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The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts

492 points by nahikoa 5y ago

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Weird, and scary. But maybe I can kind of see it. Here's a protest. Let's say it's Proud Boys, and Antifa shows up. And here's a mail carrier out trying to deliver the mail, who drives (or worse, walks) right into the middle of it. The Post Office might have a legitimate reason for wanting to know, so they can keep their on-duty employees from harm. Is that what's going on? Is that all that's going on? I don't know.
- Black101 5y ago
  > Is that what's going on? Is that all that's going on? I don't know. Doesn't sound like it. Maybe they are trying to shift money to surveillance with all the packages going around because of Covid (I.E: USPS trying to get rid of that "surplus")? Either way, it sounds crazy.
- shuntress 5y ago
  You should try to re-word your comment so that it reads less like an "I'm just asking questions" conspiracy theory.
- paxys 5y ago
  It's possible for employees of every government agency and every private company to get caught up in the middle of a protest. Should they all start their own surveillance programs?
gentleman11 5y ago
I read that in the 60s to the 80s, a lot of civil unrest was taking place and there were so many “protest” bombings (whatever that means) that it became a almost normal in some cities (according to articles I found). This might have been a precaution against something like that, considering the current political climate in the USA? https://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-burrough/ https://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-burrough/ Edited to add a reference and correct a detail
nickysielicki 5y ago
Hah, remember this story? https://apnews.com/article/1e42c1a6fd324f5784c414fcd2adbd17 https://apnews.com/article/1e42c1a6fd324f5784c414fcd2adbd17 > The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lost track of most of the guns, including two found at the scene where a U.S. Border Patrol Agent was fatally shot in the Arizona desert. The operation sparked a political backlash against the Obama administration. > Attkisson left CBS in 2014 and is now the host of “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson,” a weekly Sunday news program broadcast by the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group. > In her lawsuit, Attkisson says that two computer forensics teams identified an unauthorized communications channel opened into her laptop was connected to an IP address belonging to the U.S. Postal Service, “indicating unauthorized surveillance.” > Government lawyers argue that Attkisson’s lawsuit does not include any evidence that Holder and Donahoe had direct involvement in spying on her. > “At best, plaintiffs’ complaint suggests a mere possibility that Holder and Donahoe could have participated in developing or enforcing policies concerning electronic surveillance generally; there are no allegations that they conducted or ordered the particular incursions about which plaintiffs complain,” Justice Department lawyers argue in a legal brief filed in the 4th Circuit. The Obama administration used USPS to spy on journalists investigating Fast and Furious. It sounded ridiculous at the time -- "The USPS is spying on journalists, and not the NSA, and not the FBI, and not the CIA? Suuure." Not so ridiculous anymore. I'm tired of being angry about this, I've been asking for change for most of my adult life. Our constitution isn't worth anything anymore. The federal government needs to shrink. Asking nicely to not be spied on does not work. On a more silly note, this whole scenario reminds me of this Seinfeld clip. https://youtu.be/On3cQ0sPvSY?t=46 https://youtu.be/On3cQ0sPvSY?t=46
- starkd 5y ago
  Not too much to ask at all. Every American should be outraged.
  - throwaway8581 5y ago
    Half of Americans, and the vast majority of powerful institutions, are just fine with this because the targets are right-wingers.
sitkack 5y ago
This is a power grab by the USPS to inject themselves into the industrial surveillance complex. It most likely tries to tie a social media profile to a physical address and provides a pen register of all the mail sent and received by that citizen along with a collection of the "inflammatory opinions". It is unconstitutional and folks at the USPS and organizations they shared the data with should go to jail.
- ababoaoabaa 5y ago
  Go to jail? Who is going to make them? You have a centralized compartmentalized military and society where one literally controls many. The top has been corrupted by over a hundred years of printing money out of thin air and the use of usury to control everything. Wake up and smell the new world order. It reeks.
- ska 5y ago
  > to inject themselves into the industrial surveillance complex. Haven't they been de-facto participating for decades?
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    They were the earliest, really, searching mail first to find information about birth control being shared and pornography (Comstock Act, 1873), then sedition. I assume that all of the first precedents for mass surveillance and data collection come from the USPS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws
jfengel 5y ago
News flash: people read things that you make public on the Web.
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  There is a qualitative difference between "people reading things you make public on the web" and "a government-funded agency uses extensive technological means to read, categorize and threat-assess your statements on the net, and have the power to throw you into jail for an indeterminate length of time - or worse."
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
tengbretson 5y ago
I bet FedEx could operate a domestic intelligence agency for like a quarter of their budget.
- jjk166 5y ago
  You joke but private mail carriers don't have the same restrictions on monitoring your mail that the USPS does. They are free to open and inspect any package, as well as x-ray and other such methods, and don't need to disclose it. Except under some special circumstances, letters and parcels going through the USPS, on the other hand, need a warrant to be opened. One could easily imagine a program where private carriers report the contents of parcels sent to or from targeted individuals or even add things like listening devices or malware to items being shipped. While probably not useful for dealing with organized crime, if your goal is just general intelligence gathering or blackmail, private carriers could easily be a treasure trove.
  - thoughtstheseus 5y ago
    More likely to improve targeted advertising.
  - _jal 5y ago
    > One could easily imagine a program where [...] One doesn't have to imagine. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/03/cisco_shipping_.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/03/cisco_shippin...
  - shuntress 5y ago
    It's not complicated. Your data (we could debate whether "data about you" is actually "your data" but that is a tangent discussion) is valuable. FedEx can collect then sell it.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    International mail can be opened and inspected for customs purposes. Otherwise it makes sense that domestic mail would need a warrant to be opened.
