USPS admits to spying on Americans’ social media posts
The US Postal Service admitted Wednesday to spying on Americans’ social media posts — including ones made by right-wing protest groups, according to a report.
USPS Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale confirmed to
lawmakers that the agency is running a shadowy operation dubbed the Internet
Covert Operations Program, which tracks “inflammatory” posts on Facebook,
Parler and other sites, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) told The Daily Mail.
Barksdale told the House Oversight and Reform Committee that
the initiative has netted no arrests and will continue despite privacy
concerns, which arose after the program was revealed publicly last week, the
outlet reported.
Barksdale said the operation — which reports threatening
posts to local and federal law enforcement — is overseen by a USPS executive.
But he claimed it’s not a real “program” because it’s “incident-related,” not
an ongoing initiative, according to the outlet.
Instead of shutting it down, he said the USPS will simply
stop releasing a government bulletin about the operation, which last week led
to the surveillance program being exposed by Yahoo News.
“The Chief Postal Inspector was wildly unprepared for this
briefing,” Mace said.
She said he couldn’t provide a date for when the operation
began, or how much money is being spent on it.
Barksdale also declined to say which government agencies are
coordinating with USPS on the operation, according to Mace.
The House Oversight meeting was called by lawmakers last
week after documents revealed that the law enforcement branch of the USPS had
targeted protest groups, including the Proud Boys.
On March 16, a government bulletin was sent from the US
Postal Service to the Department of Homeland Security, warning about the World Wide Rally for
Freedom and Democracy, which was planned by Q-Anon-linked groups in Washington,
DC, on March 20.
“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,” the
bulletin states. “No intelligence is available to suggest the legitimacy of
these threats.”
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