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Comment by andylynch | Hacker News Reader

Probably, depending on the industry - it’s called mail screening - the Royal Mail provides this as a service for companies in the UK. I’m a little surprised but the USPS doesn’t seem to.

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It's not like USPS doesn't screen the mail, they obviously have far less ability to test things without a warrant (not a problem for the end recipient company) but it should concern everyone if (and a big if!) it's true that sarin was found and it made it past USPS.

>> but it should concern everyone if (and a big if!) it's true that sarin was found and it made it past USPS.

I mean USPS isn't perfect and can't test 100% of all packages with 99.9999999% accuracy. The cost we pay to ship letters and packages can't come close to covering that expense.

Pretty sure they wouldn't need a warrant or any red tape at all if the receiver authorized them to open mail on their behalf

Seems like such easy ground for 4th amendment creep, I'm surprised it hasn't been tried yet.

Get all the big companies using it, then before you know it REITs and management companies will start using it for multi-tenant residences. Boom; 3 letter agencies will start popping up arguing there's no reasonable expectation of privacy since the user agreed to a "CommunitySafe mail protection services" clause buried in the lease.

Private letters have long been acknowledged as covered by the fourth amendment, that is that searching requires at least a warrant based on probable cause. It’s changed over times whether searches of papers are per se unreasonable [1]. Consent can authorize agents to open mail of course, but it might be an interesting question whether it’s an unconstitutional condition to require waiver in order to access the mail services.

[1] https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?r...

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