{"id":540580,"date":"2021-05-25T19:14:34","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T23:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=540580"},"modified":"2021-05-25T19:35:16","modified_gmt":"2021-05-25T23:35:16","slug":"congressional-committee-concerned-about-covert-post-office-surveillance-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/congressional-committee-concerned-about-covert-post-office-surveillance-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Congressional Committee Concerned About Covert Post Office Surveillance Program"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcongressional-committee-concerned-about-covert-post-office-surveillance-program%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=540580&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GetFile-287.aspx\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>A covert U.S. Postal Service program monitoring social media for \u201cinflammatory\u201d posts to share the information with other law enforcement agencies, is coming under scrutiny itself by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/house-oversight-committee-asks-for-investigation-into-the-postal-services-covert-internet-surveillance-program-184336132.html\">Yahoo News reported<\/a> Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The online news organization has been reporting on the topic and discovered the federal agency was monitoring citizens social media posts and then reporting certain posts to other federal law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n<p>In a<a href=\"https:\/\/oversight.house.gov\/sites\/democrats.oversight.house.gov\/files\/2021-05-25.CBM%20Comer%20to%20Whitcomb-USPS%20OIG%20re%20iCOP.pdf\"> letter Monday<\/a> from the Congressional Committee to U.S. Postal Service Inspector General Tammy L. Whitcomb, Committee Chairman Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Ranking Member Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., asked about the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP), and under what authority the agency has to \u201cconduct online intelligence operations\u201d on citizens of the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe write to express concern about recent press reports that the United States Postal Inspection Service has been using analysts from its Internet Covert Operations Program to perform intelligence operations on First Amendment activity,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n<p>According to Yahoo News, the agency\u2019s Postal Inspection Service has been monitoring social media accounts of citizens since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota last year.<\/p>\n<p>It then sent bulletins noting \u201cinflammatory\u201d posts to the Department of Homeland Security, which would then notify state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies as well as terrorism task forces throughout the nation, according to the report.<\/p>\n<p>In an<a href=\"https:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/chief-postal-inspector-tells-lawmakers-that-social-media-monitoring-began-after-george-floyd-protests-145116660.html\"> April Yahoo News story<\/a>, Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale told the Congressional Committee that the program began in 2017 to crack down and investigate drug and firearms trafficking but moved to surveilling the protests that broke out after Floyd\u2019s death because of the threat to the agency\u2019s workers and buildings.<\/p>\n<p>The increase in threats against Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, Barksdale told the Committee, was a \u201cfactor\u201d to continue online surveillance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe chief postal inspector was unprepared to the point of incompetence,\u201d Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., told Yahoo News at the time. \u201cHe couldn\u2019t tell me when this program started, how much money is spent on it or where the authority to spy on Americans came from. The complete inability to give us answers to basic questions was unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In another <a href=\"https:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/facial-recognition-fake-identities-and-digital-surveillance-tools-inside-the-post-offices-covert-internet-operations-program-214234762.html\">Yahoo News report<\/a> from May 18, the agency used fake online identities, as well as facial recognition software and other \u201csophisticated intelligence tools\u201d in its activities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe U.S. Postal Inspection Service appears to be putting significant resources into covert monitoring of social media and the creation and use of undercover accounts,\u201d Rachel Levinson-Waldman, deputy director of the Liberty &amp; National Security Program of the Brennan Center for Justice said in the story. \u201cIf these efforts are directed toward surveilling lawful protesters, the public and Congress need to know why this is happening, under what authority and subject to what kinds of oversight and protections.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A covert U.S. Postal Service program monitoring social media for \u201cinflammatory\u201d posts to share the information with other law enforcement agencies, is coming under scrutiny itself by the House Committee &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2313030,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GetFile-287.aspx","fifu_image_alt":"Congressional Committee Concerned About Covert Post Office Surveillance Program","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-540580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GetFile-287.aspx","fifu_image_alt":"Congressional Committee Concerned About Covert Post Office Surveillance Program","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2313030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}