Mysterious spy cameras collecting data at post offices

DENVER — Within an hour of FOX31 Denver discovering a hidden camera, which was positioned to capture and record the license plates and facial features of customers leaving a Golden Post Office, the device was ripped from the ground and disappeared.

FOX31 Denver investigative reporter Chris Halsne confirmed the hidden camera and recorder is owned and operated by the United State Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement branch of the U.S. Postal Service.

Mysterious spy cameras collecting data at post offices

I wonder if this snooping program was for a particular case of if this was a pilot program for a postal system wide uptick in government snoopyness? I see in the video provided not a lot of concern by people at the post office being ask how they feel about the increased spying. Also of note was how fast that camera package came down when inspectors office was ask questions about it.

a reply to: machineintelligence

They were likely set to capture data on those who still use snail mail - the luddites, the free spirited souls among us who still lick the stamp instead of using a stick-on, those who travel in groups or pairs and dare to write in.....longhand! Beware the people who post real post, for they will tempt your children into their ways (and with the price of postage stamps nowadays, bankrupt them too).

originally posted by: machineintelligence

DENVER — Within an hour of FOX31 Denver discovering a hidden camera, which was positioned to capture and record the license plates and facial features of customers leaving a Golden Post Office, the device was ripped from the ground and disappeared.

FOX31 Denver investigative reporter Chris Halsne confirmed the hidden camera and recorder is owned and operated by the United State Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement branch of the U.S. Postal Service.

Mysterious spy cameras collecting data at post offices

I wonder if this snooping program was for a particular case of if this was a pilot program for a postal system wide uptick in government snoopyness? I see in the video provided not a lot of concern by people at the post office being ask how they feel about the increased spying. Also of note was how fast that camera package came down when inspectors office was ask questions about it.

Why is it mysterious?

The post office has always posted pics and info about criminals, missing children, most wanted etc.

There is a reason for that. It's easier to be anonymous without an address. Law enforcement has always monitored post offices and mailbox rental places.

a reply to: machineintelligence

It will be interesting to see what fallout might come from this. If they have no right to do this, then will they be charged?

a reply to: machineintelligence

Perhaps the government have figured out that for all the communications tracking they do on the net, they still need to spend money looking at who mails what, to where, using the old fashioned method, in order to provide "national security".

Is it not strange, that so called national security causes national insecurity?

a reply to: TrueBrit

Or are they trying to provoke the public into national anger. When will enough be enough?

a reply to: aboutface

First of all... I am sorry for the abhorrent quality of the the grammar I used in the first draft of my previous post. It was terrible, and I will admonish myself further for that lapse later on.

Now, as for this being some sort of deliberate attempt to provoke a response... You know, I would not put very much past the government of the USA. It seems that many things that occur in the west in general these days, are meant to garner some sort of response, or gauge the lack of one perhaps. In any event, I grow increasingly shocked at the blatancy of all this nonsense.

a reply to: TrueBrit

If their aim is to deter the bad guys from operating on the internet so they have to rely on old fashioned methods of communicating, it's a great idea. If they are just increasing their general nosiness, not so much.

They are looking for SOMEBODY!!!!

a reply to: IvanAstikov

And of the two, given what we know of governments, and how little they seem to represent their people these days, which of the two do you think to be the most likely?

To play the Devil's Advocate, the camera may have been setup per an ongoing and open investigation regarding mail fraud. Some person(s) may have been using a mail box as part of crime that came under investigation and the Postal Inspector (along with any number of 3-letter agencies) were attempting to capture video of said person's coming and going (having their license plate number would obviously make identifying them easier, in the event they used fictitious ID to set up a box).

Just curious, how is this "hidden camera" any different than a surveillance camera, a lot of which was also hidden from typical view?

a reply to: TrueBrit

I'd lean towards the latter. They strike me as being lazier than they are smart. That's not to say they haven't got smarts, just that they seem to prefer their short-cuts to good old school spycraft.

originally posted by: mikell
They are looking for SOMEBODY!!!!

They're gathering association data for Able Providence et al. Who you communicate with is fundamental to developing accurate relationship graphs. If you do so on the net, they've got that. If you're communicating through mail, they need to know that. They can also determine when you were at the PO, that's important in developing activity space information - when do you use the PO? How often? What days? From whom do you receive mail, and when? This is all important stuff if you're building a behavior state space.

And, of course, if you go to the PO and you don't have a PO box, nor did you mail anything, then you are much more likely to be a turrist - you probably are using a false identity. So they'll need to know who was there vs who picked up mail/mailed something. If you could get behind the boxes there, you might find that they are keeping tabs on when each box is emptied out as well so they can correlate presence at the PO vs activity at the PO.

The fact that the camera was quickly removed says volumes in my opinion. If it was a new program that was legal, why attempt to hide the fact? If it was a single operation aimed at capturing a single suspect, perhaps they figured their cover was blown and just ripped up the camera. I would not think it would be illegal to film in a public place, and this is not a regular public place. It is a government building of sorts. The fact that the camera was removed is what really stumps me, and the way I see it there are still a few possibilities at this point. There is nothing that I see which directly correlates this with some intrusion on our rights or anything like that, because there could still be a plausible explanation. Perhaps we will see. I do enjoy the fact that someone is actually doing some real investigative journalism. God knows we cannot expect such work out of the larger media outlets anymore...at least not at an acceptable level.

originally posted by: JiggyPotamus
I do enjoy the fact that someone is actually doing some real investigative journalism.

It would have been interesting if they'd surveyed all the PO's in the surrounding area before they tipped the PO off that they had spotted it. Now they'll never know if there were cameras all over the area!

All mail is photographerd anyways, right? Sooo...this just means someone wants to know who is actually dropping it off or picking it up.

a reply to: kosmicjack

It seems they were looking to document faces and license plate images with mail drop offs at this Denver CO area post office.

Here's a theory. It was a new facial recognition technology and they were trying to build a database. Perhaps someone noticed it in the trial phase of the technology or perhaps it's part of a larger rollout and we never noticed the test. We all know the feds are trying to build a facial recognition database.

Here's how it would work, there should be a pretty strong correlation to the order in which cars enter the parking lot and people enter the building. Over time you could test the accuracy of the information against itself and build a confidence level for any biometrics you get and make something pretty accurate even when people enter the building in a different order sometimes.

If this technology works, it could be rolled out to other locations for widespread data collection. I wonder if they've ever thought of using traffic cameras to record a license plate+driver at the same time. Perhaps that would have been the ultimate goal?

a reply to: machineintelligence

You have no expectation of privacy in public.

With that said I get the feelings the government is trying to back door a program that would most likely not have been popular with the public.

Federal ID cards etc.

a reply to: Aazadan

Looking at the video again it pretty much looks like a high end game camera like hunters would use. If they had not used such a huge padlock of a vastly different color than the utility housing it was locked into it might have gone unnoticed for a lot longer. Someone might want to take a few more remedial classes on camouflaging their spy gear.