During a briefing, Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale told the Oversight Committee about the USPS’s Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP), which monitored American social media accounts.
During a briefing on Thursday, Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale told the Oversight Committee about the USPS's Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP), which monitored American social media accounts.
This has recently been discovered by Yahoo News and published all over the media (TPM itself has already run an Apr. 21 article on the subject), but on Thursday the USPS itself admitted it. Many, however, felt that the briefing was too short, and especially too short on essential information.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said, "The Chief Postal Inspector was wildly unprepared for this briefing," after Barksdale couldn't even provide basic information, like the date iCOP started, according to the Daily Mail.
"Analysts with the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) monitored significant activity regarding planned protests occurring internationally and domestically on March 20, 2021," stated Barksdale, referring to the World Wide Rally for Freedom, held on that date, in which people demonstrated against often draconian lockdowns.
This is not the first such controversy involving gross and severe USPS overreach. Project Veritas has also exposed them back in Nov. 2020 for alleged mail fraud, for example.
As of the date of this writing, the iCOP program has not led to any arrests or other significant actions of that nature.
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