Cash to Buy Postage Makes You Suspect at Post Office
Since Insight exposed the U.S. Postal Service’s customer-surveillance program “Under the Eagle’s Eye” (see “Postal Service Has Its Eye on You,” July 2-9), the eyes of many privacy advocates have focused like a laser on the agency. “Warning! The Post Office could report YOU as a drug dealer or terrorist,” reads a press release from the Libertarian Party, which helped generate some 300,000 letters that helped defeat the government’s proposed “Know Your Customer” surveillance rules for banks two years ago (see “Snoops and Spies,” Feb. 22, 1999). Until the Postal Service drops its orders to postal clerks to report certain legal financial transactions as “suspicious activity,” the Libertarian Party and others are urging consumers to purchase money orders, wire transfers and cash cards elsewhere.
But now Insight has learned that it’s not just purchases of these financial instruments that the post office...