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The USPS is my favorite shipping company. I hope it survives for a long time. I have two reasons why I like them so much: * They can't inspect packages without

The USPS is my favorite shipping company. I hope it survives for a long time. I have two reasons why I like them so much: * They can't inspect packages without a warrant. I don't ship illegal things, but I like privacy. * They're the only shipping company that I trust to deliver to an apartment building. Seriously. I've had nightmares with every other company delivering to apartments

stevenwoo 9y ago
I thought they reserved the right to inspect any package for safety or making sure people are misusing something like media rates for other non media things.
- selectodude 9y ago
  Anything that’s a “first class” letter or parcel (big envelope over 3.5oz or not uniformly flat) under 13oz is protected by the 4th amendment. Anything larger or in an actual box can be searched at any time.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
make3 9y ago
I find it hard to believe that the us government would snoop in your emails and in your IM messages, but somehow not submit your physical packages to some amount of noninvasive scanning
- webkike 9y ago
  Reading emails is a lot easier than scanning packages that people get mad at not arriving on time. I'm sure there's some inspection. But the other companies are most certainly worse.
  - bmpafa 9y ago
    ^^ this. even cursory x-ray inspection is a huge undertaking. I once worked for the USPS in a Middle Eastern country, and it was our job to assist local customs officials as they scanned / inspected every piece of inbound mail. They ran each piece through an x-ray, and whenever they spotted a banned item (liquor bottles, sex toys--hell, they even inspected optical discs to make sure they weren't porn), they opened the package and confiscated it. We cleared about 1 mail truck of mail every night, and it took 5-10 hours. No way that's sustainable on the scale of domestic mail throughput.
    - code_duck 9y ago
      What about scanning for moderate amounts of items that could be automatically detected by machines, like cash, or assessing groups of packages in bulk for drugs or explosives with canines?
- Spooky23 9y ago
  It’s true... there are limited circumstances by law where mail can be tampered with. The downside is that if you commit a crime and there is a nexus with the mail, you’re facing a serious felony. Politicians submit ethics paperwork via hand delivery for this reason.
- zeth___ 9y ago
  Laws have very little to do with sense. There is a reason why PGP was going to be published as a book of source code to get around the munituons export ban thay affected crytography in the 80/90s by creating a first amendment issue.
- Me1000 9y ago
  per: https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/contactUs/faq.aspx https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/contactUs/faq.aspx Letters cannot be opened without a warrant, but it sounds like they could be subject to scans. In general though, almost all laws (especially with respect to privacy) were written with physical privacy in mind, not virtual. The statutes around opening a letter is much more well defined those around recording unencrypted emails.
- heartbreak 9y ago
  USPS scans first class mail and probably stores the metadata. They definitely store it long enough to support their Informed Delivery service, a free service they have where they email you the scans ahead of delivery.
bmpafa 9y ago
Agreed. I don't think they get enough acknowledgement. When I was in the service overseas, the USPS was a lifeline. Thanks to special arrangements between the military and the USPS, I could have anything shipped from the states to wherever I was in the world for the same rate it'd have cost to have it sent to NYC--usually with only a week or so extra shipping time added.
- drdeadringer 9y ago
  One particular of my book sales was to a military address [one of many but this one stood out]. I go to USPS to ship and the clerk asks me if I'd like to do an "air drop". Uhm, what? "Oh it costs about the same but it's dropped from a helicopter and takes less time" was very roughly what was explained to me. "Please, let's do that" and we did. My first and last and the option was quite cool.
casefields 9y ago
They have a guaranteed monopoly. They ain't going nowhere.
- olliej 9y ago
  Errr how is usps a monopoly? There a multiple very large companies doing exactly the same thing, who don’t also have to deliver anything below cost, and who get to keep all the money that they do make...
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Errr how is usps a monopoly? Because it has an actual, written in law, government-enforced monopoly on first class mail, standard mail, and mailbox access.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
aphextron 9y ago
>* They're the only shipping company that I trust to deliver to an apartment building. Seriously. I've had nightmares with every other company delivering to apartments This hints at the real reason the postal service is so important to hold on to. They have a mandate to deliver to every person in the country no matter what.[0] They run huge losses to do this, but it's an invaluable service subsidized by taxpayer dollars the same as any other infrastructure. A private company has no incentive to do this if it's not profitable. People in rural areas and unconventional living situations will get screwed. [0] https://about.usps.com/publications/pub100/pub100_020.htm https://about.usps.com/publications/pub100/pub100_020.htm