- 5y ago
saurik 5y ago
I feel like the key sentence in this article (edit: which is ironically no longer verbatim in this article, which I see hours later has been heavily expanded) which purports to answer the "but... why the USPS?"--is: > The agency told Yahoo News the Inspection Service collaborates with law-enforcement agencies to identify and assess threats to the Postal Service and its "overall mail processing and transportation network.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  Now I'm worried they might find out that I've been using this newfangled technology called "email" for the past 25 years and I haven't licked a stamp in over a decade. Some say its only used for money laundering and drug dealing, but I think it's rather convenient and more innovative than what the government can offer.
  - NoSorryCannot 5y ago
    If only some other kind of mail had become popular to replace the lost letter volume...
    - elliekelly 5y ago
      Can you imagine if USPS ran an email service and all of the legal protections afforded to our mailboxes and the contents of our postal communications applied just the same? The internet would be a completely different place. In a good way, I think.
      - throwaway99x99 5y ago
        Can you imagine if all of that was true except that it could be run by anyone? (Sadly, we have very little -- almost zero -- legal protection for our email in the U.S.)
      - comprambler 5y ago
        Less awesome, but realistically USPS and their respective national organizations should run their DNS RBL lists. Protecting their nations against spam.
_-david-_ 5y ago
It seems like this should be the job of the FBI, DHS or some other agency like that. The Post Office should deliver mail and packages not investigate material on the internet.
- mattmanser 5y ago
  To be fair, look at it from totally the opposite direction to see their point of view. Your workers are under threat from poorly made postal bombs that could easily blow up during processing, killing your workers. Due to the vast volume of post you process, the threat is real and non-trivial. Do you do nothing? I think you obviously have to do something, whether you go as far as they did is what's up for debate.
  - stefan_ 5y ago
    Yes, when will the USPS do something about the 0 postal workers killed from letter bombs this year, last year, the year before last, the year before last before last year, ...? More of them are endangered by their shitbox LLV trucks catching on fire.
    - filoleg 5y ago
      Bombs in packages isn't the only thing that threatens postal workers that USPS is trying to protect. For example, look at this[0]. Two people physically attacked a postal worker after accusing her of "stealing their stimulus checks"[1]. Sure, you can say that this case had nothing to do with USPS surveillance. But it just goes to show that there are plenty of serious dangers to postal workers other than just nigh-non-existent "bomb in the mail" scenarios that you seem to be fixating on. 0. https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/police-make-arrest-after-attack-michigan-postal-worker-is-caught-video/H6SKSDSG2ZANDDSSY3FVFLVV4M/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/police-make-arrest-after... 1. https://news.yahoo.com/usps-worker-beaten-michigan-alleged-170518863.html https://news.yahoo.com/usps-worker-beaten-michigan-alleged-1...
      - _-david-_ 5y ago
slt2021 5y ago
I work in cyber security ML engineering (open for interviews, hmu) and frequently see federal contractor firms hiring for cyber data/engineer positions for USPS. Always puzzled me. example: https://jobs.rtx.com/job/-/-/4679/4267185376?codes=INDEED https://jobs.rtx.com/job/-/-/4679/4267185376?codes=INDEED
- seppin 5y ago
  The Post Office is a tech company, etc.
- sergiomattei 5y ago
  I don't see why this is hard to understand. Nationwide logistics aren't simple. They have to evolve with the times to modernize/automate their operations and adapt to new, unknown cyber threats. The mail is quite important.
- CyberDildonics 5y ago
  What is cyber data?
  - wil421 5y ago
    I’ve recently heard people use cyber to mean cyber security.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    My guess is that’s it is data on or relating to computing devices rather than other data (for example, sales figures at a carpet store). I’m just guessing, though. It’s a good question.
- ramoz 5y ago
  chill https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-provides-u-s-postal-service-ai-technology-to-improve-delivery-service https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-provides-u-s-posta... recent NVIDIA conference talks will detail some use cases. are you interested in federal contract jobs tho? hmu
logicslave 5y ago
Everyone has their tin foil hat with stuff on like this, but unless they are paying a 100 - 1000 engineers 250k-500k a year, I doubt theyve built anything useful with uptime. Maybe they could just scan a massive dataset of everyones posts, with some string searching, but still. I just dont see any entity like this being able to accomplish this task effectively.
- millzlane 5y ago
  The entity's only job is to create a RFP and pick one. It's the company they hire that you have to worry about. The one thing we can count on is the government will spend the money to get what they want.
- barbazoo 5y ago
  Why do you believe that unless they're paying their developers "250k-500k a year", they wouldn't have built something useful?
  - logicslave 5y ago
    Because analyzing all of social media with efficiency and effectively is really hard.
    - barbazoo 5y ago
      It implies that only an extremely highly paid developer can write efficient code which I think just isn't true.
      - logicslave 5y ago
        I've been programming for 15 years and worked at firms of all sizes and payscale, I see a direct correlation between the two
- _Nat_ 5y ago
  What would "100 - 1000 engineers" even be doing? The story starts off saying that the work's being done by analysts: > The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings and then sharing that information across government agencies. , so it sounds more like they've got some folks browsing social-media. Granted, a lot of the post-scanning would seem better done by bots, and stuff like sentiment-analysis could help classify posts for human inspection, so they'd probably want to hire a few engineers, but why hundreds? And why 250-500 kUSD/yr for such mundane work?
tims33 5y ago
This is a truly bizarre story. I agree with others that other government agencies should run this particularly given USPS already well known financial challenges.
- agogdog 5y ago
  This is in no way related to their financial struggles. The USPS was breaking even regularly (phenomenal considering what they do) until they were forced to save up funding for 75 years of pensions within a 10 year span. Not only that, but they have to exclusively rely on the US Treasuries to fund the retiree medial fund, so it's more expensive out of the gate. So they're doing more for their employees, paying more for it, and are required to do so in a shorter amount of time than just about any private company out there. I'd be surprised if this covert program cost more than 1% of what the pension fund does.
