# U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 3, 2013, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561 "2013-07-03T16:21:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561/1 "2013-07-03T16:21:21Z")
"that is only 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 snail mail is subject to the same kind of scrutiny that the National Security Agency has given to telephone calls and e-mail." > **[U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement (Published 2013)](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)** > > A Postal Service program created after anthrax attacks gathers photos of the exterior of every piece of paper mail processed in the nation — about 160 billion pieces last year. Thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561/2 "2013-07-03T16:25:18Z")
From your link. > [@](#): > > The mail covers program, used to monitor Mr. Pickering, **is more than a century old** but is still considered a powerful tool. Little late to be upset about it. Just like the phone thing, where’s the manpower to actually look at every image? ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561/3 "2013-07-03T16:28:25Z")
Curiously, I have always assumed that the outside of my letters were read by others, if only to sort them for delivery. Since the advent of electronic sorting, storing these images seems to be the next logical step. I do not assume any privacy of the content of the outside of an envelope or of the text written on a postcard. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561/4 "2013-07-03T16:36:35Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > From your link. > > > [@](#): > > > > The mail covers program, used to monitor Mr. Pickering, is more than a century old but is still considered a powerful tool. > > Little late to be upset about it. Like closing the barn door after the horse has left… literally. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561/5 "2013-07-03T16:39:07Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > From your link. > Little late to be upset about it. > > Just like the phone thing, where’s the manpower to actually look at every image? I don’t think it’s that they _are_ looking at every image, just that they could. It’s a pretty safe bet that no one is paying any attention to your phone calls, but if someone wanted to, they’re all on file at the NSA. The difference, in my mind, is that with the phones you’ve set up a contract with a private company whereas when you send snail mail you’re using a public service. Basically, I can understand the issues with the NSA paying attention to your phone records, but when you’re asking the government to deliver your mail from California to New York for 46¢, they might track you. Just like Google tracks your searches when you ask them to find something on the internet for free. It’s like when kids do something stupid at school and get suspended for it, that makes sense. What I don’t get is when kids do something stupid _outside_ of school and get suspended for it. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561/6 "2013-07-03T16:46:30Z")
Discussions of e-mail privacy have often used the postcard metaphor in describing unencrypted e-mails. Given that, I don’t think it’s huge news to most. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561/7 "2013-07-03T16:59:24Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > Little late to be upset about it. Governments have been torturing people forever so there’s no point in being upset that they still do. Same with rape and murder. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561/8 "2013-07-03T17:05:45Z")
“Mail”? What’s that? ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561/9 "2013-07-03T19:27:34Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > From your link. > > > [@](#): > > > > The mail covers program, used to monitor Mr. Pickering, is more than a century old but is still considered a powerful tool. > > Little late to be upset about it. Does that mean that in 1911, the U.S. Post Service propped each letter and parcel on a ledge in front of a tripod-borne [/QUOTE] Gandolfi, as a photographer told the subjects not to move for a few minutes, while a large team of techs developed the glass plates in a darkroom ? > [@](#): > > Just like the phone thing, where’s the manpower to actually look at every image? There will never be enough people to watch all the CCTVs nor to listen in, but the new replacement scheme, the Mail Isolation etc., will use computers for image-taking and analysis. These will be vastly more powerful in a few decades. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561/10 "2013-07-04T00:01:08Z")
That’s why I never put a return address on my mail. That, and I’m bone lazy. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561/11 "2013-07-04T05:11:08Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > From your link. > Little late to be upset about it. > > Just like the phone thing, where’s the manpower to actually look at every image? Um, the article also quotes Mark D. Rasch: "In the past, mail covers were used when you had a reason to suspect someone of a crime. Now it seems to be, ‘Let’s record everyone’s mail so in the future we might go back and see who you were communicating with.’ Essentially you’ve added mail covers on millions of Americans.” This seems like a conceptually straightforward scan-OCR-add to database project. Then data mine once you’ve IDd a suspected undesirable. The old program involved tens of thousands of records. Now its millions. After a certain point, quantity becomes quality. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561/12 "2013-07-04T07:56:41Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > Just like the phone thing, where’s the manpower to actually look at every image? It doesn’t exist. That’s why I’m having a really hard time getting worked up over this NSA thing. Plus, “the NSA tracks everything” has existed as a movie trope for decades. I assumed the government had these kinds of tracking programs all along. There’s a great quote from Roger Ebert in his review of the 1998 movie Enemy of the State that’s stuck with me all these years: [QUOTE=The Great Roger Ebert] As the Will Smith character dodges around Washington, trying to figure out who’s after him and why, the story is told with footage from spy satellites, surveillance cameras, listening devices, bugs, wiretaps and database searches. The first time I saw a movie where a satellite was able to zoom in on a car license plate, I snickered. Recently I was able to log onto a Web site ([www.terraserver.microsoft.com/](http://www.terraserver.microsoft.com/)) and see the roof of my house–or yours. If Microsoft gives that away for free, I believe the National Security Agency can read license plates. > **[Enemy of the State movie review (1998) | Roger Ebert](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/enemy-of-the-state-1998)** > > "Enemy of the State" uses the thriller genre to attack what it calls "the surveillance society," an America in which underground computers at Fort Meade [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-postal-service-logging-all-mail-for-law-enforcement/662561/13 "2013-07-04T19:36:07Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > Just like the phone thing, where’s the manpower to actually look at every image? Presumably the computers looking at every image are data-mining as they go, flagging contacts with specified countries, businesses, or individuals. Some dossiers would develop enough hits that they would get raised to varying levels of action or watch lists. Others would simply be held for review if the person happened to come to federal attention, like through an arrest or an audit.