NBC’s Meet the Press interviewed former president Jimmy Carter on Sunday, and he complained that the National Security Agency probably has him under electronic surveillance. He said that when he communicates with a foreign head of state, he sends an old-fashioned landmail letter!
If a distinguished former president feels this way, imagine ordinary citizens.
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Carter is right to increase surveillance overhead, but land mail is also subject to intense surveillance. When forced to sue the USG for denial of civil rights to a charity (by denying civil action against a town for taking their property in violation of Amendment V), my car and home were broken into and my computer was stolen. Needless to say, the right wing judiciary denied the rights of the charity, destroying the lives of tens of thousands of foreign orphans. Land mail often arrived with taped flaps, having been steamed open. Just can’t trust those charities and progressives, you know. Now that I am prosecuting a county in federal court (for denial of equal protection rights) again my significant land mail usually arrives taped shut again, having been opened in cooperation with the USPS.
I’m just leaving a comment about that with a link to reports that USPS photos each letter it processes link to t.co
Not that using USPS service does any good: ” The USPS Has Been Scanning Our Mail For Years” as Consumerist reminds us, here link to consumerist.com
Using the anthrax letters sent in 2001 as an excuse to read and retain the metadata (envelope) of every single piece of mail sent in the U.S. should go into the dictionary beside the definition of “overkill”.
Others have said it. Why would Carter think mail that goes through the USPS is not surveilled?
the text inside the envelope is not surveilled; they do scan the addresses.
Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. I’ve received letters that have been opened, with an “oops, sorry we mangled your mail” form letter. I’d probably be less suspicious about them if it weren’t for the fact that they were mostly in international communications with people involved with activism in various ways.
And an artist. But art is inherently seditious, I suppose.
Surveilling land mail (in the sense of opening it) on any kind of scale would be illegal and would cause them a lot of trouble. I doubt they’d risk it lightly. It is only because the law on electronic comms is up in the air that they went whole hog on it.
I wonder what effect National Security Letters would have on that.
That’s a myth, professor.
That’s what they said, at the time, but in reality President Carter’s suggestion is way behind the curve. The 4th Amendment has been defacto abrogated by the Supreme Court’s intentional misinterpretation of the Amendment in the name of National Security. They photograph all pieces of mail and run each piece through various types of analysis.