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Another nail in the coffin of the Bill of Rights


Homeland_Security_Mail_Search.jpg
Homeland_Security_Mail_Search.jpg

From The Raw Story

Your Mail Is Officially Not Safe
By Justin Gardner

The executive branch shall construe subsection 404(c) of title 39, as enacted by subsection 1010(e) of the Act, which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection, in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances, such as to protect human life and safety against hazardous materials, and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection.

That’s one of the latest signing statement from President Bush. It basically means that the government can look at any piece of mail it wants without the need for a warrant.

What’s even better, the signing statement was hidden in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which Bush purports is, “designed to improve the quality of postal service for Americans and to strengthen the free market for delivery services.”

I’m growing so weary of this nonsense. With these signing statement, Bush has created hundreds of laws that nobody has to approve and few even know about. This is just seems flat out wrong. But hey, anything for the promise of an unprovable bit of safety, right?

And just in case you think this is a new thing…think again…

A retired Kansas University professor says the federal government has been poking into the mail he receives from abroad.

Grant Goodman on Monday showed the Journal-World a recent letter he had received from a friend in the Philippines; it apparently had been opened, then re-closed with green tape bearing the seal of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and a message that it had been opened “by Border Protection.”

This is what the picture up top is all about. The incident happened in Decemeber of 2005.

Long live fear.

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This entry was written by Don and posted on December 31, 2006 at 11:49 am and filed under Privacy. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Print This Post Print This Post . Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

6 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

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  1. *yawn*

    I think the biggest threat to the US Mail is all of the meth heads that are out stealing it, in order to facilitate Identity Theft. That’s what drove everyone on my street to buy and install new locking mailboxes in front of their houses.

    Frankly, I believe that the Gubment would be awfully bored with the contents of my mailbox, but if it makes them feel any better, they are welcome to scrutinize it. Maybe while they are watching it, they can catch a real identity thief, and that would definitely be a good thing!

    Just sayin’…

    [Reply]

    1. Above written by ChiefNo Gravatar on December 31st, 2006 at 12:33 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

  2. I think that endlessly promoting the horrors of ID theft, although real, is part of selling the general public on the further invasiveness of the government into our private lives. A quickly buried study shows that the majority of ID theft is by a friend or relative, rather than from someone stealing mail or digging through the trash. But that doesn’t support the meme that we are always in peril from meth-zombies or evil foreigners.

    And whether or not we send things we ought to worry about the government reading or not shouldn’t be the point. It’s about shredding the bill of rights and signing away our rights to privacy. Frankly, does it end up with cameras in
    our bedrooms or in public lavatories? I mean, I guess it’s OK if I’m only doing what I’m supposed to do in a public lavatory.
    C’mon!
    I grew up in the waning years of the cold war, and still remember our system of government being compared to Stalinist Russia in grade school. One of the fundamental differences pointed out was that we had a reasonable expectation of no governmental intrusion into our private lives. I remember my 5th grade teacher telling us that in the Soviet Union they opened everybody’s mail. They also tapped all telephone conversations and sometimes people went missing in the night for what they wrote or said to someone. Would living under those circumstances really make anyone feel safer?
    Even Neo-con hood-ornament Ronald Reagan used to talk about that happening over there and not here.
    Finally, I offer this at the risk that it will illicit more yawns:

    They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety ~ Benjamin Franklin, 1755

    [Reply]

    2. Above written by RichNo Gravatar on December 31st, 2006 at 3:29 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

  3. Your comments discounting the relationship between meth addiction and identity theft are extremely interesting; especially in light of the recent major victories of both Maria Cantwell and Brian Baird; both of which have been barnstorming the State of Washington for 2 years, campaigning on both of those issues. Maria Cantwell thought it worthy enough to provide some major Federal funds to help local law enforcement fight meth specifically.

    The Clark County Commissioners just got through imposing a new “Meth Tax” in Clark County, by a unanimous vote which one can only assume included newly re-elected Democrat Steve Stuart.

    Considering the healthy margins that all three of those Democrats enjoyed in November, I would have bet a burger that all of the Democrats in Vancouver agreed with them.

    In the words of an Old, Stodgy, Conservative, Victorian, Hood-Ornament of an Author, Lewis Carroll:

    “Curiouser and curiouser!” said Alice.

    [Reply]

    3. Above written by ChiefNo Gravatar on December 31st, 2006 at 5:45 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

  4. Stick around, Chief. You’ll see that the progressive community isn’t a big lock-step line-dance with the mainstream Dems.
    Like a lot of things in life, it’s not a black and white thing. How far down the rabbit-hole do you want to go?~ Morpheus in The Matrix

    [Reply]

    4. Above written by RichNo Gravatar on December 31st, 2006 at 6:27 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

  5. [Comment ID #6057 Will Be Quoted Here]

    We’ve been told to be afraid of terrorist and drugs, so we are. More people die every year of the flu than died during 9/11. Yet for 3 years in a row we had large scale shortages of flu vaccine. Nobody told us to be afraid, so we weren’t. As for the war on drugs, it causes far more harm than the drugs themselves. The list of things that we should be afraid of, but are not, because we weren’t instructed to fear them; and the list of things that we fear primarily because we have been instructed to do so are both very long.

    [Reply]

    5. Above written by DonNo Gravatar on December 31st, 2006 at 6:32 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

  6. “Stick around, Chief. You’ll see that the progressive community isn’t a big lock-step line-dance with the mainstream Dems.”

    That’s probably the best thing you could have said there Rich, to entice me to stick around. Go read what I have to say at my site and you’ll quickly find I have little patience for the local Republicans as well. Do a word search at Clarkblog on “Jim Dunn” and read.

    It is cooperation between all parties here in Vancouver that will be required to inject some badly needed reason into issus such as Light Rail, Boise Cascade Development, Parks Development, and a Third Columbia Crossing.

    We can also choose to keep on beating one another over the head with Ronald Reagan, and Cindy al Sheehan too, if you all like. You toss your cute insults, and I’ll wordsmith mine. That would be in keeping with what the upcoming 110th Congress has in mind: lots of complete gridlock and nothing getting done.

    It’s up to us.

    [Reply]

    6. Above written by ChiefNo Gravatar on January 1st, 2007 at 12:19 am (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

One Trackback

  1. By Paradise Philippines on July 13, 2007 at 9:37 pm

    Paradise Philippines…

    The Philippines consists of 7,107 islands, of which only 2,000 are inhabited and this is what they called Paradise Philippines. Only about 500 of the islands are larger than a square kilometer and 2,500 of them are not even named. The total area of the…

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