{"id":2522,"date":"2006-01-06T21:12:20","date_gmt":"2006-01-06T21:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nimsay.blackglass.org\/2006\/01\/06\/and-the-hits-keep-on-coming\/"},"modified":"2006-01-06T21:12:20","modified_gmt":"2006-01-06T21:12:20","slug":"and-the-hits-keep-on-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackglass.org\/?p=2522","title":{"rendered":"and-the-hits-keep-on-coming"},"content":{"rendered":"

As if the country wasn’t perturbed enough already by our President, who recently admitted to all the local spying and willingness to continue such rampant violation of our constitutional rights, here’s another reminder<\/a> that lately nothing in the USA is sacred.
\nOops, did I say sacred?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Last month Goodman, an 81-year-old retired University of Kansas history professor, received a letter from his friend in the Philippines that had been opened and resealed with a strip of dark green tape bearing the words \ufffdby Border Protection\ufffd and carrying the official Homeland Security seal.
\nGoodman is no stranger to mail snooping; as an officer during World War II he was responsible for reading all outgoing mail of the men in his command and censoring any passages that might provide clues as to his unit\ufffds position. \ufffdBut we didn\ufffdt do it as clumsily as they\ufffdve done it, I can tell you that,\ufffd Goodman noted, with no small amount of irony in his voice. \ufffdIsn\ufffdt it funny that this doesn\ufffdt appear to be any kind of surreptitious effort here,\ufffd he said.
\nThe letter comes from a retired Filipino history professor; Goodman declined to identify her. And although the Philippines is on the U.S. government\ufffds radar screen as a potential spawning ground for Muslim-related terrorism, Goodman said his friend is a devout Catholic and not given to supporting such causes…
\nA spokesman for the Customs and Border Protection division said he couldn\ufffdt speak directly to Goodman\ufffds case but acknowledged that the agency can, will and does open mail coming to U.S. citizens that originates from a foreign country whenever it\ufffds deemed necessary…
\n\ufffdThis process isn\ufffdt something we\ufffdre trying to hide,\ufffd Mohan said, noting the wording on the agency\ufffds Web site. \ufffdWe\ufffdve had this authority since before the Department of Homeland Security was created,\ufffd Mohan said.
\nHowever, Mohan declined to outline what criteria are used to determine when a piece of personal correspondence should be opened, but said, \ufffdobviously it\ufffds a security-related criteria.\ufffd<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I was younger I always wondered what I should and shouldn’t include in my letters to my cousin. I was always afraid that some mean Border Patrol agent would read it. After all it was going to Mexico, and the impression I had back then was that I could never send a package because they would steal it, so if you sent a letter gum might get through…anyway they’d read it. I was more paranoid that an agent would read what she had to say to me. She always had a new crush.
\nThe moral of the story is: Don’t make friends in foreign countries. They might like Snoopy and that’s a big no no for Homeland Security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As if the country wasn’t perturbed enough already by our President, who recently admitted to all the local spying and willingness to continue such rampant violation of our constitutional rights, here’s another reminder that lately nothing in the USA is sacred. Oops, did I say sacred?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackglass.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackglass.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackglass.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackglass.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackglass.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blackglass.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackglass.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackglass.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackglass.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}