Postal interception is the act of retrieving another person's
mail
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...
for the purpose of either ensuring that the mail is not delivered to the recipient, or to
spy on them.
For instance, the American
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
(CIA) and
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
(FBI) were involved in numerous large-scale operations targeting US activist groups, whose mail was opened and photographed. In one such programme, over 215,000 letters were opened.
In the United Kingdom, the
Special Investigations Unit of the General Post Office was responsible for postal interception.
Saunders, Frances Stonor. "Stuck on the Flypaper: MI5 and the Hobsbawm File". London Review of Books. 9 April 2015.
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Since 2002, the United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the executive branch of the federal governmen ...
photographs the outside of all mail, retains those images for weeks or months, and provides them to police or other investigators upon a simple request.
See also
* COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO (a syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted between 1956 and 1971 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltr ...
* Surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing, or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...
* Church committee
The Church Committee (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a US Senate select committee in 1975 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence ...
* Black room
* Postal censorship
Postal censorship is the inspection or examination of mail, most often by governments. It can include opening, reading and total or selective obliteration of letters and their contents, as well as Cover (philately), covers, postcards, Parcel pos ...
* Secrecy of correspondence
* Mail cover
* Mail Isolation Control and Tracking
References
Surveillance
Espionage techniques
Postal systems
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