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Electronic Frontier Foundation Privacy Social Networks The Courts United States

EFF Sues US Postal Office For Records About Covert Social Media Spying Program (eff.org) 57

Posted by BeauHD from the threat-to-our-civil-liberties dept.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Postal Service and its inspection agency seeking records about a covert program to secretly comb through online posts of social media users before street protests, raising concerns about chilling the privacy and expressive activity of internet users. From the press release: Under an initiative called Internet Covert Operations Program, analysts at the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), the Postal Service's law enforcement arm, sorted through massive amounts of data created by social media users to surveil what they were saying and sharing, according to media reports. Internet users' posts on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, and Telegraph were likely swept up in the surveillance program. USPIS has not disclosed details about the program or any records responding to EFF's FOIA request asking for information about the creation and operation of the surveillance initiative. In addition to those records, EFF is also seeking records on the program's policies and analysis of the information collected, and communications with other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), about the use of social media content gathered under the program.

Media reports revealed that a government bulletin dated March 16 was distributed across DHS's state-run security threat centers, alerting law enforcement agencies that USPIS analysts monitored "significant activity regarding planned protests occurring internationally and domestically on March 20, 2021." Protests around the country were planned for that day, and locations and times were being shared on Parler, Telegram, Twitter, and Facebook, the bulletin said. "We're filing this FOIA lawsuit to shine a light on why and how the Postal Service is monitoring online speech. This lawsuit aims to protect the right to protest," said Houston Davidson, EFF public interest legal fellow. "The government has never explained the legal justifications for this surveillance. We're asking a court to order the USPIS to disclose details about this speech-monitoring program, which threatens constitutional guarantees of free expression and privacy."
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EFF Sues US Postal Office For Records About Covert Social Media Spying Program More

EFF Sues US Postal Office For Records About Covert Social Media Spying Program

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  • Such a waste of money (Score:4, Funny)

    by kopecn ( 1962014 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @10:15PM (#61628157)
    All of that oversight and didnâ(TM)t see Jan 6th coming. I give it a two oofs up.

  • Misplaced. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @10:16PM (#61628163) Journal

    I think the main question is. Why the post office?

    • Re:Misplaced. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by stephanruby ( 542433 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @01:31AM (#61628535)

      Maybe it's because other agencies have rules that govern how much they're allowed to track US citizens.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by locater16 ( 2326718 )
      Because the post office is the deep state you fool, they were the real world government all along, ahahaha!

    • I think the main question is. Why the post office?

      Because you, along with a few hundred million other citizens, would never suspect to look there.

      That's why.

      PRISM was kind of outed by Snowden, but that sure as hell didn't mean they stopped, no matter what they told the public.

      "U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), the Postal Service's law enforcement arm..."

      Even I was rather ignorant about a "law enforcement arm". Yet more millions in taxpayer money funding yet another layer of enforcement. Your innocent elderly family member is probably "on file" with the FB...I mean post office. Along with the rest of us who failed to pass every al

      • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        > The Bill of Rights, is a fucking joke. I don't even want to hear a Representative say the word "Constitution" anymore. Whatever it is, they're lying.

        This is really the problem with America. It clings onto it's Constitution like it's a holy book, it uses it as evidence that it's land of the free, it points to it's constitution to say look at us, we're the leaders of the free world, we have all the freedom, all the free speech!

        But the reality is it's just a facade, behind the constitution is a state that

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by jythie ( 914043 )
          You are not far off. About, oh what was it, 50 years or so ago there was an offshoot of the whole christian revival movement that treated the US constitution as a divinely inspired document, which meant just like the bible they could interpret it as they saw fit and anyone who disagreed with them was disagreeing with God. Because it was such a powerful political tool it became more mainstream over the years. It has become a symbol of a delegation of authority, an artifact that says what the people who sp

          • Not unlike how the current US narrative is with terrorism and terrorists.. if you are fighting an individual or group of people or multiple individuals who have been labeled terrorists then you have a blank cheque to do what you want.

            Don't like your neighbor? Label them a terrorist and then firebomb their house! Coming soon, probably.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Sloppy ( 14984 )

          Americans generally disagree with the constitution. If you put the whole thing to a popular vote, I bet far less than half would ratify it. Or imagine putting each of the Bill of Rights amendments to a vote. Does anyone sincerely believe that anything other than maybe the third and ninth amendments would have the votes? I'm confident the other 8 would be toast.

        • Your post kind of reminds me of other repressive countries which have constitutions which "guarantees" all sorts of things but reality seems to be different.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] North Korea's constitution, and I think we have some idea of reality there being "slightly different".

      • "Even I was rather ignorant about a "law enforcement arm". Yet more millions in taxpayer money funding yet another layer of enforcement."

        You know, the USPIS is the oldest branch of federal law enforcement. It was founded in 1775 (13 years before the Constitution was ratified). Also, well before the FBI, Secret Service, DEA, and even the US Department of Justice.

        It was even created by a founding father, Ben Franklin, who some would rank as one of the US's best Presidents. And the fact that he never was pres

    • I think the main question is. Why the post office?

      A story here a few weeks back pointed out all government agencies are doing this. The post office is just the oddest one.

