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.
More importantly can the FD GET to hydrant or on a a lighter note”you honor I plead not guilt to this summons because I didn’t see the hydrant”
it’s a felony for the cop to have a gun in his car or on his person while on federal property like a post office therefore if a police officer was setting this camera up wearing his weapon with a weapon in the automobile that is a felony it says right on the door of all government buildings.
You actually believe it’s a felony? Hundreds of state, county and local police respond to US Post Offices every day for crimes committed on their property, thousands more pick up their mail without taking off their guns.. You better check your laws..
Dumbest $#%&!@*ing rationale ever uttered.
It isn’t illegal to take someones picture in public. If it were you wouldn’t have papparazzi chasing “entertainers” all over.
If your not doing anything wrong what’s the big deal.
Good little sheep nothing to see here.
If someone wants a camera on their own property. It’s legal because it’s their property. I have cameras. I’d like to see someone walk up to it and complain about.
April fools. Did anyone look at the links below the article ?
I believe it´s not April fools. The link below goes to the source which is Fox Denver and dated March 11th. The links below that source link were just April fools related stuff.
Nothing new here for the Inspection Service or individual inspectors violating the law by illegally obtaining information on private citizens or the OIG doing nothing about inspectors who violate the law, commit perjury, lie to their own Internal Affairs investigators, lie in depositions and testify falsely in court.
You couldn’t be more wrong.