(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is attempting to become a quasi-NSA—monitoring Black Lives Matters protestors, J6ers and other political activists—but can’t even track the equipment it uses to engage in that surveillance, according to a recent report from the Postal Service’s inspector general.
The Feb. 13 IG report revealed that the USPIS about 10,000 pieces of law enforcement surveillance equipment valued at over $65 million. Surveillance equipment includes devices that capture communications, visual images, and physical locations, the report said.
When it audited that equipment, the IG found “134 of 404 (33 percent) pieces of electronic surveillance equipment and 464 of 1,238 (37 percent) pieces of technical surveillance equipment that…were either recorded with errors or were not recorded in the inventory management system.”
The IG report serves as a reminder that the USPIS’s controversial social media monitoring program—now known as the “Analytics Team”—is still in operation. The program was known as the Internet Covert Operations Program, or iCOP, when it was revealed by Yahoo News in 2021.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., introduced legislation last August that would abolish the Analytics Team. Gaetz’s legislation would prohibit any federal funds, including amounts available in the Postal Service Fund, from being used by USPIS to carry out iCOP, or any other similar program.
“The Postal Service should be focused on delivering the mail on time and on budget, not running a covert surveillance program to monitor political behavior on social media,” Gaetz said in a press release.
“This program is not only outside USPIS’ jurisdiction and infringes on American citizens’ civil liberties but is more evidence of the government-sanctioned spying on its own citizens. Congress must immediately abolish this program.”
In March 2022, the USPS Inspector General released a report stating that “certain proactive searches iCOP conducted using an open-source intelligence tool from February to April 2021 exceed the Postal Inspection Service’s law enforcement authority.”
Postal Police Officers Association President Frank Albergo has also criticized the USPIS for devoting resources to iCOP while cutting back on postal police officer amidst spiking mail theft.
In 2022, 412 USPS letter carriers were robbed on the job, according to a Postal Service press release from earlier this month. Additionally, the agency reported an increase in high volume mail theft incidents from mail receptacles: 38,500 2022 and more than 25,000 in the first half of fiscal year 2023.
“According to the Inspection Service, it has the power to conduct surveillance on every piece of mail but does not have the power to deploy uniformed postal police officers to protect the mail and postal workers,” Albergo told Headline USA in May.
“Can you imagine a law enforcement agency that doesn’t want their uniformed law enforcement officers to enforce the law? Actually, in this day and age, you probably can imagine it.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
