NYTimes.com reports on the USPS photographing the outside of every piece of paper mail sent in the US. You know, so they can track who you've communicated with. Happy #4thofjuly!

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From the article:

As the world focuses on the high-tech spying of the National Security Agency, the misplaced card offers a rare glimpse inside the seemingly low-tech but prevalent snooping of the United States Postal Service.

Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.

Why does the USG need to know so much about us? They’re snoping on our email AND our snail mail.

If this were really the land of the free this kind of surveillance would not be going on.

Happy 4th of July, everyone! >_<</p>

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