Ride the Lightning

Government Monitoring of Our Snail Mail

November 11, 2014

The New York Times reported in a recent story that the U.S. Postal Service has acknowledged that it approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its own internal inspection unit to secretly monitor the mail of Americans for use in criminal and national security investigations.

The number of requests, contained in a 2014 audit of the surveillance program by the Postal Service’s inspector general, shows that the surveillance program is more extensive than previously disclosed and that oversight protecting Americans from potential abuses is lax.

The audit, along with other relevant documents, was obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

The audit found that in many cases the Postal Service approved requests to monitor an individual’s mail without adequately describing the reason or having proper written authorization.

Are you as shocked (not) as I am?

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