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I’m worried.  I’m very, very worried.  I’m worried for two huge reasons.  First, I’m going to have to agree with Democrat Dennis Kucinich about something.  Second, and almost as troubling, I believe the U.S. Postal Service has been set up to take a fall.  Someone wants it dead.  This is a huge problem.  First, though, I have to give some props here:  I wouldn’t know about this issue if it were not for John C. Dvorak and Adam Curry on the No Agenda podcast.  John nailed this and he deserves the credit for scaring the patootie out of me.

Before I tell you why I’m so scared, let’s take a short trip down history’s lane.

Article I, section 8, clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution empowers Congress “To establish post offices and post roads”.  Congress did this by passing the Postal Service Act of 1792, which created the Post Office Department.  To protect the mail, the Postal Inspection Service was established.  It is made up of sworn federal law enforcement officers who carry firearms, make arrests and serve federal search warrants and subpoenas.  It is a federal crime to use the U.S. Postal Service mail to facilitate fraud against consumers, businesses and government.  This includes mail fraud, bank fraud, identity theft, credit card fraud, wire fraud and internet/computer fraud.

This past week, the Postal Service was set up to default on a $5.5 billion payment to the treasury to pre-pay their retirement benefits fund.  I can hear you yelling at your monitor, “Hey, what do you mean ‘set-up’?  They should pay for that, right?  I mean, we’re talking about retirement benefits, right?”  Um… well… here’s the beef:  Congress mandated in law back in 2006 that the Postal Service pre-pay their benefits 75 YEARS in advance.  That’s not a typo.  No other company, department, group or organization in the United States has this mandate.  As bad as that is, Congress has gone even further.  To keep them from being able to stay afloat, they made it illegal for the Postal Service to set up retail outlets (where they might be able to be a bit profitable), and they also barred it from charging the full cost of providing the service it is required by Congress to deliver.  To complete the jump to ludicrous speed, Congress requires that the Postal Service break even, but they can’t break even since Congress won’t let them.  And remember:  that’s before you even get to this idiotic pre-funding mandate!

So what happens if the inevitable happens and Congress decides that “To establish post offices…”, they will do away with the Postal Service give that work to a private company like FedEx or UPS?  Normally, I’m a big fan of privatization – it falls clearly within my libertarian-esq thinking.  In this case, though, once again I have to bow to the founder’s wisdom.  For one thing, I would bet money that we would get a lot less mail.  Have you sent anything via UPS or FedEx lately?  Notice how much it costs?  If you hate paying 45 cents for a letter, you’re gonna go absolutely ape-hanging crazy over the Fedex Express Saver rate of $37.52 for a 1.6 ounce letter (which was the cheapest rate I found on FedEx.com for a package from Detroit to my mom’s house outside Atlanta)!

But believe it or not, there is a much bigger problem.  Mail privacy and fraud.  The US Postal Service is pretty much the last bastion of privacy we have.  Cell phones, computers, email, Twitter, Facebook – all of these are ultimately compromised and are not protected anywhere in our Constitution.  Private mail carriers do not have to abide by mail fraud laws and Postal Inspection laws.  Let me set it up for you this way:  If I send you a letter via the postal system I can anticipate that unless the Postal Service has cause to believe that my mail is violating law or hazardous in some way, they cannot open it.  They cannot read it.  They must, by law, make every possible attempt to deliver that letter intact, unread and in a reasonable timeframe.  In addition to the laws that the Postal Service must follow, there are laws that you and I must follow.  If my bank sends me a letter and intentionally lies in the letter in an attempt to defraud me, whether they are breaking any other laws, they are absolutely committing mail fraud.  If someone sends you an invoice and overcharges you on that invoice with the intent to defraud you, that is mail fraud.  This is one of the things that makes the mail a ‘trusted’ source.  Most businesses do not want to be shut down for mail fraud.

Now what happens if all of those protections go away?  If the U.S. Postal Service was shut down and the work was outsourced to a private company, as it stands today those laws would no longer apply.  For the black-helicopter lovers amongst us, that means that not only can the government read your email, but now every letter and package can be opened.  Sure, we all have a right under the 4^th amendment to protection from unreasonable search and seizure, but lately that’s been pretty much wiped off the face of the map by the National Defense Authorization Act, the Patriot Act and other so-called protections.  Don’t believe me?  Been through an airport lately?  Were you ever stopped by a VIPR team?  Do a Google search for Stop-and-Frisk.

What about your bank or your employer or anyone else you would receive correspondence from, including advertisements and sales pitches?  The protections of the U.S. Mail do not exist if the mail arrived via a non-U.S. Postal Service carrier. As an aside, you should keep this in mind the next time you get a FedEx, UPS or other non-USPS package or letter:  The contents do not fall under postal regulations.  If your bank normally sends you letters for something, then one day you get a FedEx envelope with a letter in it, you may want to ask yourself why.  Is it possible it could be to avoid mail-fraud issues?  Probably not, but it bears considering.

Am I exaggerating the issue?  No.  Here’s where the other frightening bit comes in:  Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) made it clear on the floor of the House of Representatives what is at stake. He believes that Congress is actually de-establishing the Post Office.  Check out this article on Democracy Now.

The bottom line here is that not only is a private mail service a bad idea financially for all of us, but it erodes even more of our constitutional protections.  What makes this even more abhorrent is that it is being manufactured and directed by our elected leaders in contravention of the U.S. Constitution.  We the people need to stop this now.  Congress needs to change the law to allow the USPS to fund its retirement and benefits funds as everyone else does and it needs to change the laws so that the USPS can at least break even.  Drop these idiotic and destructive requirements.  If we don’t get this fixed soon, we will lose the last pseudo-secure option we have for communication.