The way my snail mail is handled, one would indeed have to be a complete moron to send terrorist plans via the postal service. I have gotten to know my neighbors mostly by receiving their mail by mistake and having to take it to their door, and vice versa. It gets worse every year. The mailman just yesterday put a box of books I ordered from Amazon on top of the mailbox at the curb instead of bringing it to the door! Someone could just come along and snatch it.
If Bush and his administration are so concerned about mail, why don’t they find out why their postal delivery system is so screwed up. I sent a package out two weeks before xmas and the person still has not received it yet. This is not the first time something has gone missing. I sent my daughter a parcel for her birthday last year and instead of leaving a note for her to pick it up, they left it in the hallway of her building and someone stole it. She was so sad, and so was I. I now have to send everything return receipt and pay more.
I am trying not to be paranoid but this feels like just a way to be able to see what anyone is saying via phone or now mail at any given time and for whatever “secret” reason they choose to make up. I would not be surprised if we atheists are on some list somewhere already.
27 comments:
As William S. Burroughs said, 'A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.'
Where is Jason Bowden to tell us that if we are innocent we have nothing to worry about and that it is a vital tool to defeat Islamic terrorism?
tommy - I am sure if he sees this he might go off on a long tangent. ;)
I think this domestic mail thing is totally unnecessary and though I have nothing to hide, opening my mail is a total violation of my privacy.
Don't worry, Stardust, since I live in the UK where all electronic transactions are monitored - both by our lot, and yours who have a 'secret' monitoring base here - and I have posted on your blog, the flags will have gone up already. So, always make sure you sleep in clean pyjamas - they like to kick doors in around 3:30 AM when they visit!
Apropos that hackneyed old phrase, "innocent people have nothing to fear", that most illiberal group, the General Synod of the Church of Scotland, came out and condemned it when our lords and masters used it to justify their firther intrusions into our private life. As the Church said, it alters the whole balance between the individual and the state, undermines the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty, and it open to abuse by law-enforcement and the executive! Here, here; never thought I'd support the CofS.
Do we live in the same neighborhood? Our mailperson does the same thing. In fact, instead of WALKING ALL THE WAY to our door, the mailperson will open the mail box, place the package on the door (which is now laying down) and rubberband it to the mailbox!
Our mailbox door is now hanging by a hinge and we expect it to fall off completely any day now.
Grrr. I've tried complaining, but to no avail. And yeah, they put packages
oops I didn't finish that last sentence. it's "yeah, they put larger packages right on top of the mailbox for easy access by theives!"
It's not just the USPS, the UPS does the same thing. I've had boxes of expensive camera equipment left at my doorstep. Luckily, I live in a relatively safe neighborhood.
It's not just the USPS, the UPS does the same thing.
AYDIN ÖRSTAN - The UPS people here barely stop when delivering packages, they fly out of their trucks, push the doorbell while dropping the package on the steps and fly back to their trucks and are gone by the time I open the door. If it is raining, the parcel gets completely wet.
When we ordered my son's $6,000 French Horn many years ago, it was delivered to the people next door and sat in their garage for a couple of days till they decided to tell us about it.
momsquared, I am so sick of the postal service I could just spit. I get packages and letters that have been mutilated and enclosed in plastic bags that say "our apologies" on it and excuses that sometimes items get caught in machinery or some bullcrap reason. I know sometimes it can happen, but not this often.
Sometimes they look like they have been intentionally opened. This has been going on for years and isn't anything new, and isn't only with my overseas mail.
Overseas mail...now that is something to really frustrate you! I write to about 40+ penfriends around the world in more than 23 different countries and most of them I have been writing to for more than ten years (I love communicating with people from other cultures and getting their perspectives and sharing news and traditions, etc)
I sent my pal in Aussie a gift for her birthday..a bag for books that I bought in Atlantic City that has pictures of east coast lighthouses all over it and a lighthouse magnet. I mailed it in September via air mail and it cost $20 to ship. She never received it. This has happened several other times over the years with several of my penfriends.
So, being a person who uses the mail service quite extensively (and reluctantly) knows that it is NOT a very good way for any "secret" information to be sent. People in charge of our government should also know this since they have to get many, many complaints about these problems of mail mishandling.
The statement that grants the government[President] the authority during emergencies to bypass the law forbidding mail to be opened without a warrant is just a way for Bush to try to act like a bully and show everyone he can do whatever the hell he wants.
