{"id":30906,"date":"2021-07-28T10:07:28","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T15:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=30906"},"modified":"2021-07-28T10:07:28","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T15:07:28","slug":"eff-sues-usps-for-records-about-covert-social-media-spying-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2021\/07\/28\/eff-sues-usps-for-records-about-covert-social-media-spying-program\/","title":{"rendered":"EFF Sues USPS For Records About Covert Social Media Spying Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

Service Looked Through People\u2019s Posts Prior to Street Protests<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Washington D.C.\u2014The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)\u00a0lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against the U.S. Postal Service and its inspection agency seeking records about a covert program to secretly comb through online posts of social media users before street protests, raising concerns about chilling the privacy and expressive activity of internet users.<\/p>\n

Under an initiative called Internet Covert Operations Program, analysts at the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), the Postal Service\u2019s law enforcement arm, sorted through massive amounts of data created by social media users to surveil what they were saying and sharing, according to\u00a0media<\/a>\u00a0reports<\/a>. Internet users\u2019 posts on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, and Telegraph were likely swept up in the surveillance program.<\/p>\n

USPIS has not disclosed details about the program or any records responding to EFF\u2019s FOIA request asking for information about the creation and operation of the surveillance initiative. In addition to those records, EFF is also seeking records on the program\u2019s policies and analysis of the information collected, and communications with other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), about the use of social media content gathered under the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re filing this FOIA lawsuit to shine a light on why and how the Postal Service is monitoring online speech. This lawsuit aims to protect the right to protest,\u201d said Houston Davidson, EFF\u00a0public interest legal fellow. \u201cThe government has never explained the legal justifications for this surveillance.\u00a0We\u2019re asking a court to order the USPIS to disclose details about this speech-monitoring program, which threatens constitutional guarantees of free expression and privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Media reports revealed that a\u00a0government bulletin<\/a>\u00a0dated March 16 was distributed across DHS\u2019s state-run security threat centers, alerting law enforcement agencies that USPIS analysts monitored \u201csignificant activity regarding planned protests occurring internationally and domestically on March 20, 2021.\u201d Protests around the country were planned for that day, and locations and times were being shared on Parler, Telegram, Twitter, and Facebook, the bulletin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMonitoring and gathering people\u2019s social media activity chills and suppresses free expression,\u201d said Aaron Mackey, EFF senior staff attorney. \u201cPeople self-censor when they think their speech is being monitored and could be used to target them. A government effort to scour people\u2019s social media accounts is a threat to our civil liberties.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the complaint:
\nhttps:\/\/www.eff.org\/document\/eff-v-usps-complaint<\/a><\/p>\n

For more on this case:
\nhttps:\/\/www.eff.org\/cases\/eff-v-usps-social-media-monitoring-icop<\/a><\/p>\n

For more on social media surveillance:
\nhttps:\/\/www.eff.org\/issues\/social-media-surveilance<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Service Looked Through People\u2019s Posts Prior to Street Protests Washington D.C.\u2014The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)\u00a0lawsuit\u00a0against the U.S. Postal Service and its inspection agency seeking records about a covert program to secretly comb through online posts of social media users before street protests, raising concerns about chilling the privacy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30908,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30906\/revisions\/30908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}