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.
You didn’t do anything wrong but maybe next week when they change the law and then go back and pull the video showing you breaking the new law.
“private”
The five eye alliance?
It’s not that I am breaking the law, it is that It’s none of there business where I am going.
Is that the police state! Of Colorado!
“i’m not doing anything wrong so why should I care?”…..is a scary response to this. The more and more we desensitize ourselves to surveillance, to militarized police force, ….the easier it will be for them to just slide into a police state…whether it’s 10 years from now or 100 years from now. I can’t think of a single person who truly believes our govt at anytime is doing a bang up job..so if we don’t have faith in our government, why the hell would this not anger you? I’m not asking you to revolt, I’m just asking you to question authority regularly.
“i’m not doing anything wrong so why should I care?”…..is a scary response to this. The more and more we desensitize ourselves to surveillance, to militarized police force, ….the easier it will be for them to just slide into a complete control…whether it’s 10 years from now or 100 years from now. I can’t think of a single person who truly believes our govt at anytime is doing a bang up job..so if we don’t have faith in our government, why the hell would this not anger you? I’m not asking you to revolt, I’m just asking you to question authority regularly….why? Because this is what a healthy American does….it’s our duty.
WTF!?!? It’s not like it was recording in the ladies room!!! Didn’t the Unibomber mail his packages from Colorado? It was literally recording “public information” and not recording that fact that you mailed Weight Watchers to your fat uncle’s, neighbor’s wife, 3rd cousin’s, step child who has ADD and hypoglycemia!!!
they are not broke thats a lie because they want the mail too be privatized. they meaning congress laid a law down that makes them work at a maintained level because the law states that they have too pay seventy five years of pensions in ten years. they defunded the usps. look it up
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” – Winston Churchill.
In 1934, most Germans had no problem with what the $#%&!@*s were up to. They wanted some law and order. By 1938, most Germans were afraid to say anything, lest they end up in a concentration camp.