- lutorm 9y ago
  That sounds weird because I was just surprised to learn that here in Hawaii there are areas that don't have postal delivery. Not a "put the mailbox out on the highway" kind, but the "we don't go there, get a PO box" kind.
  - cmurf 9y ago
    Difficult problem. Rural Free Delivery has a long history with various attempts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Free_Delivery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Free_Delivery https://about.usps.com/publications/pub100/pub100_020.htm https://about.usps.com/publications/pub100/pub100_020.htm If you live in a ZIP code served by an actual Post Office (there is a USPS in that ZIP code) and your home doesn't get delivery service then you're probably entitled to a free PO Box. https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2011/pb22317/html/updt_003.htm https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2011/pb22317/html/upd...
  - erdojo 9y ago
    I live in a rural area in the lower 48 and USPS won't deliver here. We have to go to a physical post office and stand in lame lines to get packages. We also have to pay an annual fee for the PO Box, and sometimes there are waiting lists. FedEx and UPS happily deliver to my front door, 25 miles and down a long dirt road from the nearest town.
generalapps 9y ago
it's a well known fact that USPS allow Chinese sellers to send cheap products that infringe on IP into the states, thus bankrupting small sellers in US https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/why-does-amazon-allow-chinese-sellers-that-ship-from-china/351616 https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/why-does-amazon-al... It's a well known fact that Chinese sellers are using USPS to get illegal opioids into the US, fueling the fentanyl crisis https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-opioids/chinas-illegal-opioids-enter-u-s-through-postal-service-gaps-probe-idUSKBN1FD340 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-opioids/chin...
- olliej 9y ago
  It isn’t the job of usps (or ups, fedex, dhl, ...) to do customs checks (in fact as an arm of the government usps is much more constrained than any private company would be in this regard), the job of prevent drugs/counterfeits in is customs and border control. I suspect that if there is any reason for usps being favored it’s that the us government signed a treaty that means usps has no choice but to accept mail at below cost.
kkielhofner 9y ago
It should be known that for some time the USPS has scanned and stored the outside of every package/parcel: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirms-photographing-all-us-mail.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirm... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_Isolation_Control_and_Tracking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_Isolation_Control_and_Tra... You can see this for yourself by signing up for "Informed Delivery": https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.acti... Receive these e-mails in your Inbox every morning for a few months to be reminded of just how much "metadata" can inform on your daily life and activities.
pasbesoin 9y ago
If you don't have a corporate/bulk account, they are still about half the price of competitors for overnight envelopes (as of some months ago, per my experience). They have a program now where, if you have a P.O. Box, you can receive non-USPS packages at it (once you sign up, and using the address they provide you in the format they indicate). They don't have email notifications for these, yet -- they do for some other classes of mail. And sometimes at my post office, it can take a (partial) day for them to go from receiving the package to having the lockbox key or notification in your P.O. Box. However, when I looked at my local UPS Store for their comparable service, it's now gone from about double the USPS price a few years ago, to about quadrupal their price. I also like supporting the USPS, where employees still have living wages and careers. Well, at least UPS is, last I knew, not all contractors like FedEx is. But I think their stores are franchises that handle their own employment. (And the "USPS is going broke" rhetoric is driven by political manipulations designed to attack it, forcing it to book future expenses its competitors and other businesses don't, rather that current P/L and "normal" accounting. Not that they shouldn't look for new opportunities -- such as but not only this package handling -- when they are not hindered in same by same or similar external control; perhaps explaining the continued lack of email notification for non-USPS packages, for which there is a ready and minimally demanding physical solution already in place for triggering same for other types of mail that I noticed and confirmed with my local post office employee.) Anyway, I don't have to worry about Amazon et al. packages sitting out on my front stoop, tempting thieves and the rain. Without breaking the bank. Also gives me a street address for some sidelines.