  - tims33 5y ago
    I'm aware of the pension rules and to your point I'm sure the cost is minimal. It just seems so long as they are being managed by the government in this way, they should get some "free" services elsewhere.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Kharvok 5y ago
Oh so this is why they were so concerned about the post office funding in 2020.
snowwrestler 5y ago
Pretty much any federal agency you have heard of has an investigative dept that employs federal special agents. These are law enforcement roles with the same training, authority, and responsibilities as investigative agents in the FBI, etc. They were created to meet the specific law enforcement needs of each agency. Dept of Education agents investigate misuse of Dept of Education funds, for example. The Postal Inspectors investigate illegal use of, or threats to, the mail system. After 9/11 a lot of these depts got new infusions of resources, and instructions to do a lot more information sharing. There was a feeling that the attacks of 9/11 could have been prevented if existing disparate info had been better collected and collated. So it’s not that surprising that these agencies will seem to stray out of their lanes. If Postal is monitoring broadly for threats against their systems, but sees other concerning info, they are supposed to share it. This is all intended to be explanatory; I’m not saying that it’s how things should be. I will say that personally I have fewer concerns about programs to monitor public content on the Internet, than programs that seek to access, monitor, and store content that people intended to be privately communicated to other people.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  And these are their stories. Dun dun.
  - tim-- 5y ago
    You joke, but they actually made a TV series. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inspectors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inspectors
    - manigandham 5y ago
      > "...it was the only show on commercial television paid for by a U.S. government agency, with its funding coming from the United States Postal Service asset forfeiture..."
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  > I will say that personally I have fewer concerns about programs to monitor public content on the Internet, than programs that seek to access, monitor, and store content that people intended to be privately communicated to other people. You may have fewer concerns about public monitoring vs private spying, presumably because in the latter case privacy is being violated in a way that isn't the case for the former. But both cases are nefarious, and you don't have to choose between them. Both are examples of using public funds to abuse access to information from end users for political purposes.
GCA10 5y ago
Lots of sentiment today that the USPS is way out of its zone of expertise in doing this -- and that is possible. But it's worth noting that the USPS has had its own legion of postal inspectors going back to the 19th century, when they were a (comparatively) huge part of the U.S. government, and the FBI, etc. did not exist. Some 1,200 postal inspectors are still around, and they play important roles on federal prosecutions related to mail fraud, drug shipments, etc. There's a good Wikipedia entry on it all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Inspection_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Inspectio...
- realityIsntHere 5y ago
  A total monopoly on daily mail and we get snooped. I can't tell if this is corruption or genuine work.
- TheRealPomax 5y ago
  Sure, but the 19th century ended over 120 years ago. So that's kind of not relevant to how they're structured and operate today?
  - JJMcJ 5y ago
    I think 1,200 investigators for the entirety of the USPS's operations isn't out of line.
    - TheRealPomax 5y ago
      okay? not really related to my comment?
  - GavinMcG 5y ago
    Not relevant? Do you somehow imagine that how things were done in the past doesn't affect "how they're structured and operate today"?
    - ErikVandeWater 5y ago
reaperducer 5y ago
The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts Of course it is. Why wouldn't it? Crazy people put all kinds of crazy things in the mail. Have we so quickly forgotten the Unabomber? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski The next time anthrax or ricin shows up in a politician's mailbox, the same people gritting their teeth about this will bark about why more wasn't done to detect and prevent it.
- CyberDildonics 5y ago
  Why would you spend billions monitoring 300 million people when you could swab politicians' mail for anthrax?
sneak 5y ago
> “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” and distributed through the Department of Homeland Security’s fusion centers. “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.” > A number of groups were expected to gather in cities around the globe on March 20 as part of a World Wide Rally for Freedom and Democracy, to protest everything from lockdown measures to 5G. “Parler users have commented about their intent to use the rallies to engage in violence. Image 3 on the right is a screenshot from Parler indicating two users discussing the event as an opportunity to engage in a ‘fight’ and to ‘do serious damage,’” says the bulletin. > “No intelligence is available to suggest the legitimacy of these threats,” it adds. Oh, that doesn't seem like an asymmetric allocation of resources at all. It's totally not trivially exploitable like the ticket presales in Tulsa or anything. This "we have to respond to all potential threats, no matter how trivial" doctrine is a ridiculous waste of time and resources even in the best case. In the worst case, it overcommits to an impossible task. I think it's reasonable to rate their competence level at "the cybers" around the same level as their ability to keep a "covert" operation off of Yahoo News.
Lammy 5y ago
Were the 2001 "Amerithrax" letters the justification for this program? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks
netfortius 5y ago
The things that troubles me the most is abysmal record when it comes to delivery (pun intended) of fundamental services, e.g. interruptions in delivery of mail for weeks, then only partial delivery, critical documents lost, medication lost, credit cards "lost", etc., etc.
TameAntelope 5y ago
One thing I haven't really seen discussed (or maybe I'm just blind) is the fact that the USPS isn't a government organization quite like the others. It's supposed to be a more-private entity that competes in a market. Feels weird to give them law enforcement powers while still putting them up against private industry as competition, couldn't they just arrest all the UPS workers or something (gross oversimplification but still)?
- riffic 5y ago
  wasn't always that way. At one time the predecessor agency to the USPS was a cabinet-level department: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Post_Office_Department https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Post_Office_Depa... There is Constitutional authority empowering Congress "To establish post offices and post roads" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause) We also used to have a limited form of postal banking here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Savings_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Savings_S...
