[tallpapab]

All this increased digital surveillance comes at a time when the US Post Office is under artificial financial pressure. Just last night the news reported a plan to eliminate direct delivery to the door in favor of some sort of community mail box facilities. Interesting coincidence that physical letters (whose contents are still protected by federal statute) are being discouraged while unprotected content is being collected.

[takluyver]

What makes you think that the financial pressure is artificial? Postal services in general are having problems because there's not much reason to spend money sending a letter that will take days to arrive, when you can write an email for free and it will arrive in seconds.