According to the U.S. Postal Service’s Inspector General, an internet intelligence and analytics support team for U.S. Postal Inspectors overstepped its legal authority.
According to a March 25 report by the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG), the Analytics Team, known as the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP), used open-source intelligence tools beyond the Postal Inspection Service’s legal authorities on occasion, and its record-keeping was inadequate.
When Yahoo News reported on iCOP in April 2021, the Analytics Team gained national attention. According to a document obtained by the news outlet, the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) law enforcement arm has been quietly running a program that tracks and collects Americans’ social media posts, including those about planned protests.
Privacy advocates were alarmed to learn that the Post Office monitored social media and focused on people involved in organizing protests.
The outcry prompted the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform to request an investigation of the USPS surveillance activity. The OIG concluded the investigation and issued its March 25 report, finding that the USPS exceeded its legal authority in its surveillance activities.
Why would the USPS be involved in protest surveillance?
“It’s a mystery,” University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone told Yahoo News. “I don’t understand why the government would go to the Postal Service for examining the internet for security issues.”
Stone is a civil liberties “expert” who was appointed by President Barack Obama to review the National Security Agency’s bulk data collection following the Edward Snowden leaks.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), by law, has the authority to protect the USPS, its employees, infrastructure, and customers from illegal or dangerous use of the mail. It may investigate any crime with a postal nexus, USPIS bylaws state. Mail-related criminal activity includes mail fraud, financial theft, identity theft, illegal shipping of drugs or firearms, postal equipment destruction or robbery, and cybercrime.
The iCOP works within the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to monitor publicly available open-source information and social media. It was established in 2018 to investigate cybercrime. The OIG report found that the open-source data collected by the iCOP between the period February 2021 through April 2021 on protest activity exceeded the Postal Inspection Service’s legal authority. There was no evidence of a postal crime, and keywords used in the searches did not include terms with a postal nexus, the OIG’s audit states.
Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale and General Counsel Thomas J. Marshall dispute the audit’s findings, Oversight.gov reports. The two counter that the USPS had equipment damaged during protests in 2020, and the steps were necessary to protect both employees, customers, and equipment. The two claimed that having foreknowledge of planned protest activity helped USPS safeguard equipment.
For example, “blue boxes” may be removed from parade routes, USPS says. The information collected may be used to reroute mail carriers to avoid unsafe areas and criminal or violent activity.
Barksdale and Marshall also cited cases where general search terms uncovered illegal activity. They believe that the postal nexus must pertain to the purpose of the search and not necessarily to the search terms.
Yahoo’s report determined that the agency’s iCOP was monitoring social media for “inflammatory” postings associated with protest movements on the Left and the Right. One Republican believed there needed to be a change.
According to The Hill, Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and a group of other House Republicans introduced legislation on April 1 to end funding for the arm of the US Postal Service that conducts online surveillance.
The legislation Gaetz introduced accuses the organization of being “politically motivated in its target” and the USPS of “operating a clandestine domestic surveillance program of Americans’ social media activity.”
Gaetz said in a statement Friday, “the Postal Service should deliver the mail on time and on budget,” according to The Hill.
“They shouldn’t have a covert surveillance program to monitor social media political behavior, protected by our cherished Constitution,” he said. “As the dangers of government surveillance and targeting become ever the more clear, especially to conservatives, Congress must immediately abolish this program.”