As if we need any other reason to be frustrated with the United States Postal Service (USPS), Jana Winter with Yahoo! News on Wednesday gave us one. "The Postal Service is running a 'covert operations program' that monitors Americans' social media posts," she reported.
Winter opened her piece with:
The law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service has been quietly running a program that tracks and collects Americans’ social media posts, including those about planned protests, according to a document obtained by Yahoo News.
The details of the surveillance effort, known as iCOP, or Internet Covert Operations Program, have not previously been made public. The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings and then sharing that information across government agencies.
Understandably, Twitter was horrified, and confused, even and including those who aren't always in the same circles.
Finally, an answer to the question: "Is there any federal agency that's not spying on Americans?" https://t.co/gA6KoguD4N
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 21, 2021
It’s not every day Ted Cruz and the ACLU agree on something. Guess the one thing we call all agree on is: why on earth is the post office running a “internet covert operations program” collecting our social media. And why is @DHSgov disseminating this work to cops nationwide? https://t.co/EmfSi5YOPY
— Jana Winter (@janawinter) April 21, 2021
Disturbing! Why do Presidents and my colleagues in congress tolerate these violations of the Constitution?
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 21, 2021
Also, and unfortunately, the USPS has been losing money for many years... so where do they find money to run this surveillance program?https://t.co/rmcKAsTRNK
the whole internet loves the US postal service, a lovely service that delivers mail! *5 seconds later* we regret to inform you the service is part of the surveillance state https://t.co/s0Bi6RCN9U
— Nathan Grayson (@Vahn16) April 21, 2021
Postal service is joke. Ben Franklin in 1776 could mail a letter across the pond to France, and have it delivered quicker than me mailing a letter from MD to NJ in 2021! Pretty scary! I understand why now, they are all on social media.
— Joe Diffie (@Miked12009) April 21, 2021
So, while I absolutely believe agencies with proper authorities should be monitoring open source info on social media for potential threats better than they do — don’t think that should be the postal service?
— Molly McKew (@MollyMcKew) April 21, 2021
So many questions re covert postal operationshttps://t.co/egoe0Ip1yz
The U.S. Postal Service is running a "covert operations program" that monitors your social media posts.
— Young Americans for Liberty (@YALiberty) April 21, 2021
It's called "iCOP."
Imagine having no problem giving these people MORE power.https://t.co/OZNRSFujT5
Remember when the Postal Service wasn't a branch of the National Security Agency? Good times. Good times. https://t.co/eIm4qQXhG4
— ?????????????? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????????????? (@LTrotsky21) April 21, 2021
Under what legal authorities can the Post Office — THE POST OFFICE — run covert operations?
— BDW (@BryanDeanWright) April 21, 2021
This is beyond bizarre. And alarming. https://t.co/cLDix3UkW6
I’m not surprised that the government is doing this, I’m surprised that the incompetent and poorly-run postal service is. https://t.co/vYpZBnidcV
— Kassy Dillon (@KassyDillon) April 21, 2021
The funniest part of this is why the Postal Service is calling it the “covert operations program” as if calling it Super Duper Secret will, in fact, keep it a secret https://t.co/4YdOcjh6pZ
— Brian Fung (@b_fung) April 21, 2021
Adding to the confusion is that USPS didn't even succeed at whatever the heck they were supposed to do. A March 16 bulletin, which Winter includes in her piece, is marked as "law enforcement sensitive" and is actually "distributed through the Department of Homeland Security's fusion centers." Who would have thought that those two would be working together? The United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) were supposed to be monitoring planned protests for March 20, 2021. "Locations and times have been identified for these protests, which are being distributed online across multiple social media platforms," which, as you may have guessed it, were "to include right-wing leaning Parler and Telegram accounts."
Winter also noted, with added emphasis:
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A number of groups were expected to gather in cities around the globe on March 20 as part of a World Wide Rally for Freedom and Democracy, to protest everything from lockdown measures to 5G. “Parler users have commented about their intent to use the rallies to engage in violence. Image 3 on the right is a screenshot from Parler indicating two users discussing the event as an opportunity to engage in a ‘fight’ and to ‘do serious damage,’” says the bulletin.
