The Postman Always Clicks Twice - Operation Total Polaroid

There was a time when the post office censored mail for fear of obscenity. Now it just photographs all mail for later prosecution. m/r

The American Spectator : Operation Total Polaroid

By SHAWN MACOMBER on 7.9.13 

Should a government agency losing $25 million a day be running a gargantuan photography studio?

...

United States Postal Service’s net losses of $41 billion over the last six fiscal years only to moments later wax nostalgic over the very same entity’s supposed “suite of robust and creative initiatives for growing revenue”(!), its “relentless approach to taking costs out of the system”(!!), and the “sacrifices” shared by “our employees, unions, management organizations, and customers”(!!!), all employed with brave perseverance even as it continues to be — cue the violins as Donahoe unfolds the bureaucrat’s Obama-era go-to security blanket — “stymied by the effects of Congressional inaction.”  ...

One “service” Donahoe predictably failed to nominate for streamlining is the Postal Service’s taxpayer-funded program to turn every man, woman, and child who sends or receives mail in this country into a potential suspect to be tracked and observed at all times.

Here is how a remarkable New York Times article — published on July 3; Happy Independence Day! — described it: 

…[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.

-go to link-