It's amazing how many people use the 'if you've got nothing to hide' slogan. *Everyone* has something to hide... but who is it that gets their privacy violated? That's right *us*, not the people who actually bring these laws into action. No, we can't know about *their* activites for "security reasons" - yeah, right.
That's right *us*, not the people who actually bring these laws into action. No, we can't know about *their* activites for "security reasons" - yeah, right.
And the people who the government is supposed to be working for cannot even demand to see government official's personal mail even when we deem it to be an "emergency" that the person/people we have elected are endangering the very freedoms that so many have lived and died to uphold.
More reason why it is ridiculous to think that anyone would send secret plans via mail:
Wis. police: Drunk postman crashed truck
And what about all the times we hear about finding tons of mail in a postal worker's home or apartment that was never delivered?
Tommy--
I'm here.
Emergency mail inspection is not controversial and has been legal for quite a while. The president is not exerting any new authority.
The left these days is taking tinfoil to a new level, making the old anti-Clinton losers who would obsess about Hillary killing Vince Voster look like sane individuals.
drunken--
Care to explain to me why wife-killing hippie heroin addicts are paragons of sanity to the modern left? Burroughs' literary output, along with his life, is a testament to the glory of madness, drug abuse, misogyny, criminality, and excess. People like him were born for the clubs of the Chicago PD.
tommy - I was right ;)
Stardust, it's getting to the point where I can write Jason's responses for him. He does not even have to show up anymore.
And another thing, in a style typical of Jason, because Drunken Tune mentions a quote by William S. Burroughs, Jason makes an assumption that Drunken Tune is a radical leftist who uncritically admires the author.
Why do you always leap to such conclusions Jason? What the hell is the matter with you?
I mean really, if you mentioned Stalin's famous quote that one death is a tragedy but a million deaths are a statistic, wouldn't I be jumping the gun in calling you a Stalinist? Get a friggin grip man!
tommy - it's flattering to know that my blog is interesting enough for even people who think I am a "socialist termite" to keep coming back to read and coming out of the shadows almost immediately when summoned! :-D
tommy - as for quoting people, I agree with you. When someone writes a quote, we cannot automatically assume that person agrees 100% with what is in a book that quoted person has written. Many atheists have quoted from the Bible, and this does not mean that they are god worshippers. It just means they found a quote that happens to fit a discussion.
I'm convinced.
If you guys quote Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, or Ted Bundy for moral inspiration, I promise not to jump to conclusions. /s
Again, Jason gets it wrong. The Burrough's quote mentioned by Drunken Tune is a commentary about paranoia, not some kind of moral inspiration.
JHB - that last comment of yours is too ridiculous for me to respond to.
Stardust--
You implied that we shouldn't judge posters by the people they like to quote to buttress their arguments.
I provided counterexamples. When a categorical generalization is made, logically, it only takes one counterexample to refute it. And you're the one telling me not to make generalizations!
Yes, if someone is talking about human freedom and quotes Mussolini, your alarm bells should go off. I don't see why someone quoting Burroughs about human sanity should not be subject to an analogous judgment.
Jason, I have come to the conclusion that you have some serious mental problems. You're like the obnoxious drunk at a dinner party who makes a fool of himself in front of all they guests but is too obtuse to realize it.
Tommy--
I'm not the one believing in tinfoil conspiracy theories.
You guys know I'm right. Imagine if a Buchananite lunatic (these kind of people agree more and more with Democrats these days) preached the paranoia of the day and his buddies started quoting Tim McVeigh, David Koresh, and Pat Robertson. Would you guys say that we shouldn't jump to conclusions, that we shouldn't generalize, that the person is just making quotes that fit the discusssion?
You know damn well what you would do. Hell, when someone like Tony Blair admits he prays, socialists, ahem, "liberals," "populists," "progressives" -- whatever you guys call yourselves these days -- assume the world is going to end.
On the postal service thing - Australia Post have recently started leaving parcels on my letter box or just inside my front fence - great on school holidays when little terrors parol the street looking for mischief. I think its a conspiracy to get my to buy a po box.
On the postal service thing - Australia Post have recently started leaving parcels on my letter box or just inside my front fence
sean - that's most likely what happened to the present I sent my friend who lives near Melbourne then. She still hasn't received it yet, so someone else is enjoying her gift.
grrr!
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