US Postal Service's Social Media Surveillance Program Uses Clearview's Facial Recognition Tech

from the bad-idea-with-even-worse-execution dept

Late last month, it was discovered the United States Postal Service was operating a social media surveillance program. The "why" of this was never explained. Apparently, the USPS has time and money to blow, so it has something called an "Internet Covert Operations Program" (iCOP) which it uses to investigate crimes that definitely are not of a postal nature.

According to the two-page bulletin first reported on by Yahoo News, iCOP was trawling social media looking for "threats." And the "threats" observed in the report shared with the DHS and its many, many (mostly useless) "Fusion Centers" was that the threats weren't credible.

Great, I guess, but why is the Postal Service surveilling communications that aren't being sent through the mail? I'm sorry if it feels a bit left out by the move to email and other electronic communication methods, but wandering around Twitter and Facebook looking for crimes seems to be both a waste of its limited resources and something that really isn't covered by the directives of the Post Office's investigative wing.

Well, there's even worse news to report. Again, Yahoo News is on top of it. It appears the iCOP program makes use of facial recognition tech. And not just any facial recognition tech. It uses the worst, most questionable offering out there at the moment.

Among the tools used by the analysts is Clearview AI, a facial recognition software that scrapes images off public websites, a practice that has raised the ire of privacy advocates. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service uses Clearview’s facial recognition database of over 3 billion images “to help identify unknown targets in an investigation or locate additional social media accounts for known individuals,” according to materials reviewed by Yahoo News.

What was first just confounding is now also stupidly dangerous. Clearview's tech has never been independently tested. Multiple law enforcement agencies have tried out the product and most feel it's mostly useless, prone to generating false positives or just a wealth of irrelevant information.

Adding a questionable tool to a questionable surveillance program sounds exactly like the sort of thing you'd get when you ask the people in charge of the snail mail to get online. Yahoo reports other tools are in the mix as well, including software that uses keyword searches to dip into the social media firehose. And there's one that lets investigators pretend to be people they aren't while extremely online.

It also uses Nfusion, another software program, to create and maintain anonymous, untraceable email and social media accounts.

For what? So far, all we've seen is a lot of time, money, and wtf-ness produce a determination that some threats weren't actually threats. That doesn't exactly build confidence in a surveillance program no one outside of the federal government believes the USPS should be engaged in.

Yahoo's report notes the program dates back to 2018, when the USPS got more involved in tracking criminal activity on the dark web. It apparently expanded its purview to the regular web. According to a USPS statement, surveilling social media platforms and users is essential to protecting postal workers from dangerous situations and threats. But there's no evidence this program has ever accomplished that goal. All it appears to have accomplished at this point is the surveillance.

And that surveillance is being used unwisely.

Beginning last spring, following the death of George Floyd, iCOP analysts began monitoring social media to track potential violence at racial justice protests. After the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol by Trump supporters, the analysts turned their attention to right-wing accounts, according to documents, including an intelligence bulletin previously obtained and published by Yahoo News.

There's your First Amendment concerns. I'm sure the USPS expected its covert surveillance operations to remain covert and it would never have to address this publicly. But the program is now public knowledge and the USPS needs a better explanation than "we're just being careful." Any number of federal and local law enforcement agencies engage in the same surveillance. We may not like that, but at least they've got some jurisdiction and justification for doing so. Erecting an NSA-lite in USPS data centers makes zero sense when you're the entity in charge of handling physical mail.

Filed Under: facial recognition, icop, surveillance, usps
Companies: clearview

Nike, USPS Reach A Licensing Deal For USPS-Inspired Sneakers

from the just-license-it dept

What a wild trademark ride for Nike over the past few weeks. You will recall that Nike found itself on our pages after its trademark dispute with MSCHF over the so-called "Satan Shoes" being pushed by Lil Nas X. What had all the makings of a very interesting case that would have involved questions about resale rights, free speech, and property rights instead ended in a mostly meaningless settlement that saw MSCHF agreeing to offer to buy back shoes that are now wildly famous and valuable and will almost certainly never be bought back. Almost immediately afterwards, interestingly, Nike found itself on the flip side of the trademark coin with the United States Postal Service, after Nike produced an experimental Air Force 1 sneaker that was clearly inspired by the postal service.

