Hacker News Reader

Comment by dataflow | Hacker News Reader

> Pretty much any federal agency you have heard of has an investigative dept that employs federal special agents. These are law enforcement roles with the same training, authority, and responsibilities as investigative agents in the FBI, etc.

Maybe worth noting that USPIS is older than the FBI. It's the oldest federal law enforcement agency.

View on HN

There's a sense in which is predates the US! Throughline from NPR had an episode about it, referring to a book called 'How the Post Office Created America' [1]

[0] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/02/908836752/the-postal-service

[1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311582/how-the-post...

That's a fantastic trivia fact, I guess threats to the postal service are a very old problem so it makes sense.

Not merely threats to the postal service itself, but threats via the postal service. I imagine the best to get away with (say) fraud has always been to avoid physical presence, i.e. using mail.

> the best to get away with (say) fraud

And letter/package bombs

This is the territory where police departments and agencies get themselves into trouble - investigating crimes that aren't really their job to investigate. They technically have jurisdiction over a specific location or process, and that gives them an excuse.

The most obvious parallel is pretext stops - state cops, sometimes local, coming up with an excuse to pull someone over on a highway, in order to check them for warrants or in hopes of discovering contraband they have no reason to suspect exists.

A less obvious example is immigration enforcement fishing for excuses to deport someone.

also, back then, the USPS did more than just deliver mail.

I'm sure that the recent shooting of their FedEx colleagues in Indianapolis is on the USPS's mind as well, and I wouldn't be surprised if UPS and DHL tries to monitor social media as well.

It's hard to understate just how important the postal service was to the country: beyond driving so much commerce (and hence making mail deliveries a valuable target) it was used for all kinds of official documents and financial documents (money orders were introduced to reduce the risk further). Travel being expensive and hard, no alternatives like phone or email, etc. means that you send letters a LOT and things like postmarks or registered mail signatures have a substantial legal weight. Making a highly trusted service with special status to deter thieves available to everyone at a modest fee was a really smart move.

> Maybe worth noting that USPIS is older than the FBI. It's the oldest federal law enforcement agency.

The wikipedia page for USPIS claims that. But the wikipedia page of the US Marshalls claims that same honor. I wonder which is correct.

Supposedly USPIS goes back to 1737 (or 1772 if you don't want to count that), whereas USMS started in 1789? USPIS claims its "birth date" to be 1775, so I guess that's the latest. https://www.uspis.gov/about/history-of-uspis#1775

It is also the only agency named in the constitution. The others are all fluff. At least that’s what I was taught!

Census is in the Constitution as well

Pretty the sure the Census is mostly conducted by the USPS though.

Incorrect.

Department of Commerce.

Ah, good to know, and thank you. Albeit, logistically carried out in large part through the mail. Would it be safe to say that they are intertwined, and the Department of Commerce is another made up beaurocracy, and if nixed the USPS would conduct the census?

Census as an activity is, though not a Census Department specifically. Though that may be a quibbling distinction.

Armed forces would be another Constitutionally mentioned function.

Interesting, are you sure about this? The only clause I find in the constitution mentions post offices and post roads (perhaps that's what you're thinking of?), but nothing about their security. To my knowledge federal agencies were only established by the Administrative Procedures Act after WWII (which is basically the "constitution" of federal agencies), but I'm not sure if there's other similar terminology that might be in the constitution. If someone has a link to the clause that would be interesting.

Yeah buddy. The security service is just like internal affairs for the USPS. It's actually pretty creepy inside the USPS they enter through different doors, they have catwalks with two-way mirrors, etc. The SSF and DCF or whatever they're called (been a while) are super creepy to observe. You are CONSTANTLY being watch when you work there, but unseen faces. There is a reason 'going postal' became a thing. Imagine that atmosphere!

Having worked there, you drown out the catwalks and just consider them like fancy camera monitoring. We never, ever saw law enforcement, so it was out of sight, out of mind.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com