Edward Snowden achieved cult status among privacy advocates in 2013 when he revealed the extent of the National Security Agency’s, or NSA’s, surveillance of the American populace. These revelations led to a shutdown of the heavily-criticized NSA program focused on collecting cellphone data from millions of Americans. However, another surveillance program — the U.S. Postal Service’s Mail Isolation Control and Tracking, or MICT — has curiously received far less examination than the healthy skepticism given to that of the NSA. A program which photographs the exterior of every letter and package mailed in the United States, while only requiring one to fill out a form for the NSA to access the data without any judicial oversight, certainly deserves a closer scrutiny into its function, value and constitutionality.
So what is MICT, exactly? In 2001, letters laced with anthrax spores sent to media stations and several congressmen killed five Americans, wounded 17 others and led to “billions of dollars in government and private spending aimed at defending the country against biological attacks.” The explosion of surveillance funding allowed the USPS to create a “Mail Imaging” program in which computers at 200 processing plants across the United States photograph 160 billion pieces of mail every year. Originally, the practice began long ago when postal workers — at the demand of law enforcement — would record names, addresses and other information from the outside of packages to assist in investigations. However, the system employed today is far more advanced, powerful and expansive.
Just consider how much can be learned from the exterior of someone’s mail. In the words of a former FBI agent, “It's a treasure trove of information. Looking at just the outside of letters and other mail, I can see who you bank with, who you communicate with. . .” In fact, it’s this information that allows law enforcement to monitor letters and packages suspected of holding biohazards such as anthrax or Walter-White-approved ricin. Most notably, the program’s tracking system resulted in the bizarre arrest and conviction of Shannon Richardson, a Walking Dead actress who mailed ricin-laced letters to President Obama in an attempt to frame her husband. With requests for information on an individual’s packing and mail data totaling almost 50,000 per year, law enforcement is certainly taking advantage of this program.
Privacy advocates, in a similar vein to the critiques levied at the NSA’s phone collection program, have criticized the program for a lack of oversight which leaves it susceptible to abuse amid a litany of other privacy concerns. An audit in 2014 revealed that “20 percent of the orders implemented for outside law enforcement agencies were not properly approved, and 13 percent were either unjustified or not correctly documented.” To access the information from MICS, a simple form is all that is needed. No judges at all. Furthermore, privacy concerns stem from abuses such as politically motivated monitoring of an individual such as in the cases of an Arizona supervisor and a San Antonio defense lawyer. In general the whole situation boils down to whether the government should be actively monitoring the quasi-personal information of millions of Americans should it ever make a claim that it needs to access that information for law enforcement purposes.
A little investigation reveals some limitations of these concerns. First, unlike the NSA, the Postal Service does not have a colossal database that stockpiles images. As Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe notes, “It’s extremely expensive to keep pictures of billions of pieces of mail. So there’s no need for us to do that.” Second, lawsuits challenging the legality of photographing mail have been denied, with judges citing the lack of any reasonable expectation of privacy for information contained on the exterior of packages or letters. Cases of abuse can indeed be found, yet the utility to a vast number of government agencies such as the FBI and DEA might far outweigh those concerns.
The ever-raging battle between privacy and surveillance in a post-9/11 world has seen significant rollbacks of an expansive national security apparatus. The question of the government photographing all U.S. mail has seen virtually no discussion, due in part to widespread fear pervading the population and trumping many privacy concerns. With six out of 10 Americans backing the renewal of the far more controversial NSA phone collection program and the lack of any outcry to the mail tracking program since its disclosure in 2013, I’m inclined to conclude that Americans might just give the government a pass on this one. The absence of a large-scale database and the justifications used to cement its legality in court convince me of the program’s usefulness in terms of national security, yet privacy concerns of accountability and oversight remain as well. The government’s ceaseless desire for information on its citizens over the last fifteen years has led me to conclude that while I’m not a criminal yet, I’d certainly hate to be one in today’s world.
Ben Yahnian is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at b.yahnian@cavalierdaily.com.
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