Now, while saying that these shoes were clearly inspired by the USPS would be an understatement, here again we have a situation where a trial could cover all sorts of interesting ground. Would the public be confused by any of this? C'mon now. Does Nike's homage to the USPS somehow diminish the USPOS brand? If anything, I would think the opposite effect would be on the table. When is the last time anyone before Nike considered the postal service cool enough to be honored with a sneaker produced by one of, if not the, most famous athletic apparel and shoe manufacturers on the planet? And, ultimately, what actual harm would be done to the USPS or its trademark rights by Nike's actions?

Sadly, we'll never get answers to those questions as Nike has decided to abide by its stance against MSCHF and instead settle the dispute by entering a licensing agreement with the USPS.

The all-white Experimental Nike Air Force 1 footwear are now officially licensed by the USPS, according to a USPS release that was issued by a Nike spokeswoman. The statement also noted, “Any early images of this shoe were not authorized to be released by Nike.”

A spokeswoman for the USPS did not respond immediately for a request for comment about the financial terms of the deal.

So, on the one hand, fine, Nike finally lived up to the same standards it laid out in the MSCHF dispute when it was the complaining party. On the other hand, a settlement like this only perpetuates the permission culture the far too often plagues the realm of intellectual property generally and trademark particularly.

Wouldn't it have been better for the USPS to simply accept the honor of the homage and get back to the business of delivering mail and spying on all of us?

Filed Under: sneakers, trademark, usps
Companies: nike

US Postal Service Is Surveilling Social Media Services Because It Apparently Has Plenty Of Time And Money To Waste

from the to-inquire-about-this-program,-please-send-SASE-to-iCOP dept

The United States Postal Service is still in the spying business. The USPS has been scanning pretty much every piece of mail that runs through its system, creating a massive database of metadata that serves whatever purpose the USPS imagines it does. "National security" or whatever the fuck.

When not helping the DEA find cash and the occasional drug shipment, the USPS is also apparently keeping tabs on social media users. This includes social media services with smaller, but perhaps more concerning, user bases. The name of the game is still "national security," but it's unclear why the Postal Service -- which has a hard enough time divvying up its limited resources -- is engaged in this sort of surveillance.

A two-page report [PDF] from the USPS's "iCOP" (Internet Covert Operations Program) [again, why is this actually a thing?] -- first reported by Yahoo News -- details the internet sleuthery of US Postal Service Inspectors.

The law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service has been quietly running a program that tracks and collects Americans’ social media posts, including those about planned protests, according to a document obtained by Yahoo News.

The details of the surveillance effort, known as iCOP, or Internet Covert Operations Program, have not previously been made public. The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings and then sharing that information across government agencies.

Again, this effort seems like -- at best -- a redundancy. Nearly every law enforcement agency has its own social media monitoring program. The DHS and its (mostly useless) Fusion Centers routinely compile information on social media posts. The FBI pretty much considers itself a national security agency at this point and has its own surveillance programs. And plenty of freelancers compile open source info from public posts in their spare investigative time.

But the USPS is in the mix too. And it seems to be treading very close to the First Amendment line.

“Analysts with the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) monitored significant activity regarding planned protests occurring internationally and domestically on March 20, 2021,” says the March 16 government bulletin, marked as “law enforcement sensitive” and distributed through the Department of Homeland Security’s fusion centers. “Locations and times have been identified for these protests, which are being distributed online across multiple social media platforms, to include right-wing leaning Parler and Telegram accounts.”

Planned protests are what's known as free speech round these parts, iCOPs. While there's always a chance someone might stumble across a few true threats, casting a net over the… um… 'Net to trawl for incriminating shitposts seems like an extremely questionable use of the government's time.

The two-pager points out that the most worrying stuff inspectors came across emanated from Parler. But even at its most concerning, the iCOP effort came up with nothing but some wasted tax dollars and a few incursions into inalienable rights territory.

“No intelligence is available to suggest the legitimacy of these threats,” it adds.

