[themoogle]

This is the dumbest thing any news agency could ever do. What the camera was put there for was to gather evidence of people tampering or trying to steal mail.

Now if who ever was doing this saw the news they will stop and go un punished.

This happened at my local post office. Someone would drive up to the mail boxes with a vacuum cleaner and suck the mail out.

Eventually they caught the guy red handed with a cameras just like this.

Shame on the journalists for blowing this sting operation.

[appleflaxen]

And here is one of the many problems with government surveillance: prior to the Snowden papers, I would be completely open-minded about the legitimacy of these actions.

But knowing what we know now about the scope of extra-judicial surveillance, I am incredibly grateful that the journalists blew the whistle.

The US government and all of its actors have lost the presumption of good faith, and it's a useful thing to possess.

[ethanbond]

Serious question: Why? All we really know is that the US is dragnetting as much data as they possibly can. Have there been any solid exposures as far as actual misuse of the data? Not just hypotheticals (as realistically scary as they are), but real abuses which have already occurred?

[DanBC]

Last year someone was fired by GCHQ for wrongful access of data.

http://stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk/news/11850150.MPs_to_repor...

> In a long-awaited report on privacy and security, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) reveals MI5, MI6 and GCHQ have disciplined or in some cases dismissed staff for inappropriately accessing personal information obtained through bulk data collection.

[ethanbond]

Ah, very solid example. Thanks!

[Renaud]

>What the camera was put there for was to gather evidence of people tampering or trying to steal mail.

That may be true but the camera was positioned to systematically capture information about anyone leaving the facility. There is no mention of it being positioned to monitor the mail drop boxes, which would make more sense if monitoring for mail theft was the only objective.

[pcthrowaway]

Wouldn't you rather someone not steal mail because they know (or believe) there are cameras than steal mail (possibly repeatedly) and get caught?

[code_duck]

In Denver, rather I would bet that the most likely use is to monitor people mailing cannabis.

[FLUX-YOU]

They need to hide their cameras better then. That thing is very obvious.

And if a random customer blows your sting operation, then I guess it's bad luck or bad planning. You can't expect people or journalists to know a camera is part of a sting operation.

[strgrd]

I don't think anyone would have an issue with this sort of theft-prevention if it (1) wasn't done in secret without any explanation about (2) how the data is stored and (3) where it's going. Pictures of your license plate, your face, time-stamped and geo-located, probably tied to any mail sent or accepted -- that's not information that should be winding up in a giant surveillance database.

[Intermernet]

Assuming this to be the case, and assuming Fox31 aren't lying when they say they made FOI requests regarding this, shouldn't someone have approached Fox31 and said "Hey, this is a sensitive operation underway right now. Please keep quiet for a bit, we'll keep you updated."?

I'm not sure how the police / FBI usually handle press intervention, but I'm sure it must have happened before.

EDIT: Splelign