- flyingfences 5y ago
  USPS is given an explicit monopoly on letter deliveries; they do not compete in their market.
- bradj 5y ago
  Private railroads also have police with law enforcement powers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_police https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_police
fmakunbound 5y ago
Heh and here I was worried about my weed shipments from California. Would iCop be the same organization that enforces that kind of thing?
bigth 5y ago
I'm surprised by the comments here. People seem clueless to real threats the USPS faces and are puzzled why they have inspectors. Last year or maybe it was 2019 a delivery worker was murdered. Agg robberies of delivery workers has been going up. Breaking into mail boxes and mail theft has been going up. Using mail service to conduct fraud and other criminal transactions is going up. I'm on mobile so it's hard to get the links but just google it, not hard to find.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  I'm not surprised they have inspectors. I'm surprised they think that social media surveillance is within their purview. I hope their inspectors continue to investigate mail theft, mail fraud, and other things related to the physical delivery of mail. But I don't want them shifting into digital snooping that is totally unrelated to mail.
  - pixl97 5y ago
    You do know mail fraud is commonly initiated by online groups, many times on social media, right?
    - gnicholas 5y ago
      > The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings and then sharing that information across government agencies. “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 Sounds like they're focused on issues other than mail fraud.
      - bigth 5y ago
        Not true at all, any gathering of people is a prime target for shipping contraband in the mail. Not to mention how the protests could affect mail service in the area.
f430 5y ago
USPS is the new DEA
liminal 5y ago
Do others also find it strange that the postal service has their own police force?
- pixl97 5y ago
  No, they in fact have one of the oldest police forces in the US. Mail fraud and mail theft is a crime as old as mail.
- grimjack00 5y ago
  Less strange than the Department of Education having one. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/17/why-u-s-education-department-has-27-12-gauge-shotguns/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/...
tqi 5y ago
> The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings What exactly constitutes "monitoring"? This sounds like some agents spent a few hours using Twitter's built in search to look for certain keywords...
- throwaway99x99 5y ago
  And then released a security bulletin: hey, people are saying threatening things on the Internet!
oblib 5y ago
This is a tough issue for a government. We do have crazies out there and we do need to investigate potential dangerous groups and individuals and reel them in before they do something crazy. On my FB feed I have seen friends and friends of friends call for armed revolt many times over the past few years. Most all of them are blowing steam and many are in their 60s or older and couldn't run a block in gym shorts, and much less if they were carrying any kind of real military gear, but they like to think they can. We all grew up with "Rambo" movies. But some of those who's comments I've seen I don't know at all. The ordeal at our Capital proves there's a problem that needs to be monitored. Most of those who went there were not armed or dangerous, but there were enough kooks to cause some real damage and lives were lost. And last year we had the guy who blew himself and his motorhome up on a Downtown street. If we had another "Timothy McVeigh" event people would be howling, and if we had several they'd be freaking out and demanding something be done. We all have good reason to be wary of "Big Brother" type surveillance but we also have to acknowledge that we have a problem with people getting crazy and shooting into crowds and blowing things up. There's not always a good solution to a shitty situation.
- TheBlight 5y ago
  FWIW, the protestors at the capitol didn't kill anyone.
  - throwaway99x99 5y ago
    Why was this downvoted? It's completely factual. Officer Sicknick passed away from natural causes (the narrative that his head was bashed in with a fire extinguisher evaporated a couple of days ago[0]). Two of the protesters had heart attacks and one apparently had a meth overdose. The only person who was killed was shot by police. If you have evidence to the contrary, please cite it. 0. https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/apr/20/update-capitol-police-officer-sicknick-died-natura/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/apr/20/update-capito...
    - seriousquestion 5y ago
      Most people may not have heard, or don't want to hear, that the narrative collapsed.
mitchdoogle 5y ago
It is not the USPS running this operation. It is the US postal inspection service, which is a legitimate law enforcement agency that mostly oversees crimes related to mail, but has long handled investigations into other types of crime including cybercrime, identity theft, and child exploitation. The title would make it seem like mail carriers are spending time looking at our social media accounts in the back of the local post office.
dqv 5y ago
Oh is that why so many people I don't know with no mutuals add me on Facebook? They're going to have to impersonate someone I know for that to work.
commandlinefan 5y ago
Still think anonymous communications platforms like Freenet, I2P and Tor are just for conspiracy theorists?
ThothIV 5y ago
USPS? You mean the bankrupt federal agency that we all heard was going extinct? They can afford this? Hmm... (And they certainty can't afford it, which is why druggies exclusively ship their goods with USPS over FedEx / UPS or any other private carrier). God bless them!
rubyist5eva 5y ago
Even the mail man is glowing now.
Lyons4512 5y ago
I must say you have written a great article. The way you have described everything is phenomenal https://www.expresshr.me/ https://www.expresshr.me/
TeeMassive 5y ago
Given the weird arrest of General Flynn by USPS and then the weird ensuing court case, this is not really surprising.
zhte415 5y ago
I'm surprised no one's mentioned GDPR, or similar extra-territorial laws.
TakakiTohno 5y ago
I'm not surprised
thamalama 5y ago
> The postmaster general is the second-highest paid U.S. government official, > based on publicly available salary information, after the President of the > United States.[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postmaster_General https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postmaster_Gener... PmG is a very powerful position.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Crossing the streams, the USPIS are a Cellebrite customer: https://www.uspis.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/FY-2019-annual-report-508-web.pdf https://www.uspis.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/FY-2019-ann... (p. 35)

