It seems like this should be the job of the FBI, DHS or some other agency like that. The Post Office should deliver mail and packages not investigate material on the internet.
Your workers are under threat from poorly made postal bombs that could easily blow up during processing, killing your workers. Due to the vast volume of post you process, the threat is real and non-trivial.
Do you do nothing?
I think you obviously have to do something, whether you go as far as they did is what's up for debate.
More of them are endangered by their shitbox LLV trucks catching on fire.
For example, look at this[0]. Two people physically attacked a postal worker after accusing her of "stealing their stimulus checks"[1].
Sure, you can say that this case had nothing to do with USPS surveillance. But it just goes to show that there are plenty of serious dangers to postal workers other than just nigh-non-existent "bomb in the mail" scenarios that you seem to be fixating on.
0. https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/police-make-arrest-after...
1. https://news.yahoo.com/usps-worker-beaten-michigan-alleged-1...
If you think every postal worker should have some sort of security / police going with them on their routes that is one thing, but that is not at all what this article is about.
It addresses the comment that essentially boiled down to "why would they want this, letter bombs almost never happen", and I simply have shown other reasons for why they might want it. I wasn't addressing the article, I was addressing a specific comment.
>Do you really think people who are going to beat USPS workers are going to post about it online [...]
Yes, it does happen. People publicly post on twitter about their plans to vandalize property and such, so I don't see this scenario out of reach at all.
>[...] and that the USPS would be better equipped than agencies whose sole purpose is to deal with these kind of things?
No, but USPS would be able to use this as a clue of something brewing and make the relevant agencies aware, all while dealing with ad-hoc mitigations (e.g., if the threat seems credible on the surface, prepare tentative re-routing plans for their drivers to avoid that area, in case the agencies confirm that the threat is credible; if the agencies confirm that the threat isn't credible, everything proceeds as usual).
The FBI has more resources for investigating, finding, and assessing crimes. They also have additional intelligence that the USPS is not privy to. Why have an agency which has less resources and intelligence handle it? If it is a real threat the FBI can relay that information the USPS (and other agencies who operate in the area) to re-route their drivers or lock down their offices.
The USPS does not do anything so unique that it needs to a specialized investigative unit.
And how do you think that number became zero? Magic bomb-negating fairies?
(Also, echoing the sibling: where are all these poorly made postal bombs you're talking about? I can't remember anything in recent and not-so-recent memory.)
No, you coordinate with the CIA or FBI to investigate threats against the government.
If postal workers are at risk then it's within their purview (as it has been for over 200 years) to investigate and warn local offices in addition to other government offices.
Granted, that's a long time ago, and it doesn't happen habitually. But if you're going to have a workforce safety team (good idea), they will likely want to either actually do something to stop the threats, or at least signal to management that they aren't totally clueless
Should every government agency have a department to investigate threats towards their employees? Why limit it to just the USPS? Why not give investigative powers to the Agency for Global Media or the Administration for Community Living? Should those employees have to risk the very "real and non-trivial" threats they face?
If this was just some sort of way of detecting bombs or anthrax or something I think most of us could get behind it. This is turning the post office into an investigative crime solving agency and not even strictly for the thing they do (mail delivery).
We don't need every single agency to handle investigating threats to themself. It just doesn't make financial or practical sense. We can use the FBI, Secret Service, DHS, etc to deal with protecting the entire government and their employees. This will eliminate duplication and make it easier to share threat information.
One problem we have is the lack of information being shared with the correct agencies. This was allegedly the cause of some terrorist attacks not being stopped. If there are only a couple agencies that handle security and threat investigations instead of 100s it will already be in the hands of the correct agency. We should be striving for a streamlined process that removes duplication instead of hoping every single agency can do the job well.
How does that threat compare to threats the post office accepts for it's workers such as being killed in traffic accidents?
The Postal Inspection Service traces its lineage to 1772; the FBI to 1908. USPIS being separate from the FBI is one of those quirks of American enforcement, like how the Secret Service is responsible for physical security of the President and other political figures... And financial services.
The constitution says: "The Congress shall have Power [...] To establish Post Offices and post Roads;"
This is not a constitutional mandate. It is constitutional authorization. The federal government is not obligated to fully exercise every power it is granted.
Just see the interstate commerce clause and what's happened with that