The civil liberties experts contacted by Yahoo for comment were more baffled than aghast, although there was certainly some of the latter because it's concerning when you can't think of a single good reason the USPS should be surveilling social media outlets. And this seems to have nothing to do with the US Postal Inspectors' purview, which should only cover criminal acts involving the mail system. Just because everyone's texting and IMing instead of sending letters and postcards doesn't mean the USPS should be allowed to start surveilling communications methods that no longer involve postage stamps.

Filed Under: post office, social media, surveillance, usps

Flip-Flop: Nike Now On The Receiving End Of Trademark Threat Over USPS Inspired Sneakers

from the die-by-the-sword dept

Nike finds itself on our pages again. We're fresh off of the settlement Nike reached with MSCHF over the Lil Nas X "Satan shoes". That settlement sees MSCHF agreeing to buy back at retail prices 666 modified Nike Air Max 97s after Nike sued over trademark. It could have been an interesting case, bringing in all kinds of questions about resale rights, the First Amendment, ownership of property, and more. Instead, it all ends with a posturing settlement that achieves nearly nothing, since these fought-over shoes have suddenly been moonshot into an even more rare and valuable item than they already were. But, Nike gets its ounce of litigation blood and gets to pretend this is all somehow a victory.

And perhaps that settlement will be referenced in another trademark dispute that seems to be brewing between the United States Postal Service and Nike, with Nike this time on the receiving end of the threats.

In an ironic twist, the sneaker giant is being taken to task by the United States Postal Service over an upcoming postal service-inspired sneaker reportedly being planned by Nike. The USPS’s challenge, the latest in a string of public relations headaches for the top athletic brand, all but guarantees the company will end up in court once again — but with the shoe on the other foot.

According to a USPS statement provided to Yahoo Finance, Nike’s experimental Air Force 1 sneaker “is neither licensed nor otherwise authorized by the U.S. Postal Service This is an unfortunate situation where a large brand such as Nike, which aggressively protects its intellectual property, has chosen to leverage another brand for its gain.”

Now, perhaps you're wondering just how much borrowing Nike is doing here. Well...

So, yes, the imagery of this entire sneaker is very clearly an homage to the USPS iconography and dress. Due to that, the USPS statement also noted ominously that it will do everything necessary to protect its "IP rights".

It's worth noting that I don't think this sort of thing represents trademark infringement necessarily. The chief questions in these cases are, first, will the public be confused into thinking there is some kind of official association at play here and, second, does the use in question dilute the brand. I would argue that nobody is going to think that the USPS is somehow now in the sneaker business and, because of that, nobody is going to think less or differently of the federal mail system by this use.

But, on the other hand, those are the same arguments made by those of us who pushed back on Nike's suit against MSCHF.

According to Christopher Buccafusco, a legal expert at the Cardozo Law School in New York City, Nike might find itself on far more shaky ground than when a judge ruled relatively swiftly in its favor.

“Nike’s claims to doing this without a license are much weaker than MSCHF,” he told Yahoo Finance. The latter “is engaged in a pretty obvious set of criticism and comments on Nike and Nike’s role in corporate culture. All of the sorts of things that we think fair use are there to protect,” he explained.

Yet Nike “is not doing any of that. [It’s just saying] that’s a cool logo that USPS uses, we want to use your cool logo. It’s not a commentary on USPS,” Buccafusco added. “Nike is not engaged in a first sale. It’s not like Nike bought USPS logos and stuck them on their shoes. They created a logo that was like the USPS logo because it kind of looks cool to them,” he said.

Note here as well that Buccafusco, despite the above, went on to state that he does not think Nike should lose this case if it does in fact go to court.

But, you know, live by the sword and die by the sword and all that. Given the recent lawsuit and settlement reached, it strains the mind to see how in the world Nike plans to articulate a coherent defense for itself in this case.