492 points by nahikoa 5y ago

Weird, and scary. But maybe I can kind of see it. Here's a protest. Let's say it's Proud Boys, and Antifa shows up. And here's a mail carrier out trying to deliver the mail, who drives (or worse, walks) right into the middle of it. The Post Office might have a legitimate reason for wanting to know, so they can keep their on-duty employees from harm. Is that what's going on? Is that all that's going on? I don't know.

Black101 5y ago
> Is that what's going on? Is that all that's going on? I don't know. Doesn't sound like it. Maybe they are trying to shift money to surveillance with all the packages going around because of Covid (I.E: USPS trying to get rid of that "surplus")? Either way, it sounds crazy.
shuntress 5y ago
You should try to re-word your comment so that it reads less like an "I'm just asking questions" conspiracy theory.
paxys 5y ago
It's possible for employees of every government agency and every private company to get caught up in the middle of a protest. Should they all start their own surveillance programs?

gentleman11 5y ago

I read that in the 60s to the 80s, a lot of civil unrest was taking place and there were so many “protest” bombings (whatever that means) that it became a almost normal in some cities (according to articles I found). This might have been a precaution against something like that, considering the current political climate in the USA? https://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-burrough/ https://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-burrough/ Edited to add a reference and correct a detail

nickysielicki 5y ago

Hah, remember this story? https://apnews.com/article/1e42c1a6fd324f5784c414fcd2adbd17 https://apnews.com/article/1e42c1a6fd324f5784c414fcd2adbd17 > The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lost track of most of the guns, including two found at the scene where a U.S. Border Patrol Agent was fatally shot in the Arizona desert. The operation sparked a political backlash against the Obama administration. > Attkisson left CBS in 2014 and is now the host of “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson,” a weekly Sunday news program broadcast by the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group. > In her lawsuit, Attkisson says that two computer forensics teams identified an unauthorized communications channel opened into her laptop was connected to an IP address belonging to the U.S. Postal Service, “indicating unauthorized surveillance.” > Government lawyers argue that Attkisson’s lawsuit does not include any evidence that Holder and Donahoe had direct involvement in spying on her. > “At best, plaintiffs’ complaint suggests a mere possibility that Holder and Donahoe could have participated in developing or enforcing policies concerning electronic surveillance generally; there are no allegations that they conducted or ordered the particular incursions about which plaintiffs complain,” Justice Department lawyers argue in a legal brief filed in the 4th Circuit. The Obama administration used USPS to spy on journalists investigating Fast and Furious. It sounded ridiculous at the time -- "The USPS is spying on journalists, and not the NSA, and not the FBI, and not the CIA? Suuure." Not so ridiculous anymore. I'm tired of being angry about this, I've been asking for change for most of my adult life. Our constitution isn't worth anything anymore. The federal government needs to shrink. Asking nicely to not be spied on does not work. On a more silly note, this whole scenario reminds me of this Seinfeld clip. https://youtu.be/On3cQ0sPvSY?t=46 https://youtu.be/On3cQ0sPvSY?t=46

starkd 5y ago
Not too much to ask at all. Every American should be outraged.
- throwaway8581 5y ago
  Half of Americans, and the vast majority of powerful institutions, are just fine with this because the targets are right-wingers.

sitkack 5y ago

This is a power grab by the USPS to inject themselves into the industrial surveillance complex. It most likely tries to tie a social media profile to a physical address and provides a pen register of all the mail sent and received by that citizen along with a collection of the "inflammatory opinions". It is unconstitutional and folks at the USPS and organizations they shared the data with should go to jail.

ababoaoabaa 5y ago
Go to jail? Who is going to make them? You have a centralized compartmentalized military and society where one literally controls many. The top has been corrupted by over a hundred years of printing money out of thin air and the use of usury to control everything. Wake up and smell the new world order. It reeks.
ska 5y ago
> to inject themselves into the industrial surveillance complex. Haven't they been de-facto participating for decades?
- pessimizer 5y ago
  They were the earliest, really, searching mail first to find information about birth control being shared and pornography (Comstock Act, 1873), then sedition. I assume that all of the first precedents for mass surveillance and data collection come from the USPS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws

jfengel 5y ago

News flash: people read things that you make public on the Web.

DocTomoe 5y ago
There is a qualitative difference between "people reading things you make public on the web" and "a government-funded agency uses extensive technological means to read, categorize and threat-assess your statements on the net, and have the power to throw you into jail for an indeterminate length of time - or worse."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

tengbretson 5y ago

I bet FedEx could operate a domestic intelligence agency for like a quarter of their budget.

jjk166 5y ago
You joke but private mail carriers don't have the same restrictions on monitoring your mail that the USPS does. They are free to open and inspect any package, as well as x-ray and other such methods, and don't need to disclose it. Except under some special circumstances, letters and parcels going through the USPS, on the other hand, need a warrant to be opened. One could easily imagine a program where private carriers report the contents of parcels sent to or from targeted individuals or even add things like listening devices or malware to items being shipped. While probably not useful for dealing with organized crime, if your goal is just general intelligence gathering or blackmail, private carriers could easily be a treasure trove.
- thoughtstheseus 5y ago
  More likely to improve targeted advertising.
- _jal 5y ago
  > One could easily imagine a program where [...] One doesn't have to imagine. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/03/cisco_shipping_.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/03/cisco_shippin...
- shuntress 5y ago
  It's not complicated. Your data (we could debate whether "data about you" is actually "your data" but that is a tangent discussion) is valuable. FedEx can collect then sell it.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  International mail can be opened and inspected for customs purposes. Otherwise it makes sense that domestic mail would need a warrant to be opened.
5y ago

saurik 5y ago

I feel like the key sentence in this article (edit: which is ironically no longer verbatim in this article, which I see hours later has been heavily expanded) which purports to answer the "but... why the USPS?"--is: > The agency told Yahoo News the Inspection Service collaborates with law-enforcement agencies to identify and assess threats to the Postal Service and its "overall mail processing and transportation network.

