Mr. Obama is watching you!

On the Sunday 7/15/13 evening national news for NBC there was a 4 minute segment about a revamped U.S. Mail program that the government has now admitted captures images of both sides of any post card, letter or package which is put into the USPS system.

This covers ALL mail, domestic and international. At one time the post office was considered to be the largest intelligence service of the government and watching the mail goes as far back as the Civil War.

The 'new' aspects of this program may well prove to exceed the authorization for such intelligence gathering as provided by the Congress.

Governmental spokesmen admit that all these images are saved electronically in case any address or name draws future attention. When/if that happens, the various agencies can pull up information to determine what mail was sent by or received by a person, firm or address.

The relevant text is about the 'Automated Facer Canceller System' (AFCS) and reads in part: 'The AFCS incorporates a 'Mail Isolation Control and Tracking' (MICT) program which photographs and captures an image of every piece that is processed.'

I don't know of any simple 'fix' to safeguard privacy but a few common sense things come to mind:

1) No longer use a return address on your mail. Such return addresses have long been a feature promoted by the post office so if your correspondent is gone or the address is incorrect you will get your mail back. You might want to omit any such return address in the future.

2) Modify your name for incoming bank statements, bills etc. Rather than using Dr. John J. Smith, ask your bank, utility etc to just use J. Smith. Don't give out any extra information for the government to copy and file away.

3) Avoid getting mail at a 'home' address. This won't help all that much as all mail will still be copied but using a private mail receiving service can't hurt.

See also:  http://impeachobama2013.blogspot.com/