Filed Under: postal service sneakers, shoes, sneakers, trademark, usps
Companies: nike

Sharyl Attkisson Lawsuit Against Rod Rosenstein Claiming She Was Hacked By Government Tossed

from the crazypants dept

Remember Sharyl Attkisson? If not, she is a former CNN and CBS journalist who made something of a name for herself both in reporting on the Obama administration, often critically, as well as for accusing that same administration of hacking into her computer and home network. Whatever you think of her reporting, her lawsuit against Eric Holder and the Justice Department over the hacking claims was crazy-pants. Essentially, she took a bunch of the same technological glitches all of us deal with on a daily basis -- flickering television screens, a stuck backspace key on her computer -- and wove that into a giant conspiracy against her and her reporting. She made a big deal in the suit, and her subsequent book on the matter, over some "computer experts" she relied on to confirm that she was a victim of government hacking, except those experts remained largely anonymous and were even, in some cases, third party people she'd never met. For that and other reasons related to how quickly she managed to do initial discovery, the case was tossed by the courts in 2019.

That didn't stop Attkisson's crusade against the government, however. In 2020, she filed suit against Rod Rosenstein, again accusing the government of spying on her and her family. To back this up, she again relied on an anonymous source, but that source has since been revealed. And, well...

The source was initially anonymous but later identified by Attkisson’s attorneys as Ryan White, an alleged former FBI informant. White is a QAnon conspiracy adherent who appears to have been the source of bizarre child-abuse allegations that Georgia attorney Lin Wood leveled at Chief Justice John Roberts last year, according to a report in the Daily Beast.

And so here we are yet again, with an extremely serious claim lodged against the federal government that relies on the tinfoil hat crowd as "evidence." In addition, Attkisson lays out again the computer and network hacking claims, with a named "computer forensic" expert who apparently told her that there was spyware on her machine, that they had logs for where these breaches originated (such as a Ritz Carlton hotel), and that the tools used for all of this appeared to be the sort typically only available to government actors. And here too, just as in her original lawsuit, there are tons of details and claims that reveal that, like so many other conspiracy theories, there is a duality problem. Namely, that the federal government is so nefarious and great at hacking that they completely compromised nearly every machine Attkisson used at work and at home, but that same federal government was too stupid to mask the IP address from which it launched these attacks.

For example, her suit claims that these attacks were originally launched from the United States Postal Service in Baltimore, where some staff involved in infiltrating The Silk Road worked. The contention of her Qanon witness is that the spying on Attkisson somehow happened as an offshoot of a multi-agency task force against dark web dealings. And to believe all of that, you again have to believe that the government's l337 h4x0rs didn't bother to cover their USPS tracks.

But those are conversations about the merits of Attkisson's case. We don't really need to get that far, because her suit has again been tossed on essentially procedural grounds.

Bennett, an appointee of President George W. Bush, also ruled that there was inadequate indication that any surveillance of Attkisson involved activities in Maryland, which Bennett’s court has jurisdiction over.

“The Amended Complaint is devoid of any factual allegations with respect to actual conduct related to the alleged surveillance which occurred in Maryland,” Bennett wrote in his 20-page decision, issued on Tuesday. “The conclusory statements that the alleged surveillance was performed by individuals in Maryland, unsupported by any factual allegations, lie in contrast to the Plaintiffs’ numerous assertions regarding conduct performed and events which occurred in the Eastern District of Virginia.”

So, on the one hand, it's not as if the court is saying that Attkisson's claims are nonsense. And maybe this will lead to her refiling her lawsuit in the proper jurisdiction. On the other hand, it doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence in the merits of her claims or her legal team that they can't even get the case filed in the correct jurisdiction.

So, do I think this is the last we'll hear from Sharyl Attkisson's lawsuits over the supposed hacking of all her things? No, I doubt it. After all, she must certainly have another book to write and promote soon.

Filed Under: conspiracy theories, doj, rod rosenstein, sharyl attkisson, surveillance, usps

USPS Regrets Its Transparency, Asks FOIA Requester To Remove 1,200 Pages It Forgot To Withhold

from the please-double-check-your-work-for-accuracy dept

The government has fucked up and it thinks citizens are obligated to help it unfuck itself. We're not. Too bad.

Recently, government accountability nonprofit American Oversight obtained nearly 10,000 pages of memos and emails from the United States Postal Service. The documents dealt with the USPS's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike the USPS's effusive response to this FOIA request, the agency's response to complaints from employees about the danger they were facing was far more tepid.

