US Postal Service tracking. Is weight monitored?

While browsing this sub a few weeks back, I came across a comment which went something along the lines of 'the post office snaps a picture of each piece of mail that they process' and that got me thinking...surely they must weigh each parcel/letter and attach some internal (USPS) tracking ID (even if you didn't pay for it) to monitor the progress of the letter. I assume that's what the bar codes are for.

My point, is it better to vary weights ordered so as to not have the same say, 7g, letter coming to your house? I am assuming the average weight of a typical USPS letter is less than that, and ordering something regularly might throw up a flag that could lead to you getting monitored or even CD'd. Can someone with more knowledge than me chime in?

Additionally - if this is the case, do vendors take this into account? I know we're not going to explicitly detail stealth, but since I've had that thought I can't shake the feeling that they know more than we give them credit.

Thanks!

ThrowItTheFuckAwayyt


Comments


[3 Points] None:

I don't know a nicer way to say this, but you're being very much overly paranoid about this.

Mail is not tracked unless it is requested by the sender. They scan an image of all mail and store it for five years. This exists as metadata and is indexable, not necessarily indexed.

I can't quite fathom how difficult it would be, on top of the tremendous dedication of time, money, and resources it would require to weigh all mail and look for a pattern such as "resident gets a 8g letter from Mississippi every third Wednesday." It just isn't plausible.

And yes, LE knows much more than many people give them credit for. However, there are constitutional rights that override the suspicions of a single or multiple entities. The fact is even if your scenario was possible, it does not give probable cause of anything whatsoever, period.

On a personal note -- you may want to hold off on making orders until you're more comfortable about the process. (Or perhaps switch your DOC to benzos or sedatives?) It should not at all be anxiety-inducing in the way that you seem affected. Just take a few steps back, a few deep breaths here and there, and remember that this system has been in plavce for years and is simply too large to be a stoppable force.


[1 Points] CocaineNose:

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[0 Points] Theeconomist1:

Whether they collect that data or not I don't think it matters a whole lot. If you get busted/caught, its going to be due to a very pedestrian way - bad stealth, package ripping open, compromised vendor, things like that. That's probably where you should focus your attention unless you were asking as more of an academic exercise. Even with Bitcoin they haven't gotten around to using the blockchain as a method of busting someone.

We know the government collects a shitload of metadata. Even with the photographing of every envelope, I don't think they have used that to bust anyone. Even if you were getting packages that weighed a kilo from a P. Escobar what can they do about that without additional evidence? There is no way they could get a warrant based on that alone, they have to have more. Plus, people get shit that weighs all different amounts all of the time. Sure, a lot of mail consists of a single sheet of paper but there is plenty of legit mail that has a lot of paper, less paper, or average amount of paper.

Unless you are already under investigation, I don't see that type of stuff driving an investigation to you. Sure, if you are under investigation, they'll start looking at a bunch of shit to build a case against you, but that is miles different than what you are saying - using metadata to drive predictive analytics on who may be committing a crime. Plus, just the sheer number of people doing this is enough to keep your risk pretty minimal even assuming they had the power and ability to do what you are saying.