Silk Road forums
Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: jagfug on June 08, 2013, 02:59 am
-
Though this article is about the "latest" suspect in the "alleged" Ricin mailing case.
An amazing revelation is made. Here's the link to the article but I'll copy and paste the text to save you the time.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/woman-arrested-for-obama-bloomberg-ricin-letters-687435
JUNE 7--A high-tech computer system that captures images of “every mail piece that is processed” by the United State Postal Service was critical in helping federal agents track the Texas woman arrested today for allegedly sending ricin-tainted letters to President Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
In a U.S. District Court complaint filed today against Shannon Guess Richardson, an FBI agent details how investigators traced the ricin letters back to New Boston, Texas, where the 35-year-old Richardson (seen below) lives with her husband.
The Bloomberg letter was opened at a municipal mail center in Manhattan on May 24, while the letter to Obama was intercepted May 30 at an off-site White House mail facility. A third ricin letter--sent to an anti-gun group funded by Bloomberg--was received at a Washington, D.C. office on May 26.
According to FBI Agent James Spiropoulos, investigators accessed a Postal Service computer system that “incorporates a Mail Isolation Control and Tracking (MICT) program which photographs and captures an image of every mail piece that is processed.” Agents were able to obtain front and back images of about 20 mail pieces that had been processed “immediately before the mail piece addressed to Mayor Bloomberg.”
A review of that mail revealed that each piece carried return addresses listing zip codes in the New Boston area.
A similar analysis of 40 mail pieces that were processed “immediately before and after the mail piece addressed to President Obama” showed that several of those letters listed addresses in two Texas cities near New Boston.
According to the felony complaint against Richardson, she confessed yesterday to “mailing the three letters--knowing that they contained ricin.” She repeated earlier claims that her husband Nathaniel, who has not been charged, was involved with the Obama and Bloomberg mailings. Richardson alleged that her spouse “typed the letters and made her print and mail them,” reported Agent Spiropoulos.
If convicted of the ricin mailings, Richardson, an aspiring actress, faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and fine of up to $250,000.
-
Systems like this probably explain why when there is a bulk interception, frequently other bulk items from the same vendor are intercepted as well. The lesson to learn from this is that vendors should space out their shipments as much as possible, rather than dumping all of them in a single outgoing box.
-
Sounds like we need more packages sent out from all over the place. Maybe sending bunk packages sometimes to throw 'em off.
-
It is good to pay attention to how investigators respond to an attack.
In this case they revealed that they photograph all the mail, in the Boston bombing investigation they revealed that they record every phone calls.
Hard drives are getting really cheap and the philosophy of "record everything" is becoming standard.
-
First off.. I am NOT buying the ricin story. That just screams manufactured fearmongering.
Second, lets just say that they do in fact snap pics of our mail.. If they are JUST putting this out on MMM now, then it's been going on for many years already.
-
First off.. I am NOT buying the ricin story. That just screams manufactured fearmongering.
Second, lets just say that they do in fact snap pics of our mail.. If they are JUST putting this out on MMM now, then it's been going on for many years already.
At least the fact that they record the addresses on all mail has been known for years. They use OCR to record all shipping and return addresses.
-
Good post OP.
Modzi
-
IDK man, back in the reckless days, before SR or even common knowledge of ordering via internet, we used to ship each other stuff w/ crazy ass names and return addresses like, 420 Back Pack Lane, and nothing ever got intercepted then. Thank goodness nothing ever happened 'cause that was some reckless as times. I remember a friend sending a friend some hash and she had for some crazy ass reason damaged the outside of the box. When said friend went to pick up the package at the post office he said the whole place was stank. He still picked it up and left the place with no problems.
-
The term photograph is used incorrectly as that is not the case. The post office has been moving massive amounts of mail for many years with the assistance of OCR (optical character recognition) programs. The "photograph" is a computers attempt to read the address and sort the mail. They have been standard in the industry for many years. It is not surprising the the PO keeps a database of the mail it passes through the system as either a troubleshooting or to monitor performance of the system. It is for this reason that printed mailing labels are a must for stealth. A properly recognized label would be routed by machines and never touch human hands until it is delivered.