawned, and House Republicans expressed shock and amazement. More…