Postal Service Surveilled Protest Activities Online With Little Rules, Oversight

The U.S. Postal Service used social media surveillance to monitor and report on protests across the political spectrum, government records show. The records, disclosed to EFF and other requesters suing the postal service under the Freedom of Information Act, show that the agency’s internet Covert Operations Program, or iCOP, routinely sifted through social media posts organizing and discussing protests with little records of any oversight or legal justification. EFF filed suit in 2021 after Yahoo News disclosed the program’s existence and how the agency used it to monitor First Amendment protected activities. After years of delays and technical failures that led the agency to lose access to a trove of emails discussing the program, the postal service disclosed records to EFF and several other requesters this year. The Postal Service used iCOP to surveil First Amendment activities The disclosures include a series of bulletins created from iCOP, which show that the postal service used th