USPS Running “Covert Operation Program” To Spy On Americans’ Social Media Posts
A shocking new report uncovers a secret program within the United States Postal Service designed to spy on American citizens. The surveillance program dubbed 'I-COP' or Internet Covert Operations Program involves analysts combing through social media sites looking for whatever they deem is inflammatory speech and then sharing it with government agencies.
Lee Smith, journalist & author, gives us The Real Story on the USPS spying scandal.
Postal Service monitoring "right-wing leaning Parler and Telegram accounts" to identify "potential threats" and "inflammatory" posts, says government document.
The Postman Doesn’t Ring Twice. Or Even Once. He Spies on Your Facebook and Twitter Accounts.
BY JAMIE WHITE
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
The United States Postal Service is running a “covert operation program” to monitor the social media activity of American citizens without their knowledge or consent, according to official documents.
The documents, obtained by Yahoo News, reveal a program called Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) which hasn’t previously been made public, that’s meant to monitor the activity of conservatives and “right-wing” Americans.
“Analysts with the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) monitored significant activity regarding planned protests occurring internationally and domestically on March 20, 2021,” says the March 16 government bulletin, marked as “law enforcement sensitive.”
“Locations and times have been identified for these protests, which are being distributed online across multiple social media platforms, to include right-wing leaning Parler and Telegram accounts.”
Though the iCOP program is scanning through these social media channels, so far claimed that “no intelligence is available to suggest the legitimacy” of violent threats made on these platforms.
“iCOP analysts are currently monitoring these social media channels for any potential threats stemming from the scheduled protests and will disseminate intelligence updates as needed,” the bulletin says.
Civil rights leaders are sounding the alarm over this supposedly innocuous government agency spying on American citizens instead of focusing on mail-related issues.
“It’s a mystery,” said University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone. “I don’t understand why the government would go to the Postal Service for examining the internet for security issues.”
“That part is puzzling. There are so many other federal agencies that could do this, I don’t understand why the post office would be doing it. There is no need for the post office to do it — you’ve got FBI, Homeland Security and so on, so I don’t know why the post office is doing this.”
The USPS defended its unconstitutional surveillance of Americans, calling social media posts “open-source information.”
“The Internet Covert Operations Program is a function within the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which assesses threats to Postal Service employees and its infrastructure by monitoring publicly available open-source information,” the agency said in a statement.
“Additionally, the Inspection Service collaborates with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to proactively identify and assess potential threats to the Postal Service, its employees and customers, and its overall mail processing and transportation network. In order to preserve operational effectiveness, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service does not discuss its protocols, investigative methods, or tools.”
Sen. Ted Cruz responded to the alarming story, suggesting that now we all know that virtually every single federal agency is spying on Americans.
Read the full USPS iCOP document: