“No current plan,” but give them the tools and eventually they will use them.
The Home Office says it has no current plans to force the Royal Mail to store data on all letters and postcards passing through its system. […] And it stressed that only data about mail – not its contents – would be retained if the law was ever enacted.
Under the draft bill, the Royal Mail and other postal services could be asked to retain “anything written on the outside” of items for up to 12 months so they can be accessed by the police, security services and HM Revenue and Customs. But a Home Office spokesman said only information relating to the “communications data of mail — who sent the letter to whom, when it was sent and the origin and destination” would, potentially, be stored.
[…]
Detail of all UK internet use will be stored for up to 12 months so that it can be accessed by the police, the security services and HM Revenue and Customs if the draft bill becomes law. Records will include people’s activity on social network sites, webmail, internet phone calls and online gaming.
Meanwhile, here in the US…
The same is already done with email. In fact, that’s pretty much its very nature.
Who the eff still uses snail mail??
People who don’t have to use “eff” to express themselves.
You’re so funny, I peed a little.
We have finished our terrorist profiling of 96 Acacia Avenue and discovered that they are part of a huge network for receiving credit card and double glazing offers but only communicate once per year to a secret leader known as “mother”
I see new possibilities for a spam money making operation. Get the name and address of some low-life (say a convicted pedof1le) and start sending out lots of letters with the slime’s name and return address. For a nominal recurring fee, offer to stop sending the letters so the mark, I mean customer, doesn’t get flagged as being in constant communication with a ped0.
In the US we merely have TSA expanding to trains, buses, and highways. And drones over US cities.
Tottler inmates sorting the mail? Where’s Waldo when you need him?
I still use the USPS, how else can you receive and send holiday and birthday cards. Getting magazines in print form is still preferable especially when nature calls.
Funny, the language used is always the same, and it’s very similar to the boiling frog strategy.
First part of the announcement: We are tightening the screw.
Second part: But just a little bit.
UK: We scan all your mail / But not the inside.
US: We can arrest anyone for any reason / But only when the president says so.
In this way no one complains 🙂
For all we know they have been watching our mail (here in the USA) for years.
Sheila
http://www.survivingsurvivalism.com
Selling information that allows marketers and authorities to infer and take action is a hot way to make money.
As a marketer, make the right inferences and you could become rich.
As an authority, make the wrong inferences and you ruin people’s lives.