[saurik]

I feel like the key sentence in this article (edit: which is ironically no longer verbatim in this article, which I see hours later has been heavily expanded) which purports to answer the "but... why the USPS?"--is: > The agency told Yahoo News the Inspection Service collaborates with law-enforcement agencies to identify and assess threats to the Postal Service and its "overall mail processing and transportation network.

[chrisco255]

Now I'm worried they might find out that I've been using this newfangled technology called "email" for the past 25 years and I haven't licked a stamp in over a decade. Some say its only used for money laundering and drug dealing, but I think it's rather convenient and more innovative than what the government can offer.

[colonelxc]

It truly has been a long time for you, as you don't even need to lick stamps, they are sticky on their own.

[Taniwha]

oh, that may explain why I get them stuck on my tongue ...

[NoSorryCannot]

If only some other kind of mail had become popular to replace the lost letter volume...

[elliekelly]

Can you imagine if USPS ran an email service and all of the legal protections afforded to our mailboxes and the contents of our postal communications applied just the same? The internet would be a completely different place. In a good way, I think.

[comprambler]

Less awesome, but realistically USPS and their respective national organizations should run their DNS RBL lists. Protecting their nations against spam.

[chrisco255]

If the USPS ran email, they would legalize spam and charge by the kilobyte.

[542354234235]

Is spam illegal now?

[throwaway99x99]

Can you imagine if all of that was true except that it could be run by anyone? (Sadly, we have very little -- almost zero -- legal protection for our email in the U.S.)

[DubiousPusher]

> which purports to answer the "but... why the USPS?"

Yes, that's the burning question I took away from this article.

[robocat]

Perhaps it is a hack to route around federal laws - the USPS could have exceptions (or grandfathered laws) that give it more leeway than other departments?