“No intelligence is available to suggest the legitimacy of these threats,” it adds.
Experts are just as befuddled and disturbed as much of Twitter. Winter noted of the examples she included, "expressed alarm at the post office’s surveillance program."
There's University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone. Winter describes him as having the distinction as someone "whom President Barack Obama appointed to review the National Security Agency’s bulk data collection in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks." He said "I don’t understand why the government would go to the Postal Service for examining the internet for security issues."
He said out loud what's likely on everyone's mind. "I just don’t think the Postal Service has the degree of sophistication that you would want if you were dealing with national security issues of this sort," Professor Stone said, also calling it "puzzling."
Rachel Levinson-Waldman, deputy director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s liberty and national security program said "This seems a little bizarre." She also pointed out how little was known about it, in addition to expressing her confusion. "Based on the very minimal information that’s available online, it appears that [iCOP] is meant to root out misuse of the postal system by online actors, which doesn’t seem to encompass what’s going on here. It’s not at all clear why their mandate would include monitoring of social media that’s unrelated to use of the postal system," she said.
Even better is the confusion over authority and constitutionality. "If the individuals they’re monitoring are carrying out or planning criminal activity, that should be the purview of the FBI," Levinson-Waldman said. "If they’re simply engaging in lawfully protected speech, even if it’s odious or objectionable, then monitoring them on that basis raises serious constitutional concerns."
Does the USPS really not have anything better to do, than what are, at best, "unrelated" tasks, to quote the experts? Because we can think of plenty. One user tweeted that they're failing so miserably because they've been too busy on social media, using some pretty amusing points.
Postal service is joke. Ben Franklin in 1776 could mail a letter across the pond to France, and have it delivered quicker than me mailing a letter from MD to NJ in 2021! Pretty scary! I understand why now, they are all on social media.
— Joe Diffie (@Miked12009) April 21, 2021
Does the USPS have the assets to monitor Americans’ social media posts? I think I figured out why they’re bleeding money.
— Monarch B. Grizzly (@GLDNST8) April 21, 2021
Even though the tweet below was before such a damning report came out, it's still hilariously apt.
literally if this takes another week it'll have taken a month to ship. Why do I even bother using the usps to mail things anymore I literally could've ridden there on fucking horseback and dropped off the package sooner than the postal service pic.twitter.com/DjdEwYDVma
— ezra (@glowww0rms) April 19, 2021
What do you know, USPS didn't even have a satisfactory response either. Their non-answer came in a kind of word salad statement, provided by Winter:
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service did not respond to specific questions sent by Yahoo News about iCOP, but provided a general statement on its authorities.
“The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is the primary law enforcement, crime prevention, and security arm of the U.S. Postal Service,” the statement said. “As such, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service has federal law enforcement officers, Postal Inspectors, who enforce approximately 200 federal laws to achieve the agency’s mission: protect the U.S. Postal Service and its employees, infrastructure, and customers; enforce the laws that defend the nation's mail system from illegal or dangerous use; and ensure public trust in the mail.”
“The Internet Covert Operations Program is a function within the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which assesses threats to Postal Service employees and its infrastructure by monitoring publicly available open source information,” the statement said.
“Additionally, the Inspection Service collaborates with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to proactively identify and assess potential threats to the Postal Service, its employees and customers, and its overall mail processing and transportation network. In order to preserve operational effectiveness, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service does not discuss its protocols, investigative methods, or tools.”
USPS also drew widespread attention and concern in time for the 2020 election, to do with delays as more people turned to mail-in voting as a result of the pandemic.
As Townhall reported extensively to do with the results of the 2020 presidential election, there were also disturbing allegations and questions of USPS' involvement in any kind of voter fraud.
Then again, it's not like the USPS is doing so well to begin with, including with finances and the need for bailouts. The post office has needed reform for a considerable amount of time now.
USPS actually took it upon themselves to respond to a column by Brian McNicoll published for Townhall. "Same Problems, Different Bailout for the Postal Service," McNicoll wrote in an April 22,2020 piece. Of all the critical pieces on this failing enterprise, they took notice of and addressed one published on our site. We'll take it as a compliment.
