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.
Post office is getting as ba d as the IRS when one tries to obtain this type of info!
The average American citizen breaks laws – unknowingly – on average about 20 times per year. Having cameras and recording devises everywhere, recording everything you do – intentionally or accidentally, can come back to haunt you in time. I’m not talking about security cameras in a place of business. I’m talking about everywhere else. Even the camera and gps on your smart phone, computer, X-Box, etc etc.
Are cameras and recording devices everywhere? Sure… Does that make it right? No.
I’m sure you have not come to a complete stop at a stop sign a time or two. I’m sure you’ve exceeded the speed limit a time or two (even by a mile or two over the limit). I’m sure you’ve said something out of anger in public or on a social network or on your phone. Maybe you’ve visited an inappropriate web site even by accident, maybe you’ve driven in a known drug area (accidentally – got lost on vacation)… the list goes on. How would you like to go to court some day and have all that brought up – and have to explain it to a judge with the media there? There used to be a thing called invasion of privacy. Now, it seems no one cares about privacy anymore. Now that there are recording devices everywhere, the powers that be are hoping for folks like you who say “It’s everywhere, so what?”. Like the amount of cameras and recording devices somehow makes it ok.
Don’t think it can happen? You’re mistaken. I made an off handed comment about an insurance company on facebook when I was employed for someone else – two years earlier. When I was terminated from my job while on approved medical leave, I sued the company. My employer’s attorney in his search to get dirt on me, had that off handed comment, printed out and presented it in court – and read it out loud. Though it had nothing to do with the case or the company that terminated me illegally, it discredited me and I had to explain my words.
It’s not paranoia… it’s a fact. Where does it end? The elimination of privacy is only going to get worse.
Who cares?
This has been going around for MONTHS
I had to read the story twice to see what the big deal was, still have no clue. This is much ado about nothing
So what is the uproar about? What privacy do you need to drop a letter off at a public facility? You morans get a grip on reality. If you want that kind of privacy get rid of all your tech. devices, tv s,phones and lock yourself in your boarded up houses.
More then likely law enforcement.
I find it amazing how the sheep just go with it. People act like its no big deal that they have no privacy.
Very sickening that Americans seem to care less about why the government needs to collect so much info on its citizens. How much of your tax money is going into surveillance and storage of that data?
It’s time that we start watching them as much as they watch us. How many of your congress men have supported this invasion on your privacy? It’s time to start over and get rid of these fascist leaders we have in Washington, in our state capitals, and our local governments.
Orwell’s 1984 dystopia doesn’t hold a candle to what we live in now. And the proles all think it’s doubleplusgood right up until they find themselves in Room 101.
S$#%&!@* Government. We need to elect people who will hunt these things out and stop them.
Problem with that: you don’t know who dropped which package in a box and it’s all collected at once