Fox News recently exposed the use of a hidden face and license place scanner being used by a Post Office in Denver, CO. One hour after Fox discovered the spy camera it was ripped from the ground.
The cameras, managed by the agencies’ police force, the United States Postal Inspection Service, was discovered by a customer hidden inside a utilities box last November. The camera evidently was in use throughout the Christmas season.
Managers inside the post office tell FOX31 Denver they were unaware customers were being photographed outside and that the surveillance was not part of the building’s security monitoring.
A spokesperson for Postal Inspection Service declined to address the specific reason for the domestic surveillance, but admitted the agency had a “number of cameras at their disposal.”
Pamela Durkee, a Federal Law Enforcement Agent and U.S. Postal Inspector, sent an email to FOX31 Denver explaining, “(We) do not engage in routine or random surveillance. Cameras are deployed for law enforcement or security purposes, which may include the security of our facilities, the safety of our customers and employees, or for criminal investigations. Employees of the Postal Inspection Service are sworn to uphold the United States Constitution, including protecting the privacy of the American public.”
FOX31 Denver reviewed criminal search warrants on file in city, county, and federal court but none appeared to be related to the Golden post office camera set-up. The Postal Inspection Service would not confirm or deny that the camera was collecting data for a specific case or cases.
Lee Tien, an attorney for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, says more and more federal agencies are getting away with conducting surveillance and collecting personal data of citizens without a warrant signed by a judge.
“Part of being a responsible, constitutional government is explaining why it is doing surveillance on its citizens,” Lee told Halsne. “The government should not be collecting this kind of sensitive information. And it is sensitive! It`s about your relationships, your associations with other people, which can be friendship or political or religious. The idea that we give up that privacy simply because we use the U.S. mail is, I think, a silly idea.”
Lee says EFF has been fighting for greater government transparency when it comes to the way agencies like the FBI and the National Security Agency have been vacuuming up massive amounts of cell phone, email and license plates data and storing them in a central computer system.
Lee says, “The idea that they would be able to keep that information forever and search through it whenever they want to – that seems very, very wrong to us because it means you’ll be able to accumulate over time a lot of innocent peoples’ information and then use it in the kinds of ways that would not be overseen by any kind of court or independent third party.”
FOX31 Denver filed multiple Freedom of Information Act requests with the Postal Service, Postal Inspection Service, and Office of the Inspector General in an attempt to identify the cost and scope of the Postal Inspection Service surveillance program.
None of the agencies could provide a written data retention policy, which would detail how long USPIS could keep the images agents have been collecting from the Golden post office camera and other cameras around the Denver area. Similarly, there does not appear to be a policy regarding in what circumstances other federal agencies may have access to the personal information gathered from the cameras.
Our discovery of this camera program comes just months after the U.S. Postal Service was forced to reveal (during a Congressional hearing) that it was videotaping and storing the address and return information from billions of pieces of mail at its distribution centers.
A federal audit in 2014 found that the Post Office had “insufficient” controls in place when allowing law enforcement agencies access to the data collected from that “mail cover” program.
We did locate a California company which claims it sold the U.S. Postal Service “consumer surveillance systems,” which come installed with wireless data retrieval and infrared night capabilities.
Hop-On Incorporated did not return our repeated calls to elaborate on its self-proclaimed deal. Our FOIA requests for federal contracts and financial information about Hop-On and other contractors who sell USPS and USPIS camera equipment were returned to us void of all information.
The license plate scanner is legal as your plate is displayed in the public domain.
Looks like a nice spray paint canidate
That comment is why is why are rights are being taken away.
So what.
With all due respect Sir, I care!…and I think you should too. My father, Grandfather, great grandfather, and many other men and women in this country have fought, bled, and died preserving our freedoms and liberties. Our generation is taking this high priced precious prize that has been handed to us as a cherished gift of our forefathers, and just freely handing it over to a government that has more power and less oversight than it ever has had in its history. If you think this information is just being used how they tell you it’s being used, and just for the purposes they claim, but then just turn the other way when they refuse to comply with legal Freedom of Information requests by the public, then your sacrificing the greatest part of BEING an American. Just look at what Edward Snowden reveiled. Regardless whether you view him as a hero or a traitor; the truth he exposed about our government should make us all tremble. Our generation has access to more information than has ever been immediatrly available to a single individual in history, but so much of that information is misinformation. History proves that men consustently seek ever greater wealth and power….to get those two things, one must possess the most accurate information and prevent it’s subjects and enemies from the same. By controlling what people believe (there’s a terrorist around every corner and you need your government to protect you from the evil villians at your local Post Office, shopping mall, movie theater….), the ones in power continue to gain further power as we the people willingly surrender our freedom and liberty without the blood shed that was originally necessary for you and I to possess it in the first place.
Unsure why this is a problem unless your a rapist or killer.
Big brother is watching you. Who cares. Sad thing is I’m sure there are crazy bastards that think this is a conspiracy theory…
this is probably the same douche bag that thinks it’s alright for our government to spy on us . Retarted SHEEP!!
sheep….
How did the customer get inside that utilities box? lol
“The cameras, managed by the agencies’ police force, the United States Postal Inspection Service, was discovered by a customer hidden inside a utilities box last November.”