The government is reading your mail -- at least the outside of it

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So, all you apologists for the surveillance state, how do you feel about this?

Oh, it's just "metadata," you say? Just the outside of mail: "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."

Oh, but they can tell a lot about you just from that, and of course if they want to, if they can get that warrant, which hardly seems like a difficult thing these days, they can see what's inside.

At what point is enough enough, you apologists?

Will you finally have had enough when you wake up one day and find that it's all gone, that your life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness are no longer really yours?

Happy Fourth of July.