stevenwoo 9y ago

I thought they reserved the right to inspect any package for safety or making sure people are misusing something like media rates for other non media things.

selectodude 9y ago
Anything that’s a “first class” letter or parcel (big envelope over 3.5oz or not uniformly flat) under 13oz is protected by the 4th amendment. Anything larger or in an actual box can be searched at any time.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

make3 9y ago

I find it hard to believe that the us government would snoop in your emails and in your IM messages, but somehow not submit your physical packages to some amount of noninvasive scanning

webkike 9y ago
Reading emails is a lot easier than scanning packages that people get mad at not arriving on time. I'm sure there's some inspection. But the other companies are most certainly worse.
- bmpafa 9y ago
  ^^ this. even cursory x-ray inspection is a huge undertaking. I once worked for the USPS in a Middle Eastern country, and it was our job to assist local customs officials as they scanned / inspected every piece of inbound mail. They ran each piece through an x-ray, and whenever they spotted a banned item (liquor bottles, sex toys--hell, they even inspected optical discs to make sure they weren't porn), they opened the package and confiscated it. We cleared about 1 mail truck of mail every night, and it took 5-10 hours. No way that's sustainable on the scale of domestic mail throughput.
  - code_duck 9y ago
    What about scanning for moderate amounts of items that could be automatically detected by machines, like cash, or assessing groups of packages in bulk for drugs or explosives with canines?
Spooky23 9y ago
It’s true... there are limited circumstances by law where mail can be tampered with. The downside is that if you commit a crime and there is a nexus with the mail, you’re facing a serious felony. Politicians submit ethics paperwork via hand delivery for this reason.
zeth___ 9y ago
Laws have very little to do with sense. There is a reason why PGP was going to be published as a book of source code to get around the munituons export ban thay affected crytography in the 80/90s by creating a first amendment issue.
Me1000 9y ago
per: https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/contactUs/faq.aspx https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/contactUs/faq.aspx Letters cannot be opened without a warrant, but it sounds like they could be subject to scans. In general though, almost all laws (especially with respect to privacy) were written with physical privacy in mind, not virtual. The statutes around opening a letter is much more well defined those around recording unencrypted emails.
heartbreak 9y ago
USPS scans first class mail and probably stores the metadata. They definitely store it long enough to support their Informed Delivery service, a free service they have where they email you the scans ahead of delivery.

bmpafa 9y ago

Agreed. I don't think they get enough acknowledgement. When I was in the service overseas, the USPS was a lifeline. Thanks to special arrangements between the military and the USPS, I could have anything shipped from the states to wherever I was in the world for the same rate it'd have cost to have it sent to NYC--usually with only a week or so extra shipping time added.

drdeadringer 9y ago
One particular of my book sales was to a military address [one of many but this one stood out]. I go to USPS to ship and the clerk asks me if I'd like to do an "air drop". Uhm, what? "Oh it costs about the same but it's dropped from a helicopter and takes less time" was very roughly what was explained to me. "Please, let's do that" and we did. My first and last and the option was quite cool.

casefields 9y ago

They have a guaranteed monopoly. They ain't going nowhere.

olliej 9y ago
Errr how is usps a monopoly? There a multiple very large companies doing exactly the same thing, who don’t also have to deliver anything below cost, and who get to keep all the money that they do make...
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Errr how is usps a monopoly? Because it has an actual, written in law, government-enforced monopoly on first class mail, standard mail, and mailbox access.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

aphextron 9y ago

>* They're the only shipping company that I trust to deliver to an apartment building. Seriously. I've had nightmares with every other company delivering to apartments This hints at the real reason the postal service is so important to hold on to. They have a mandate to deliver to every person in the country no matter what.[0] They run huge losses to do this, but it's an invaluable service subsidized by taxpayer dollars the same as any other infrastructure. A private company has no incentive to do this if it's not profitable. People in rural areas and unconventional living situations will get screwed. [0] https://about.usps.com/publications/pub100/pub100_020.htm https://about.usps.com/publications/pub100/pub100_020.htm