These documents were shared with the Washington Post, which highlighted the Postal Service's scrapped plan to send every American five masks, as well as the internal turmoil that accompanied the spread of the coronavirus.

Apparently, the USPS had second thoughts about its FOIA response following this unflattering nationwide media coverage. It sent a letter to American Oversight asking it to take down every single one of the 10,000 pages it had given the organization.

If you can't read/see the tweet, it says:

UPDATE: USPS has now requested we pull down the records the agency had previously produced to us under FOIA. We have agreed to remove the records for 24 hours as we wait for USPS to specify which pages it believes should continue to be withheld.

The letter from the USPS said "multiple pages" were meant to be "withheld in full" under unspecified FOIA exemptions. It refused to say which pages were supposed to be withheld. Instead, the USPS demanded the entire set of documents be removed from American Oversight's website. As seen above, AO refused. It only removed pages that hadn't already been reported on by other news agencies and asked the USPS to be a bit more specific about which pages it felt should have been withheld.

The Postal Service responded the next day, saying it needed 1,200 pages redacted. That's the government's latest offer. For now, most of the 10,000 pages remain offline but still in the possession of American Oversight. 462 of those pages can be viewed online at AO's site.

The organization is continuing to work with the USPS to determine whether any more pages should be excised from the documents it received. But American Oversight is under no obligation to remove anything just because the USPS meant to withhold them. There's nothing illegal about possessing documents or other information the government has mistakenly released. This is an unforced error and if anything damaging was inadvertently released, the Postal Service has no one to blame but itself.

Filed Under: foia, transparency, usps

Just As The Postal Service Is Being Dismantled To Prevent The Handling Of Mail In Ballots, It Tries To Patent Blockchain Voting By Mail

from the i...-uh...-what? dept

We are living in truly dystopian times. As you may have heard, this week there have been a bunch of stories regarding the somewhat systematic dismantling of US Postal Service operations in what appears to be a coordinated effort by this administration to foil the process of sending and collecting mail-in ballots. But, apparently, rather than ensuring its own ability to handle mail-in ballots for this election, the US Postal service is trying to... patent blockchain-based voting?

As you almost certainly know, President Trump has been -- without any factual basis at all -- decrying mail-in ballots, despite the fact that they have been proven safe and effective. As we're in the middle of a pandemic -- made significantly worse by this administration's own incompetence -- whose main mode of transmission is gathering indoors, the need for more mail-in ballots is obvious to anyone who cares about a functioning democracy. Instead, the President has apparently focused on making it impossible. While that seemed like a conspiracy theory to many, he admitted he was holding up funding for exactly that reason:

"They want three and a half billion dollars for something that'll turn out to be fraudulent, that's election money basically. They want three and a half billion dollars for the mail-in votes. Universal mail-in ballots. They want $25 billion, billion, for the Post Office. Now they need that money in order to make the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots," Trump said, repeating his false claims that mail-in voting would be "fraudulent."

"But if they don't get those two items that means you can't have universal mail-in voting because you they're not equipped to have it," Trump added.

Except, again, there is no evidence to support the claims of mail-in ballot fraud. Indeed, Trump and the first lady themselves have requested mail-in ballots in Florida (where he does not reside) and when questioned as to why it was okay for their to be mail-in ballots there, has said it works in Florida because there's a Republican governor.

So Florida has got a great Republican governor, and it had a great Republican governor. Ron DeSantis, Rick Scott, two great governors. And over a long period of time, they’ve been able to get the absentee ballots done extremely professionally. Florida is different from other states.

He's also supported mail-in ballots among his supporters in North Carolina. Of course, it's notable that North Carolina is basically the one place where there was some evidence of mail-ballot fraud... conducted by Republican operatives.

At the same time, however, beyond just blocking funding for the USPS, other efforts have been made to harm the ability to handle mail-in ballots. The Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, who was only just appointed in May, fired a bunch of top USPS execs in a "Friday Night Massacre" a week ago. And this week, it seems like there's been a new story every hour or so. All over the country, the USPS started removing and dismantling expensive postal sorting machines for now clear reason.

There have also been reports in places like Montana and Oregon that the familiar blue postal boxes were being removed for unclear reasons.