chrisco255 5y ago
Now I'm worried they might find out that I've been using this newfangled technology called "email" for the past 25 years and I haven't licked a stamp in over a decade. Some say its only used for money laundering and drug dealing, but I think it's rather convenient and more innovative than what the government can offer.
- NoSorryCannot 5y ago
  If only some other kind of mail had become popular to replace the lost letter volume...
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    Can you imagine if USPS ran an email service and all of the legal protections afforded to our mailboxes and the contents of our postal communications applied just the same? The internet would be a completely different place. In a good way, I think.
    - throwaway99x99 5y ago
      Can you imagine if all of that was true except that it could be run by anyone? (Sadly, we have very little -- almost zero -- legal protection for our email in the U.S.)
    - comprambler 5y ago
      Less awesome, but realistically USPS and their respective national organizations should run their DNS RBL lists. Protecting their nations against spam.

_-david-_ 5y ago

It seems like this should be the job of the FBI, DHS or some other agency like that. The Post Office should deliver mail and packages not investigate material on the internet.

mattmanser 5y ago
To be fair, look at it from totally the opposite direction to see their point of view. Your workers are under threat from poorly made postal bombs that could easily blow up during processing, killing your workers. Due to the vast volume of post you process, the threat is real and non-trivial. Do you do nothing? I think you obviously have to do something, whether you go as far as they did is what's up for debate.
- stefan_ 5y ago
  Yes, when will the USPS do something about the 0 postal workers killed from letter bombs this year, last year, the year before last, the year before last before last year, ...? More of them are endangered by their shitbox LLV trucks catching on fire.
  - filoleg 5y ago
    Bombs in packages isn't the only thing that threatens postal workers that USPS is trying to protect. For example, look at this[0]. Two people physically attacked a postal worker after accusing her of "stealing their stimulus checks"[1]. Sure, you can say that this case had nothing to do with USPS surveillance. But it just goes to show that there are plenty of serious dangers to postal workers other than just nigh-non-existent "bomb in the mail" scenarios that you seem to be fixating on. 0. https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/police-make-arrest-after-attack-michigan-postal-worker-is-caught-video/H6SKSDSG2ZANDDSSY3FVFLVV4M/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/police-make-arrest-after... 1. https://news.yahoo.com/usps-worker-beaten-michigan-alleged-170518863.html https://news.yahoo.com/usps-worker-beaten-michigan-alleged-1...
    - _-david-_ 5y ago

slt2021 5y ago

I work in cyber security ML engineering (open for interviews, hmu) and frequently see federal contractor firms hiring for cyber data/engineer positions for USPS. Always puzzled me. example: https://jobs.rtx.com/job/-/-/4679/4267185376?codes=INDEED https://jobs.rtx.com/job/-/-/4679/4267185376?codes=INDEED

seppin 5y ago
The Post Office is a tech company, etc.
sergiomattei 5y ago
I don't see why this is hard to understand. Nationwide logistics aren't simple. They have to evolve with the times to modernize/automate their operations and adapt to new, unknown cyber threats. The mail is quite important.
CyberDildonics 5y ago
What is cyber data?
- wil421 5y ago
  I’ve recently heard people use cyber to mean cyber security.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  My guess is that’s it is data on or relating to computing devices rather than other data (for example, sales figures at a carpet store). I’m just guessing, though. It’s a good question.
ramoz 5y ago
chill https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-provides-u-s-postal-service-ai-technology-to-improve-delivery-service https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-provides-u-s-posta... recent NVIDIA conference talks will detail some use cases. are you interested in federal contract jobs tho? hmu

logicslave 5y ago

Everyone has their tin foil hat with stuff on like this, but unless they are paying a 100 - 1000 engineers 250k-500k a year, I doubt theyve built anything useful with uptime. Maybe they could just scan a massive dataset of everyones posts, with some string searching, but still. I just dont see any entity like this being able to accomplish this task effectively.

millzlane 5y ago
The entity's only job is to create a RFP and pick one. It's the company they hire that you have to worry about. The one thing we can count on is the government will spend the money to get what they want.
barbazoo 5y ago
Why do you believe that unless they're paying their developers "250k-500k a year", they wouldn't have built something useful?
- logicslave 5y ago
  Because analyzing all of social media with efficiency and effectively is really hard.
  - barbazoo 5y ago
    It implies that only an extremely highly paid developer can write efficient code which I think just isn't true.
    - logicslave 5y ago
      I've been programming for 15 years and worked at firms of all sizes and payscale, I see a direct correlation between the two
_Nat_ 5y ago
What would "100 - 1000 engineers" even be doing? The story starts off saying that the work's being done by analysts: > The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings and then sharing that information across government agencies. , so it sounds more like they've got some folks browsing social-media. Granted, a lot of the post-scanning would seem better done by bots, and stuff like sentiment-analysis could help classify posts for human inspection, so they'd probably want to hire a few engineers, but why hundreds? And why 250-500 kUSD/yr for such mundane work?

tims33 5y ago

This is a truly bizarre story. I agree with others that other government agencies should run this particularly given USPS already well known financial challenges.

