Law enforcement is spying on Americans' mail, records show

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Postal Service has shared information from thousands of Americans’ letters and packages with law enforcement every year for the past decade, conveying the names, addresses and other details from the outside of boxes and envelopes without requiring a court order.

But a decade’s worth of records, provided exclusively to The Washington Post in response to a congressional probe, show Postal Service officials have received more than 60,000 requests from federal agents and police officers since 2015, and that they rarely say no.

), urged the agency to require a federal judge to approve the requests and to share more details on the program, saying officials there had chosen to “provide this surveillance service and to keep postal customers in the dark about the fact they have been subjected to monitoring.”

Barksdale said in a letter to the senators in June 2023 that the program was not a “large-scale surveillance apparatus” and was focused only on mail that could help police and national security agencies “carry out their missions and protect the American public.”

In 1798, Vice President Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter that his fears of having his private communications exposed by the “infidelities of the post office” had stopped him from “writing fully & freely.”

In their letter last year, the senators said that even the exteriors of mail could be deeply revealing for many Americans, giving clues about the people they talk to, the bills they pay, the churches they attend, the political views they subscribe to and the social causes they support.

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2 comments

We've come a long way since FBI normalised warrantless wiretapping in the 1950s... oh well, on with the bomber jacket, off to some three letter building with a satchel full of love... in Minecraft.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Postal Service has shared information from thousands of Americans’ letters and packages with law enforcement every year for the past decade, conveying the names, addresses and other details from the outside of boxes and envelopes without requiring a court order.
But a decade’s worth of records, provided exclusively to The Washington Post in response to a congressional probe, show Postal Service officials have received more than 60,000 requests from federal agents and police officers since 2015, and that they rarely say no.
), urged the agency to require a federal judge to approve the requests and to share more details on the program, saying officials there had chosen to “provide this surveillance service and to keep postal customers in the dark about the fact they have been subjected to monitoring.”
Barksdale said in a letter to the senators in June 2023 that the program was not a “large-scale surveillance apparatus” and was focused only on mail that could help police and national security agencies “carry out their missions and protect the American public.”
In 1798, Vice President Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter that his fears of having his private communications exposed by the “infidelities of the post office” had stopped him from “writing fully & freely.”
In their letter last year, the senators said that even the exteriors of mail could be deeply revealing for many Americans, giving clues about the people they talk to, the bills they pay, the churches they attend, the political views they subscribe to and the social causes they support.
The original article contains 704 words, the summary contains 256 words. Saved 64%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!