To drive all of this home, the USPS has directly warned 46 states (and Washington DC) that it may have delays in handling mail-in ballots.

But have no fear (or, really, have lots and lots of fear), because in the midst of all of this, a USPS patent application for blockchain-based mail-in ballots has been released. Applied for back in February, but just now revealed, the patent application first noticed by Jamie Love is for:

A voting system that can use the security of blockchain and the mail to provide a reliable voting system. A registered voter receives a computer readable code in the mail and confirms identity and confirms correct ballot information in an election. The system separates voter identification and votes to ensure vote anonymity, and stores votes on a distributed ledger in a blockchain.

Of course, as we've highlighted in the past, while some people keep pushing for blockchain-based voting it solves none of the problems of actual online voting, and leverages none of the benefits of the blockchain. Indeed, basically every blockchain-based voting system to date has been a dumpster fire of security concerns and, given everything else discussed above, you can bet the same would be true for any USPS-based blockchain voting system.

Even so, the timing of this release of this patent, in the midst of everything else going on with the USPS and efforts to suppress mail-in ballots (well, at least from those who don't support the President) is the kind of coincidental timing that even the worst Hollywood writers would reject as just too on the nose. Alas...

Filed Under: blockchain, democracy, donald trump, e-voting, elections, louis dejoy, mail-in ballots, patents, usps, voting

Amazon Teams With Colorado Police, US Postal Service On Sting That Catches Zero Package Thieves

from the your-tax-dollars-looking-busy dept

Cops are handing out hackable doorbells to local homeowners like so much razorbladed Halloween candy. Only it's not razor blades. It's surveillance. Amazon's Ring doorbells are the new party favors, available to citizens at a steep discount. Sometimes, they can actually get them for free from local PDs. And why not? It's not like the cops spent their money. It seems only fair for citizens to take home some of what they've purchased.

The promise is a bit more security, in the form of a doorbell that watches your doorstep and the yard/driveway/street beyond. The implicit suggestion is that you repay this deep discount by allowing cops to access camera footage at will. Even if you demur, you'll be added to local law enforcement's Ring map, showing all the houses cops can approach to ask for camera footage.

The doorbells are also tied to an app, Neighbors -- one that Amazon markets with footage of doorstep thefts. Amazon likes this angle so much it's hiring staff to produce news coverage of criminal activities with a hyperlocal focus.

Cops like Ring. And Amazon/Ring likes cops. More tax dollars have headed Amazon's way in recent months, but documents obtained by Vice show this particular partnership -- which also roped in the US Postal Service -- failed to pay off for the citizens funding it. Caroline Haskins reports that a Christmas sting operation in Colorado utilized a lot of tech and government personnel, but failed to round up even the usual suspects.

New documents obtained by Motherboard using a Freedom of Information request show how Amazon, Ring, a GPS tracking company, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service collaborated on a package sting operation with the Aurora, Colorado Police Department in December. The operation involved equipping fake Amazon packages with GPS trackers, and surveilling doorsteps with Ring doorbell cameras in an effort to catch someone stealing a package on tape.

The documents show the design and implementation of a highly elaborate public relations stunt, which was designed both to endear Amazon and Ring with local law enforcement, and to make local residents fear the place they live. The parties were disappointed when the operation didn’t result in any arrests.

Vice/Motherboard has posted the documents online so the public can retrace the fail trail. The sting operation involved two government agencies, two companies, 25 Amazon boxes, 15 Ring doorbell cameras, 15 GPS tracking devices, and seven Colorado zip codes. The most notable number, however, is the arrest total: zero.

During this driest of runs, the PR coordinator for Ring's snitch app (Neighbors), offered her sincere condolences to everyone involved:

"Unfortunate that none were apprehended this time around…"

Yeah, it sucks no one was out stealing packages from doorsteps. It would have made for a great demo reel when pitching Aurora residences doorbell cameras and their chance to participate in spying on their friends, neighbors, and acquaintances.

The documents also show Amazon coordinating most of the operation, starting with a training session provided by the maker of the GPS devices, all the way through to its final cut approval on Aurora PD press releases about the sting. They also show the police department asked citizens to be a part of the Ring-enabled surveillance network expansion project, doing business under the delightful name of "Operation Grinch Grab."

