This NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?hp&_r=2&&pagewanted=all reports that the USPS has been keeping images of the outside of mail for years. It is used in criminal investigations and for national security. This is some information about how often it is used in criminal investigations, but no such information about national security use.
>From the article: "Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, but that is only a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images." I thought this might be of interest to this list, especially to anyone who thought they could be safe by not using digital communications. -- Matt Johnson -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at [email protected] or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
