U.S. wants your mailman to snoop on you

[Palemoon]

You may want to check out this link http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-944582.html I have some real concerns over this. My mailman sees I get overseas letters my meter reader sees my shipping boxes overseas. I feel this plan if used will simply draw more confusion into the picture, like false leads that are dead ends, those resources chasing a tip from someone that may if nothing else have a grudge against another person, or race.

[qwerty_smith]

geez, better not piss off the mailman. give them cookies or something, like santa.

palemoon: better watch those shipments! no more harddrives from afghanistan! j/k

seriously, this is rather scary stuff. and it brings me back to what i've been saying about we have to stand up for our civil liberties, because they cant stand up on their own.

[Palemoon]

Well I'll ship and write all I want. Seems to me the former Soviet Union employed such things for years. Besides the attack on civil liberties, if our CIA, FBI, etc have no clue they ask these people to help them? This will create a unnessary fear of our neighbors, friends, anyone can report anything to the gov now and the feds show up at anyones door and when they do they take everything.

[robbie99]

i believe in civil liberties too but why worry unless u have something to worry about!!! if this stops criminal activity and terrorist activity, which it is probably designed to do then we have no worries as joe bloggs..

yours 99

[Palemoon]

As I undersand Brits have camers all over the place and you are always watched. Point being on this issue is not if your doing anything wrong it is about a person reporting you to your goverment because they THINK you are doing something they don't consider normal. This will not stop anything it will create a bunch of people being questioned and our goverment chasing things that have nothing to do with what is going on and thousands of hours will be spent looking into people that have not done anything wrong.

[Galdron]

I tend to agree with Robbie, If you are not doing anything illegal, then it should not bother you. Unfortunate as it may be after 9/11, we are facing multiple threats, from within and outside of our country. If an attack ocurrs, our initial reaction, is to ask why more was not done as far as intelligence to prevent it. I do agree we need to protect our civil liberties, as our freedom is what defines us as a "Free" country, yet with freedom comes a price. The day they open said correspondance, then I will take a deeper look into what I have just stated. It is a little scary to think that we as free citizens are being scrutinized to this extent, yet I feel that our intelligence community is left with few alternatives. Remember the Terrorists that seized and flew the planes into New York were living in our country for a good while before they were given the orders. Untill we are 100% certain that we no longer have a domestic threat, we will just have to "Give" a little. Very sad yet, a necessary evil.

P:

[Palemoon]

Ok then here is my reality my wife is a citizen but she is from another county and all of her family is there. We send money, food clothing, shoes. In the Southern part of her country there are known groups. Since we ship things to them on a regular basis because they are family. Will the shipping company I use then be raided because they a a minority business and a mailman thinks there is something wrong. So what happens the shippment is taken by the feds as well as all their assets, then nothing gets to any family, me I get hauled in also why because I used their service. Can my actions be called into question now from my mailman to my meter reader anser is yes am I doing anything wrong NO, just helping my family life is hard in their country.

[bludgeon]

I'm with you Pale, that's jes jacked up, it will create a lot more needless work, and have joe average make decisions that they shouldn't be making, gotta love the GOP. They've finally gotten around to acting on their favorite book, BNW.

[roswell1329]

I tend to agree with Robbie, If you are not doing anything illegal, then it should not bother you.

Galdron -- Who's to say what looks criminally suspicious to someone? For example, what if I received a letter in my mailbox that contained the results of an HIV test? I wouldn't want anyone to know about those results, and I would probably act pretty protective and secretive of that envelope. I'd rather not have the police start a 24 hour surveillance of my house because Paranoid Joe, my mailman ratted me out based solely on my anxious behavior around an envelope.

How about if I give my daughter $35,000 as a wedding gift with which to start her life. Will the bank red-flag my account because I'm transferring a large sum of money to another private citizen?

Will my ISP start setting up filters on their mail servers looking for consistant communications to any country on the "Axis of Evil?" If they do, will email to my Iranian pen-pal be interrogated for possible code words?

I think the bottom line about this disturbing development is not so much about the new policy itself, but the direction we're headed. I will stipulate that the threat of terrorism was high immediately after 9/11 and we should remain ever vigilant about possible additional attacks, but we are dangerously close to a slippery slope leading toward totalitarianism. How many of these "inconveniences to our individual rights" are we willing to endure before there's no opportunity to oppose them? Here's a frightening scenario:

"What? The Army needs an interrogation center for ALL the muslims in the neighborhood that were out after 9:00pm last night? They want to use MY house?!! There should be a LAW or something about that."

[Palemoon]

Well do a google search and also learn that the US also wants to give more power to our miltary to act within the US. So the mailman, neighbor reports you and it's not the feds but the US army and they detain you untill they are happy your not a threat. Things are falling apart if this continues they they have WON they distroyed American Freedom.