[Security] US Postal Service knows when you're away...and where.

[justpoet]

 

Summary

USPS (United States Postal Service) reportedly using ClearView AI en mass as part of their Internet Covert Operations Program, tracks people all over, including through social media, and shares it with DHS and NSA.

 

Quotes

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“The U.S. Postal Inspection Service appears to be putting significant resources into covert monitoring of social media and the creation and use of undercover accounts." said Rachel Levinson-Waldman, deputy director of the Liberty & National Security Program of the Brennan Center for Justice.

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To maintain anonymity during these covert operations, the analysts searching social media reportedly use the software Nfusion. This software lets users create and maintain untraceable and anonymous social media accounts.

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According to the documents reviewed by Yahoo News, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service is part of a Homeland Security intelligence-sharing network that includes, among others, the National Security Agency.

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Inspection Service defended the iCOP program. “This review of publicly available open source information, including news reports and social media, is one piece of a comprehensive security and threat analysis, and the information obtained is the same information anyone can access as a private citizen,” wrote a spokesperson for the inspection service. “News report and social media listening activity helps protect the 644,000 men and women who work for the Postal Service by ensuring they are able to avoid potentially volatile situations while working to process and deliver the nation’s mail every day.”
The spokesperson referred to the software used by iCOP as “standard law enforcement techniques and tools, which are strictly controlled relative to the investigation of criminal suspects and criminal activities.”

My thoughts

Well, this isn't good.  The pretext of the USPS is that this is for protection of their workers, to identify protestors/agitators showing up in an area to then avoid.  That's great, but even if we took that as true and the only motive, this leaves a huge privacy issue...even before the network of information sharing they're part of.  When combined with the mail scanning and recording that already goes on under the pretext of consumer convenience (being able to see pictures of your packages and each envelope going to your mailbox, along with where they are), this really starts to give the USPS way too large of a treasure trove of data for another government org to reference...and makes it that much easier for government to start acting more like China and target particular people and groups.  There are of course big 1st and 4th Constitutional Amendment issues with this as well.  ClearView has been a hot topic in the past...and sadly it probably will continue to be, until somebody else does it better or cheaper.  The technological genie is out of the bottle, so to speak.

 

Sources

https://news.yahoo.com/facial-recognition-fake-identities-and-digital-surveillance-tools-inside-the-post-offices-covert-internet-operations-program-214234762.html

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/usps-reportedly-uses-clearview-ai/

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is not a political post, despite many of the concerns being political due to the USPS being a government entity.  Please be respectful of the mods and the LTT forum rules when discussing.

[poochyena]

9 minutes ago, justpoet said:

, this really starts to give the USPS way too large of a treasure trove of data for another government org to reference...and makes it that much easier for government to start acting more like China and target particular people and groups.

how? What are the doing exactly that anyone else couldn't do? I seriously want to hear how scanning the outside of packages is somehow of concern to you. From what I read of the article, they are only looking at PUBLIC social media posts. if you post things in public, then its not private.

[PineyCreek]

1 hour ago, valdyrgramr said:

They lost my hickory farms package, so I doubt they could find me.

I wanted so badly to make a joke about how Pepperidge Farms remembers, but it's Meat and Cheese company, not the cookie company

[GooberDuder]

Does USPS have an issue regarding delivering mail that warrants this surveillance? Confused why they are involved when LEOs and the FBI likely already collect this data. 

[Glenwing]

As a note, this article is about the US Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) which is the law enforcement office that investigates mail theft and illegal drug shipments and so forth, and is really separate from the mail delivery side of the USPS.

 

[Vishera]

In my country as long as you are not a known criminal,suspected of crime,involved in crime,a terrorist activity or a threat to national security - No one is allowed to spy on you without your consent.

 

From @Glenwing's post it seems like they are looking for mail thieves,

The question is if there are innocents among the people they track,collect and share data about.

[Jet_ski]

3 hours ago, Glenwing said:

As a note, this article is about the US Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) which is the law enforcement office that investigates mail theft and illegal drug shipments and so forth, and is really separate from the mail delivery side of the USPS.

 

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, Glenwing said:

As a note, this article is about the US Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) which is the law enforcement office that investigates mail theft and illegal drug shipments and so forth, and is really separate from the mail delivery side of the USPS.

 

I can't remember what TV series it was, but there was an episode that involved a retiring USPS employee who had stolen some amount of mail for reasons. 

 

Anyhow you need to think of USPIS as a separate agency like the FBI is a separate agency from state and city policing. When people report mail theft, USPIS does the investigation, assuming the package just hasn't been delivered. 

 

There was an employee of a previous place I worked who worked for Canada Post, and they mentioned (as an aside) that idiots send drugs through the mail all the time, and they are easily found out when the packages sit over the weekend because the (pot) packages smell like a skunk got run over. Customs and Border inspections both in Canada and the US (see Border Security) had a show where they quite literately filmed drug dogs going through mail shipping facilities, and it's just readily obvious in most cases, no matter how "clever" the drugs are disguised, they are found. But you have to also recognize that it's low-hanging fruit that gets put on the show. 

 

For what it's worth, if they are scanning social media, they are probably looking at people complaining about their packages being undelivered, lost, or being redirected for no apparent reason. I don't follow that many people in the first place on twitter, but it seems like "my package took a 3600 mile detour" is a common occurrence in both Canada and the US.

 

[cj09beira]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

I can't remember what TV series it was, but there was an episode that involved a retiring USPS employee who had stolen some amount of mail for reasons. 

 

Anyhow you need to think of USPIS as a separate agency like the FBI is a separate agency from state and city policing. When people report mail theft, USPIS does the investigation, assuming the package just hasn't been delivered. 

 

There was an employee of a previous place I worked who worked for Canada Post, and they mentioned (as an aside) that idiots send drugs through the mail all the time, and they are easily found out when the packages sit over the weekend because the (pot) packages smell like a skunk got run over. Customs and Border inspections both in Canada and the US (see Border Security) had a show where they quite literately filmed drug dogs going through mail shipping facilities, and it's just readily obvious in most cases, no matter how "clever" the drugs are disguised, they are found. But you have to also recognize that it's low-hanging fruit that gets put on the show. 

 

For what it's worth, if they are scanning social media, they are probably looking at people complaining about their packages being undelivered, lost, or being redirected for no apparent reason. I don't follow that many people in the first place on twitter, but it seems like "my package took a 3600 mile detour" is a common occurrence in both Canada and the US.

 

there is one, "the blacklist", where they use the fact that the mail personnel can figure out if you are home or not  to create a illegal "safe house" renting service

[Fasterthannothing]

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Nfusion. This software lets users create and maintain untraceable and anonymous social media accounts.