When reached by Motherboard for comment, officer Wells-Longshore said that the Aurora Police Department does not have access to a Ring law enforcement neighborhood portal, but they asked residents for Ring doorbell footage access, and offered to give some residents free Ring cameras.

Sure, you can take a free camera and refuse to grant law enforcement access to footage, but what kind of a citizen would do that? Probably the kind that won't pick up litter and put it in the trash when asked to by a uniformed officer. These free Ring cameras come with an implied access license few people will feel comfortable violating.

This sting operation's lack of success won't discourage other law enforcement agencies from partnering with Amazon in the future. Amazon has made it very clear it has zero problems selling surveillance tech to law enforcement, even while under the Congressional microscope. With Ring, it's expanding law enforcement's surveillance reach with cheap-to-free cameras that appeal to homeowners' pocketbooks and peace of mind.

If this all seems a bit too cozy, that's because it is. And what appears to be little more than an easy way to capture package thieves on tape is actually a convenient way for the government to keep an eye on people's comings and goings, as well as who they socialize with. For now, it's all about footage of crimes. But the access point is already there and the camera is always rolling.

Filed Under: aurora, colorado, package thiefs, ring doorbells, surveillance, usps
Companies: amazon, ring

Inspector General Says Postal Service Surveillance Program Being Handled Just About As Well As You'd Expect

from the just-another-ho-hum-day-of-bulk-surveillance dept

The US Postal Service has long been the Little Surveillance Agency That Time Forgot. For more than a decade, it has scanned every piece of mail it handles. Its "Mail Isolation and Tracking Control" program went into effect in response to post-9/11 anthrax mailings.

Prior to 2001, it only collected mail data on request. Post-2001, it's much more proactive. The problem with untargeted surveillance efforts is that they dehumanize the millions of people whose mail is scanned on a daily basis. This leads directly to the sort of behavior uncovered by the USPS's Inspector General. When you don't care about your "customers," your work gets sloppy.

These are the safeguards the Post Office has put in place to protect personal information and ensure accountability.

The Postal Inspection Service’s Criminal Investigations Service Center (CISC), the primary administrator of the mail covers program, is responsible for maintaining accountable mail cover documents and Postal Service (PS) Forms 2008 and 2009. PS Form 2008, Letter of Instruction, provides guidance for completing, returning, and safeguarding mail covers. PS Form 2009, Information Regarding Mail Matter, is used to record information from the outside of the mailpiece, such as the sender’s name and address. These forms contain information such as names, addresses, and financial institutions that, if used in the aggregate, could reveal personally identifiable information.

Here's what the Inspector General discovered. First off, the USPS isn't compiling its accountability paperwork (the PS forms listed above) in a timely fashion. The paperwork must be sent to the CISC within 60 days of the termination of the mail cover request. For external orders, the forms are supposed to be returned by the law enforcement agency making the request. For internal orders, the forms are handled solely by USPS personnel. The same 60-day time limit applies.

We found that Postal Service personnel or external law enforcement agencies did not return accountable documents for 49 of 75 files (65 percent). As of the date of this review, PS Forms 2009 and 2008 were unaccounted for up to 762 days beyond the mail cover period. We also found accountable documents for 16 mail cover files judgmentally selected from FY 2015 were not returned timely, not returned at all, or not retained in the mail cover file.

To add to the problem, the postal employees were closing files despite not having obtained all of the required paperwork.

Postal Inspection Service personnel closed 79 of 120 mail cover files (66 percent) during FYs 2012 through 2014 without PS Forms 2009 being returned… Fifty-one of the 79 mail covers involved preliminary investigations (known as area cases) and the postal inspectors should have returned the documents within 60 days of the end of the mail cover period. For the remaining 28 mail covers, postal inspectors should have returned PS Forms 2009 before CISC officials closed the mail cover files or before the postal inspector closed the investigation.

Not only were the investigative files improperly handled, but in-process mail-scanning orders were treated with a similarly cavalier attitude, exposing personal information related to targeted individuals.