lutorm 9y ago
That sounds weird because I was just surprised to learn that here in Hawaii there are areas that don't have postal delivery. Not a "put the mailbox out on the highway" kind, but the "we don't go there, get a PO box" kind.
- cmurf 9y ago
  Difficult problem. Rural Free Delivery has a long history with various attempts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Free_Delivery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Free_Delivery https://about.usps.com/publications/pub100/pub100_020.htm https://about.usps.com/publications/pub100/pub100_020.htm If you live in a ZIP code served by an actual Post Office (there is a USPS in that ZIP code) and your home doesn't get delivery service then you're probably entitled to a free PO Box. https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2011/pb22317/html/updt_003.htm https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2011/pb22317/html/upd...
- erdojo 9y ago
  I live in a rural area in the lower 48 and USPS won't deliver here. We have to go to a physical post office and stand in lame lines to get packages. We also have to pay an annual fee for the PO Box, and sometimes there are waiting lists. FedEx and UPS happily deliver to my front door, 25 miles and down a long dirt road from the nearest town.

generalapps 9y ago

it's a well known fact that USPS allow Chinese sellers to send cheap products that infringe on IP into the states, thus bankrupting small sellers in US https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/why-does-amazon-allow-chinese-sellers-that-ship-from-china/351616 https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/why-does-amazon-al... It's a well known fact that Chinese sellers are using USPS to get illegal opioids into the US, fueling the fentanyl crisis https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-opioids/chinas-illegal-opioids-enter-u-s-through-postal-service-gaps-probe-idUSKBN1FD340 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-opioids/chin...

olliej 9y ago
It isn’t the job of usps (or ups, fedex, dhl, ...) to do customs checks (in fact as an arm of the government usps is much more constrained than any private company would be in this regard), the job of prevent drugs/counterfeits in is customs and border control. I suspect that if there is any reason for usps being favored it’s that the us government signed a treaty that means usps has no choice but to accept mail at below cost.

kkielhofner 9y ago

It should be known that for some time the USPS has scanned and stored the outside of every package/parcel: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirms-photographing-all-us-mail.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirm... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_Isolation_Control_and_Tracking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_Isolation_Control_and_Tra... You can see this for yourself by signing up for "Informed Delivery": https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.acti... Receive these e-mails in your Inbox every morning for a few months to be reminded of just how much "metadata" can inform on your daily life and activities.

pasbesoin 9y ago

If you don't have a corporate/bulk account, they are still about half the price of competitors for overnight envelopes (as of some months ago, per my experience). They have a program now where, if you have a P.O. Box, you can receive non-USPS packages at it (once you sign up, and using the address they provide you in the format they indicate). They don't have email notifications for these, yet -- they do for some other classes of mail. And sometimes at my post office, it can take a (partial) day for them to go from receiving the package to having the lockbox key or notification in your P.O. Box. However, when I looked at my local UPS Store for their comparable service, it's now gone from about double the USPS price a few years ago, to about quadrupal their price. I also like supporting the USPS, where employees still have living wages and careers. Well, at least UPS is, last I knew, not all contractors like FedEx is. But I think their stores are franchises that handle their own employment. (And the "USPS is going broke" rhetoric is driven by political manipulations designed to attack it, forcing it to book future expenses its competitors and other businesses don't, rather that current P/L and "normal" accounting. Not that they shouldn't look for new opportunities -- such as but not only this package handling -- when they are not hindered in same by same or similar external control; perhaps explaining the continued lack of email notification for non-USPS packages, for which there is a ready and minimally demanding physical solution already in place for triggering same for other types of mail that I noticed and confirmed with my local post office employee.) Anyway, I don't have to worry about Amazon et al. packages sitting out on my front stoop, tempting thieves and the rain. Without breaking the bank. Also gives me a street address for some sidelines.