--- Declan: As far as I know, no one in this thread has yet addressed the implications of the recently released report by the President's Commission on the United States Postal Service, a panel President Bush appointed last year to advise him on postal policy issues (http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/domestic-finance/usps/). In its Final Report the Commission urges the Postal Service to address the inconveniences its customers face when visiting a post office by massively decentralizing its retail operations. I believe these recommendations, if followed, would tend to mitigate the privacy concerns expressed by some Politech contributors. The report recommends, among other things, "expanding and accelerating efforts already underway at the Postal Service to bring a wider array of services to customers in convenient locations throughout their community -- from grocery stores, to pharmacies, to cash machines, and even into homes and businesses via a more robust and user friendly Postal Service website." The point of this "revolution in retail access" would be to permit postal customers "to avoid the greatest inconvenience of a post office -- having to make a special trip there." As more and more USPS customers buy their stamps from anonymous kiosks located outside of traditional post offices, the likelihood that the Postal Service would be able associate personal data with individual bar code numbers stored in a data base -- even if it wanted to -- seems increasingly remote. Will the Postal Service follow the broad thrust of the Commission's recommendations? I think it will, for reasons of financial necessity if nothing else. The USPS is facing a progressive loss of its First Class letter mail volume, which traditionally has been a key revenue stream. (Think what the advent of cheap long-distance telephony, fax, email, and electronic bill payment and presentment have meant for the USPS's business.) They know that if they want to survive and thrive in the 21st century, they will have to do everything possible to reduce the cost its customers face for using postal services (where "cost" is understood to encompass not only money prices but time and inconvenience as well). Sincerely, (Declan: Please expunge my name before posting this.) _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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