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> Together, the two programs show that postal mail is subject to the same kind of scrutiny that the National Security Agency has given to telephone calls and e-mail.

Uhh, I'm pretty sure the NSA scrutiny included the bodies of said calls and emails. I'm slightly offended by an agency tracking who I'm in contact with, but I've very offended by an agency knowing why I'm in contact with said person.

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You should also be very offended by the metadata tracking. Metadata is much easier to process and more often than not does reveal why you are in contact anyhow. It's one of "their" propaganda tricks to make you believe that it's "just" the metadata, while it actually (a) tells you much more than you initially think about the content of the communication (after all, they don't just see the connections, but also the timing and direction, and that tells you a lot about the relationship between people) and (b) at least for the time being is much easier to process anyhow.

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