Policy for foreign mail creates new fears
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Intercepted_Mail.html
LAWRENCE, Kan. -- As an Army officer working in Manila during World
War II, Grant Goodman sliced open soldiers' mail, looking for passages
that could tip off an enemy to troop positions.
He never thought the tables would turn - much less in modern-day America.
But when a longtime friend of the 81-year-old retired history professor
sent a letter from the Philippines last month it had been tampered with
before it arrived at his retirement complex. The red-and-blue-bordered
air mail envelope was cut open and resealed with the broad green tape of
the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
"This is totally shocking," he said. "This is an unexpected invasion of privacy."
Maybe so, but federal officials say it's nothing new.
Long-standing policy makes foreign mail destined for the U.S.
subject to examination, though agents would not actually read
a letter without a warrant or permission from the sender or
recipient, CBP spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino said.
The screening is meant to enforce duties on imported goods and
weed out illegal food, plants and drugs, among other things.
"Our job is to keep bad things from coming into the country,"
Trevino said.
That sometimes means opening mail that is completely harmless.
Jenifer Winter, a 36-year-old communications professor at the
University of Hawaii, learned that lesson, too. She couldn't
wait to receive the Anna Kournikova anti-bounce bra she ordered
from Britain, but it didn't arrive for weeks after the company
said it would.
When it did, the white plastic envelope carrying it had been
cut open. It was closed up with green tape.
"I felt kind of violated," Winter said. "The fact that somebody
intercepted the bra and kept it for weeks - it was both threatening
and funny at the same time."
Some wonder whether foreign mail is being screened more frequently,
particularly as questions are raised about the government's secret
eavesdropping program and other anti-terrorism measures that civil
libertarians say infringe on privacy.
"We're concerned because it's part of a general trend in this administration,"
said Caroline Fredrickson, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's
legislative office in Washington. "Far as we know, it's possible that they are
like many other Americans - being spied on."
Agents screening foreign mail have seized all types of illegal and
harmful items. In the last several weeks, Trevino said intercepted
parcels have included bloody chicken feathers from countries with
avian flu and hundreds of illegally imported packages of Tamiflu
that actually were phony doses containing Vitamin C.
Still, Goodman can't help wondering why his mail was chosen to be checked -
even if, as Trevino said, it wasn't read.
"Are they trying to frighten people?" he asked.
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Nothing's too sacred for the prying eyes of the Bush Gestapo.
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