    • Why the post office?
      It's communication - so, why not?
      A few decades ago, snail mail was the only means for organizing actions like this...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Sloppy ( 14984 )

      Because the job of the Postmaster General is to, by God, get things done!

  • USPS, Really? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @10:18PM (#61628167)

    How would US Postal service laws possibly be related to anything regarding a protest and social media postings about protests? Seems like those are all online things that have nothing to do with Mail.

    • Re:USPS, Really? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @11:12PM (#61628299)

      How would US Postal service laws possibly be related to anything regarding a protest and social media postings about protests? Seems like those are all online things that have nothing to do with Mail.

      You're not entirely wrong because it has nothing to do with mail... but it has everything to do with delivering mail. Basically, protests sometimes get a bit violent and if you want to keep your delivery agents safe then you don't want them to be doing mail delivery at the same time and place as a protest. So to do this they have to know if there is going to be a protest in an area the deliver to, the entire United States of America.

      So, if you're thinking, "Fine, they need to know when and where there is a protest but shouldn't the FBI handle the info scraping and just give them the information?!" then I can tell you that's entirely logical from a remote position. However, effort duplication can occur for a myriad of stupid reasons, most of which are bureaucratic in nature.

  • EFF should make a university.

  • If there is a modicum of effort involved to spy (such as bypassing privacy settings or using a spam account to scrape other user's info) then I would criticize it. If someone was just stupid enough to leave some social media profile public, then it's their own fault.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )

      If someone was just stupid enough to leave some social media profile public, then it's their own fault.

      If this was some teenagers pranking each other, I would agree.

      But these were adults paid with my tax dollars.

  • EFF vs FSF (Score:3)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @11:21PM (#61628329) Journal

    This is why I support both the EFF and the FSF, even though they don't always support each other. I recognize they both do good things.

  • Stuff is getting more and more like "The Postman" every day.

  • Why don't they investigate... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ayesnymous ( 3665205 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @01:53AM (#61628557)
    All the delayed and lost mail over the last several months?

    • Seconded.

    • Re:Why don't they investigate... (Score:4, Informative)

      by sound+vision ( 884283 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @03:00AM (#61628647) Journal

      Because the service is being gutted on purpose, so they can sell you a privatized one instead. It's much easier for those at the top to get a cut of the action that way.

      But for what it's worth, I haven't actually lost any USPS mail recently (or ever, as far as I can tell.) The recent degradation has been in the form of delays.

      I did have a UPS package go missing though. They dropped it off at the wrong house on the opposite end of the street. The package was addressed correctly, and each house here has its address clearly marked in the same spot, by the garage door. The guy who ended up with the package helpfully brought it back to me, but not before opening it up and deciding it wasn't anything worth stealing. In the meantime I had called UPS support, who didn't even pretend to give me recourse, such requests were not being processed "until the pandemic is over".

  • Apparently spying on American's speech isn't something of interest to the American Civil Liberties Union. That says a lot, I think. Silence is violence.

  • I'm going to <snip> out a few of the emotive words used...

    a ... program to ... comb through online posts of social media users ... raising concerns about chilling the privacy ... of internet users.

    Let me start by saying that there's no privacy violation going on. When people post stuff, publicly, online, you cannot complain that your privacy is being violated when someone reads it, no matter who that someone is. Ah, but hang on, this isn't about privacy per se, it's about chilling the privacy. And what does that mean exactly?

    "Monitoring and gathering people’s social media activity chills and suppresses free expression. People self-censor when they think their speech is being monitored and could be used to target them. A government effort to scour people’s social media accounts is a threat to our civil liberties"

    Hmm. Which civil liberties are being threatened here? People variably self censor their words all the damn time, d

  • Law enforcement should be paying attention to all public media - newspapers, TV, radio, handbills, facebook, etc. It's ridiculous for us to expect the police to remain willfully ignorant of America's "peaceful protests". This is nothing like Stasi surveillance.

  • Republicans have made no secret that they to privatize/corporatize mail service. Since there was so much popular outcry in support of the Postal Service, especially during Trump's administration, who wants to bet this was an attempt to tarnish the agency's reputation? As in, "We could put our draconian, poorly-kept-secret spying program under the Secret Service, the Treasury Dept., the IRS, wherever – let's make it the Post Office so people stop defending them." It's the sort of blunt-force-trauma approach the GOP is good at, when dealing with the public.

  • This is a good move by the EFF. We know that it's happening now and even before we suspected. This is real old news by now but it's something I always keep in mind and *this is not a political statement or judgement of whatever side you are on or think you're on* but the Obama administration went after more journalists and more whistleblowers than any administration in history combined.

    Sharyl Attkisson was one such journalist. She noticed her computer was acting strange and had a forensic audit on it and he

  • When your postal service is spying on you on your social media two things come to mind:
    - You're fucking idiots for letting it come so far.
    - You're totally screwed.

  • The protests in question is the sometimes violent and always conspiratorial March 20 Anti-Vaccine Protests Promoted by QAnon ... with anti-5G protesters thrown in.
  • The FCC in approx 2010 opted to keep 7 years of records on social media on top of everything the NSA and FBI were collecting. That was when I opted out of having any kind of online profile or presence due to potential false associations. If the Post Office is involved, its due to redundancy. People are stupid enough to post evidence of crimes online, the program will run and you dont want to be anywhere around.

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