>The records, disclosed to EFF and other requesters suing the postal service under the Freedom of Information Act, show that the agency’s internet Covert Operations Program, or iCOP, routinely sifted through social media posts organizing and discussing protests with little records of any oversight or legal justification.
Wait, why does the Postal Service have an "internet Covert Operations Program" at all?
"The Postal Inspection Service’s activities must have an identified connection to the mail, postal crimes, or the security of Postal Service facilities or personnel (postal nexus) prior to commencing. However, the keywords used for iCOP in the proactive searches did not include any terms with a postal nexus"
Turns out it's supposed to be used to protect the integrity of the mail system, though "postal crimes" can cast a super wide net in the USPS purview.
It also turns out according to the USPS Office of the Inspector General that they don't do that.
"We determined that certain proactive searches iCOP conducted using an open-source intelligence tool from February to April 2021 exceeded the Postal Inspection Service’s law enforcement authority. Furthermore, we could not corroborate whether other work analysts completed from October 2018 through June 2021 was legally authorized"
An enormous government organization operating a surveillance program with no oversight and being shifty about it, renaming the program and losing old records.
Reminds me of the end scene from The Bourne Ultimatum (?) when the baddies in govt rename the evil brainwashing program.
For timeline context (especially if you believe "the fish rots from the head"), Louis DeJoy was appointed the head of USPS by Trump in June 2020, and he resigned in March 2024.
The way most people feel, there's no choices of not having bad actors at the top. Just a choice between a greater evil and a lesser evil. There's is vehement disagreement about which evil is lesser and which greater. Not not disagreement that they both suck.
We need an electoral system that makes both evils vulnerable to a not-evil.
> [if Biden had the authority to fire DeJoy] it might have meant Trump could have fired Jerome Powell.
Annoyingly/ironically, Trump seized the power to arbitrarily fire folks like DeJoy anyway, after the ruling in Trump v. Slaughter. [0] While the Federal Reserve was excepted from that, the exception doesn't seem to be based in law as much as the conservative SC justices trying to save Trump from hurting himself.
In other words, holding back didn't do much. In fact, if Biden had tried to fire DeJoy and been slapped down, maybe that would have made it harder for Trump to do the same. Even this Supreme Court might hesitate to completely reverse course on its own decision from a couple years back.
>The records, disclosed to EFF and other requesters suing the postal service under the Freedom of Information Act, show that the agency’s internet Covert Operations Program, or iCOP, routinely sifted through social media posts organizing and discussing protests with little records of any oversight or legal justification.
Wait, why does the Postal Service have an "internet Covert Operations Program" at all?
https://www.uspsoig.gov/reports/audit-reports/us-postal-insp...
"The Postal Inspection Service’s activities must have an identified connection to the mail, postal crimes, or the security of Postal Service facilities or personnel (postal nexus) prior to commencing. However, the keywords used for iCOP in the proactive searches did not include any terms with a postal nexus"
Turns out it's supposed to be used to protect the integrity of the mail system, though "postal crimes" can cast a super wide net in the USPS purview.
It also turns out according to the USPS Office of the Inspector General that they don't do that.
"We determined that certain proactive searches iCOP conducted using an open-source intelligence tool from February to April 2021 exceeded the Postal Inspection Service’s law enforcement authority. Furthermore, we could not corroborate whether other work analysts completed from October 2018 through June 2021 was legally authorized"
I don't have an answer.
An enormous government organization operating a surveillance program with no oversight and being shifty about it, renaming the program and losing old records.
Reminds me of the end scene from The Bourne Ultimatum (?) when the baddies in govt rename the evil brainwashing program.
For timeline context (especially if you believe "the fish rots from the head"), Louis DeJoy was appointed the head of USPS by Trump in June 2020, and he resigned in March 2024.
I’m conflicted about whether Biden should’ve had the authority to fire him… it might have meant Trump could have fired Jerome Powell.
Our system of government really doesn’t do well when bad actors are at the top.
The way most people feel, there's no choices of not having bad actors at the top. Just a choice between a greater evil and a lesser evil. There's is vehement disagreement about which evil is lesser and which greater. Not not disagreement that they both suck.
We need an electoral system that makes both evils vulnerable to a not-evil.
> [if Biden had the authority to fire DeJoy] it might have meant Trump could have fired Jerome Powell.
Annoyingly/ironically, Trump seized the power to arbitrarily fire folks like DeJoy anyway, after the ruling in Trump v. Slaughter. [0] While the Federal Reserve was excepted from that, the exception doesn't seem to be based in law as much as the conservative SC justices trying to save Trump from hurting himself.
In other words, holding back didn't do much. In fact, if Biden had tried to fire DeJoy and been slapped down, maybe that would have made it harder for Trump to do the same. Even this Supreme Court might hesitate to completely reverse course on its own decision from a couple years back.
[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/29/trump-supreme-court...
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