agogdog 5y ago
This is in no way related to their financial struggles. The USPS was breaking even regularly (phenomenal considering what they do) until they were forced to save up funding for 75 years of pensions within a 10 year span. Not only that, but they have to exclusively rely on the US Treasuries to fund the retiree medial fund, so it's more expensive out of the gate. So they're doing more for their employees, paying more for it, and are required to do so in a shorter amount of time than just about any private company out there. I'd be surprised if this covert program cost more than 1% of what the pension fund does.
- tims33 5y ago
  I'm aware of the pension rules and to your point I'm sure the cost is minimal. It just seems so long as they are being managed by the government in this way, they should get some "free" services elsewhere.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Kharvok 5y ago

Oh so this is why they were so concerned about the post office funding in 2020.

snowwrestler 5y ago

Pretty much any federal agency you have heard of has an investigative dept that employs federal special agents. These are law enforcement roles with the same training, authority, and responsibilities as investigative agents in the FBI, etc. They were created to meet the specific law enforcement needs of each agency. Dept of Education agents investigate misuse of Dept of Education funds, for example. The Postal Inspectors investigate illegal use of, or threats to, the mail system. After 9/11 a lot of these depts got new infusions of resources, and instructions to do a lot more information sharing. There was a feeling that the attacks of 9/11 could have been prevented if existing disparate info had been better collected and collated. So it’s not that surprising that these agencies will seem to stray out of their lanes. If Postal is monitoring broadly for threats against their systems, but sees other concerning info, they are supposed to share it. This is all intended to be explanatory; I’m not saying that it’s how things should be. I will say that personally I have fewer concerns about programs to monitor public content on the Internet, than programs that seek to access, monitor, and store content that people intended to be privately communicated to other people.

threatofrain 5y ago
And these are their stories. Dun dun.
- tim-- 5y ago
  You joke, but they actually made a TV series. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inspectors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inspectors
  - manigandham 5y ago
    > "...it was the only show on commercial television paid for by a U.S. government agency, with its funding coming from the United States Postal Service asset forfeiture..."
wombatmobile 5y ago
> I will say that personally I have fewer concerns about programs to monitor public content on the Internet, than programs that seek to access, monitor, and store content that people intended to be privately communicated to other people. You may have fewer concerns about public monitoring vs private spying, presumably because in the latter case privacy is being violated in a way that isn't the case for the former. But both cases are nefarious, and you don't have to choose between them. Both are examples of using public funds to abuse access to information from end users for political purposes.

GCA10 5y ago

Lots of sentiment today that the USPS is way out of its zone of expertise in doing this -- and that is possible. But it's worth noting that the USPS has had its own legion of postal inspectors going back to the 19th century, when they were a (comparatively) huge part of the U.S. government, and the FBI, etc. did not exist. Some 1,200 postal inspectors are still around, and they play important roles on federal prosecutions related to mail fraud, drug shipments, etc. There's a good Wikipedia entry on it all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Inspection_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Inspectio...

realityIsntHere 5y ago
A total monopoly on daily mail and we get snooped. I can't tell if this is corruption or genuine work.
TheRealPomax 5y ago
Sure, but the 19th century ended over 120 years ago. So that's kind of not relevant to how they're structured and operate today?
- JJMcJ 5y ago
  I think 1,200 investigators for the entirety of the USPS's operations isn't out of line.
  - TheRealPomax 5y ago
    okay? not really related to my comment?
- GavinMcG 5y ago
  Not relevant? Do you somehow imagine that how things were done in the past doesn't affect "how they're structured and operate today"?
  - ErikVandeWater 5y ago

reaperducer 5y ago

The USPS is running a 'covert' program to monitor Americans' social media posts Of course it is. Why wouldn't it? Crazy people put all kinds of crazy things in the mail. Have we so quickly forgotten the Unabomber? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski The next time anthrax or ricin shows up in a politician's mailbox, the same people gritting their teeth about this will bark about why more wasn't done to detect and prevent it.

CyberDildonics 5y ago
Why would you spend billions monitoring 300 million people when you could swab politicians' mail for anthrax?

sneak 5y ago

> “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” and distributed through the Department of Homeland Security’s fusion centers. “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.” > A number of groups were expected to gather in cities around the globe on March 20 as part of a World Wide Rally for Freedom and Democracy, to protest everything from lockdown measures to 5G. “Parler users have commented about their intent to use the rallies to engage in violence. Image 3 on the right is a screenshot from Parler indicating two users discussing the event as an opportunity to engage in a ‘fight’ and to ‘do serious damage,’” says the bulletin. > “No intelligence is available to suggest the legitimacy of these threats,” it adds. Oh, that doesn't seem like an asymmetric allocation of resources at all. It's totally not trivially exploitable like the ticket presales in Tulsa or anything. This "we have to respond to all potential threats, no matter how trivial" doctrine is a ridiculous waste of time and resources even in the best case. In the worst case, it overcommits to an impossible task. I think it's reasonable to rate their competence level at "the cybers" around the same level as their ability to keep a "covert" operation off of Yahoo News.

Lammy 5y ago

Were the 2001 "Amerithrax" letters the justification for this program? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks

netfortius 5y ago

The things that troubles me the most is abysmal record when it comes to delivery (pun intended) of fundamental services, e.g. interruptions in delivery of mail for weeks, then only partial delivery, critical documents lost, medication lost, credit cards "lost", etc., etc.