During our visit to a facility in the Chicago District, we observed PS Forms 2008, which had the subject’s name and address posted, on the carrier’s casing station. We also found a mail cover request on the supervisor’s desk, which is on the workroom floor and visible to all employees. The manager stated that the supervisor posted the PS Forms 2008 on the carrier’s casing station as a reminder to perform the mail cover.

When not leaving sensitive documents lying around, supervisors were making up their own rules.

[A]t a facility in the Los Angeles District, a mail cover request was approved for one subject; however, the supervisor instructed the carrier to record mail cover information for all persons residing at the address.

And, as if to confirm the "lazy government employee" stereotype, this happened:

During our visit at another facility in the New York District, we found an unopened mail cover request in the inbox attached to the outside of the manager’s office door, where it was accessible to all employees.

That's not even the worst of it.

We also noted the mail cover was dated September 21, 2014, and our visit was 129 days past the [order's] end date. The manager stated he was not aware that the mail cover request was in his inbox…

It's not really an "inbox" then, is it? It's a black hole. Or a trashcan. Or a happy place where mail cover orders go to escape from the harsh reality of being executed in a timely fashion.

What appears to be a program of massive scope but limited use (if you don't want the government tracking your communications/packages, it seems unlikely you'd use a government agency for delivery) is apparently treated as just another tedious part of the job by USPS personnel -- a job very few want to do correctly, if at all.

Filed Under: mail, oversight, postal service, surveillance, tracking, usps

How The US Post Office Killed Innovative Digital Mail Because It Disrupted Junk Mailers

from the killing-innovation dept

Derek Khanna has yet another story of how politicians and incumbents have killed off an innovative service. Though, amazingly, unlike in other cases where the killing is hidden behind totally bogus claims of "public safety" or "consumer choice," this time the politicians appeared to be very direct in admitting that they wanted the service dead because it upset incumbents. It's the story of Outbox, a service that would take all of your snail mail and digitize it (and, in the process, dump and unsubscribe you from all that junk mail). It was created by two former Congressional staffers who had seen how nice a mail digitization system could be in Congress. People who used Outbox loved it. All your mail digitized in an easy to review manner -- while also removing all the junk mail you hated? It was a great service.

But, the Postmaster General basically did everything possible to kill it. You really should read the full story, but it involves the Postmaster General calling Outbox's founders into his office. They thought that it might be about an opportunity to work together to provide the American public a much better service. But it wasn't:

When Evan and Will got called in to meet with the Postmaster General they were joined by the USPS's General Counsel and Chief of Digital Strategy. But instead, Evan recounts that US Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe "looked at us and said 'we have a misunderstanding. ‘You disrupt my service and we will never work with you.'" Further, "You mentioned making the service better for our customers; but the American citizens aren't our customers—about 400 junk mailers are our customers. Your service hurts our ability to serve those customers."

According to Evan, the Chief of Digital Strategy's comments were even more stark, "[Your market model] will never work anyway. Digital is a fad. It will only work in Europe."

While the USPS would not directly confirm this exchange (it also did not deny it), it did send Khanna a statement that pretty much confirms it, even if it tried to spin the way they explained it:

The Postal Service is focused on providing an essential service in our mission to serve the American public and does not view Outbox as supporting that mission. We do have concerns regarding the destruction of mail—even if authorized by the receiver—and will continue to monitor market activities to ensure protection of our brand and the value and security of the mail.

Khanna asked if any users had actually complained about signing up for Outbox and somehow having the "security of their mail" harmed. The USPS did not answer. Khanna also asked why the USPS wouldn't even give Outbox the option of continuing its service if they didn't "destroy" the physical mail. The USPS did not answer.

This story is shameful, but not unique. We see it all the time, though it's rare that politicians are so direct in admitting their real motives (though, as we've seen, some others have done so recently as well). But this is the constant struggle of disruption and innovation. Incumbents with business models that don't serve the public, don't look to make a better product. Rather they look for political ways to restrict competition and block innovation. The USPS destroying Outbox is just one in a long line of depressing examples.

Filed Under: corruption, disruption, innovation, junk mail, mail service, us postal service, usps
Companies: outbox