The New York Times reports on a little-known but long-running surveillance system by the United States Postal Service (USPS). Leslie James Pickering, a bookstore owner who, a decade ago, was spokesman for a radical environmental group flagged by the FBI as eco-terrorists, noticed a handwritten card mistakingly delivered with his mail stating any mail headed to his address should be shown to a supervisor first. He was being tracked by the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which the USPS photographs the exterior of every piece of paper mail processed in the U.S. The more-than-a-century-old program provides such images to law enforcement officials who request them, the report states. (Registration may be required to access this story.)
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