TameAntelope 5y ago

One thing I haven't really seen discussed (or maybe I'm just blind) is the fact that the USPS isn't a government organization quite like the others. It's supposed to be a more-private entity that competes in a market. Feels weird to give them law enforcement powers while still putting them up against private industry as competition, couldn't they just arrest all the UPS workers or something (gross oversimplification but still)?

riffic 5y ago
wasn't always that way. At one time the predecessor agency to the USPS was a cabinet-level department: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Post_Office_Department https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Post_Office_Depa... There is Constitutional authority empowering Congress "To establish post offices and post roads" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause) We also used to have a limited form of postal banking here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Savings_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Savings_S...
flyingfences 5y ago
USPS is given an explicit monopoly on letter deliveries; they do not compete in their market.
bradj 5y ago
Private railroads also have police with law enforcement powers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_police https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_police

fmakunbound 5y ago

Heh and here I was worried about my weed shipments from California. Would iCop be the same organization that enforces that kind of thing?

bigth 5y ago

I'm surprised by the comments here. People seem clueless to real threats the USPS faces and are puzzled why they have inspectors. Last year or maybe it was 2019 a delivery worker was murdered. Agg robberies of delivery workers has been going up. Breaking into mail boxes and mail theft has been going up. Using mail service to conduct fraud and other criminal transactions is going up. I'm on mobile so it's hard to get the links but just google it, not hard to find.

gnicholas 5y ago
I'm not surprised they have inspectors. I'm surprised they think that social media surveillance is within their purview. I hope their inspectors continue to investigate mail theft, mail fraud, and other things related to the physical delivery of mail. But I don't want them shifting into digital snooping that is totally unrelated to mail.
- pixl97 5y ago
  You do know mail fraud is commonly initiated by online groups, many times on social media, right?
  - gnicholas 5y ago
    > The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings and then sharing that information across government agencies. “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 Sounds like they're focused on issues other than mail fraud.
    - bigth 5y ago
      Not true at all, any gathering of people is a prime target for shipping contraband in the mail. Not to mention how the protests could affect mail service in the area.

f430 5y ago

USPS is the new DEA

liminal 5y ago

Do others also find it strange that the postal service has their own police force?

pixl97 5y ago
No, they in fact have one of the oldest police forces in the US. Mail fraud and mail theft is a crime as old as mail.
grimjack00 5y ago
Less strange than the Department of Education having one. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/17/why-u-s-education-department-has-27-12-gauge-shotguns/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/...

tqi 5y ago

> The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings What exactly constitutes "monitoring"? This sounds like some agents spent a few hours using Twitter's built in search to look for certain keywords...

throwaway99x99 5y ago
And then released a security bulletin: hey, people are saying threatening things on the Internet!

oblib 5y ago

This is a tough issue for a government. We do have crazies out there and we do need to investigate potential dangerous groups and individuals and reel them in before they do something crazy. On my FB feed I have seen friends and friends of friends call for armed revolt many times over the past few years. Most all of them are blowing steam and many are in their 60s or older and couldn't run a block in gym shorts, and much less if they were carrying any kind of real military gear, but they like to think they can. We all grew up with "Rambo" movies. But some of those who's comments I've seen I don't know at all. The ordeal at our Capital proves there's a problem that needs to be monitored. Most of those who went there were not armed or dangerous, but there were enough kooks to cause some real damage and lives were lost. And last year we had the guy who blew himself and his motorhome up on a Downtown street. If we had another "Timothy McVeigh" event people would be howling, and if we had several they'd be freaking out and demanding something be done. We all have good reason to be wary of "Big Brother" type surveillance but we also have to acknowledge that we have a problem with people getting crazy and shooting into crowds and blowing things up. There's not always a good solution to a shitty situation.

TheBlight 5y ago
FWIW, the protestors at the capitol didn't kill anyone.
- throwaway99x99 5y ago
  Why was this downvoted? It's completely factual. Officer Sicknick passed away from natural causes (the narrative that his head was bashed in with a fire extinguisher evaporated a couple of days ago[0]). Two of the protesters had heart attacks and one apparently had a meth overdose. The only person who was killed was shot by police. If you have evidence to the contrary, please cite it. 0. https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/apr/20/update-capitol-police-officer-sicknick-died-natura/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/apr/20/update-capito...
  - seriousquestion 5y ago
    Most people may not have heard, or don't want to hear, that the narrative collapsed.

mitchdoogle 5y ago

It is not the USPS running this operation. It is the US postal inspection service, which is a legitimate law enforcement agency that mostly oversees crimes related to mail, but has long handled investigations into other types of crime including cybercrime, identity theft, and child exploitation. The title would make it seem like mail carriers are spending time looking at our social media accounts in the back of the local post office.

dqv 5y ago

Oh is that why so many people I don't know with no mutuals add me on Facebook? They're going to have to impersonate someone I know for that to work.

commandlinefan 5y ago

Still think anonymous communications platforms like Freenet, I2P and Tor are just for conspiracy theorists?

ThothIV 5y ago

USPS? You mean the bankrupt federal agency that we all heard was going extinct? They can afford this? Hmm... (And they certainty can't afford it, which is why druggies exclusively ship their goods with USPS over FedEx / UPS or any other private carrier). God bless them!

rubyist5eva 5y ago

Even the mail man is glowing now.

Lyons4512 5y ago

I must say you have written a great article. The way you have described everything is phenomenal https://www.expresshr.me/ https://www.expresshr.me/

TeeMassive 5y ago

Given the weird arrest of General Flynn by USPS and then the weird ensuing court case, this is not really surprising.

zhte415 5y ago

I'm surprised no one's mentioned GDPR, or similar extra-territorial laws.

TakakiTohno 5y ago

I'm not surprised

thamalama 5y ago

> The postmaster general is the second-highest paid U.S. government official, > based on publicly available salary information, after the President of the > United States.[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postmaster_General https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postmaster_Gener... PmG is a very powerful position.

dredmorbius 5y ago

Crossing the streams, the USPIS are a Cellebrite customer: https://www.uspis.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/FY-2019-annual-report-508-web.pdf https://www.uspis.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/FY-2019-ann... (p. 35)