What Happened To Mail Privacy? Big Brother Knows: You've Got Mail! »

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Personal take on mail privacy by novelist, Valerie Block. She may be "particular" about who handles her mail but she's also addressing larger issues. Like gov't scanning of mailboxes,etc. "In spite of what it has turned into (Pottery Barn Laundry Hamper!) the mail is important.The privacy of the mail is important.My husband grew up i

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SunnyDays
April 30, 2008, 4:59 p.m.
If thats the case, why dont we be the one to pick up our mails if we are afraid our privacy is being invaded

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engineer
April 30, 2008, 6:17 p.m.
Who says this is a democracy anymore?

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  CactusAnnie
  April 30, 2008, 11:54 p.m.
  More like a republic....
  
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daducha
May 1, 2008, 1:42 a.m.
Everybody's minding everybody's business...that's our generation.

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y_soitenly
May 1, 2008, 4:38 a.m.
She should've had the guy arrested for tampering with her mail.

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chevydog
May 1, 2008, 11:04 a.m.
Does seem a bit over the top to me. Yes, it is a federal offense to take someone else's mail; also to use mailboxes for anything but mail, e.g. unposted election flyers. But how often is it ever invoked?
Most of us lives our lives quite happily secure in the knowledge that nobody gives a d**m about our mail. My neighbors sometime get some of mine; I sometime get some of theirs. We each put the stuff in the right mailbox and go on living.
The lady is perfectly free to be as paranoid as she would like about her mail. But it would seem a dictate of civility not to involve other people in her paranoia.

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  Dionys
  May 1, 2008, 12:40 p.m.
  "The lady is perfectly free to be as paranoid as she would like about her mail. But it would seem a dictate of civility not to involve other people in her paranoia. "
  Seems like more of a dictate of civilization to not have to worry about the government violating basic constitutional rights, not to mention established law, by searching anyone's mail, email, communications, et cetera without a warrant to do so.
  
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    chevydog
    May 1, 2008, 2:29 p.m.
    As I understood the article, it wasn't that anyone was searching her mail. That would be wrong, as would the other stuff you mention. She was worried almost sick that someone might. Paranoia is not too strong a word for that.
    Don't know about where you are, but in our area the Post Office requires that mailboxes be on a post on the street. All mail is delivered by mini-truck. There is no walk up to the door service--period, end of discussion as far as they are concerned.
    
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      Dionys
      May 1, 2008, 2:42 p.m.
      We get walk-up-to-the-door mail delivery. Right into our hands if we're home. You get to know your mail carrier. It's kind of nice. It's a mid-sized city (about the size of Seattle), not a small town.
      
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        chevydog
        May 1, 2008, 4:45 p.m.
        I'm now in a suburban area of a city; but it's only recently changed from rural. Before that I lived in truly rural small towns. In those, one got either door delivery or one picked up mail at the Post Office from a lock box. The latter was what I did. So for 20 years I was PO Box xxx, Small town, MO. The Post Office was the center of social life.
        Having never lived in a town larger than 10,000 people--most below 2,000--I'd regard Seattle as very big.
        
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walden3
May 1, 2008, 11:43 a.m.
It won't be long, maybe a few generations, before our kids, kids, kids are all implanted with a chip at birth.

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oftenright33
May 1, 2008, 12:04 p.m.
I get what she's saying but I don't care if somebody hands me my mail especially if he's trying to be nice. One thing to be concerned about intrusion into our privacy, another to be overly rigid about it

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mesodude
May 1, 2008, 5:10 p.m.
Now that I'm doing most of my banking and correspondence electronically, I just wish I could figure out how to stop getting junk mail. I do all the right things (not signing up for every store "discount" card, etc) but still it pours in. I went to the post office recently to ask about getting on a do not mail list of some sort and the manager looked at me as if I was from another planet. How much does sending this crap non stop cost us in time, fossil fuels and productivity? This would seem like an obvious way to conserve--but, as with spam and telemarketing, I guess we must let nothing interfere with the almighty flow of commerce. ;-(

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