FOX31 DenverMysterious spy cameras collecting data at post offices

DENVER — Within an hour of FOX31 Denver discovering a hidden camera, which was positioned to capture and record the license plates and facial features of customers leaving a Golden Post Office, the device was ripped from the ground and disappeared.

FOX31 Denver investigative reporter Chris Halsne confirmed the hidden camera and recorder is owned and operated by the United State Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement branch of the U.S. Postal Service.

Cover Camera Post Office

The recording device appeared to be tripped by any vehicle leaving the property on Johnson Road, but the lens was not positioned to capture images of the front door, employee entrance, or loading dock areas of the post office.

An alert customer first noticed the data collection device, hidden inside a utilities box, around Thanksgiving 2014. It stayed in place, taking photos through the busy Christmas holidays and into mid-January.

Managers inside the post office tell FOX31 Denver they were unaware customers were being photographed outside and that the surveillance was not part of the building’s security monitoring.

A spokesperson for Postal Inspection Service declined to address the specific reason for the domestic surveillance, but admitted the agency had a “number of cameras at their disposal.”

Pamela Durkee, a Federal Law Enforcement Agent and U.S. Postal Inspector, sent an email to FOX31 Denver explaining, “(We) do not engage in routine or random surveillance. Cameras are deployed for law enforcement or security purposes, which may include the security of our facilities, the safety of our customers and employees, or for criminal investigations. Employees of the Postal Inspection Service are sworn to uphold the United States Constitution, including protecting the privacy of the American public.”

FOX31 Denver reviewed criminal search warrants on file in city, county, and federal court but none appeared to be related to the Golden post office camera set-up. The Postal Inspection Service would not confirm or deny that the camera was collecting data for a specific case or cases.

Cover Camera Post Office2

Lee Tien, an attorney for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, says more and more federal agencies are getting away with conducting surveillance and collecting personal data of citizens without a warrant signed by a judge.

“Part of being a responsible, constitutional government is explaining why it is doing surveillance on its citizens,” Lee told Halsne. “The government should not be collecting this kind of sensitive information. And it is sensitive! It`s about your relationships, your associations with other people, which can be friendship or political or religious. The idea that we give up that privacy simply because we use the U.S. mail is, I think, a silly idea.”

Lee says EFF has been fighting for greater government transparency when it comes to the way agencies like the FBI and the National Security Agency have been vacuuming up massive amounts of cell phone, email and license plates data and storing them in a central computer system.

Lee says, “The idea that they would be able to keep that information forever and search through it whenever they want to – that seems very, very wrong to us because it means you’ll be able to accumulate over time a lot of innocent peoples’ information and then use it in the kinds of ways that would not be overseen by any kind of court or independent third party.”

[Read more at kdvr.com]

It is our observation that the news media, unfortunately, often try to blow a story out of proportion, making something sound more sinister than it really is. The reporters at Fox31 Denver made claims that the government was storing license plate numbers and facial recognition of everyone leaving this facility.  The same could be said about every office, store, or other facility that has video recording in place for security operations. The reality is they actually had no information about who installed this camera or why. They only guessed at possible reasons.  If there had been any type of security incident at the facility, from bomb threats, to car jacking, to personal attacks, then the public would be wanting video surveillance at the facility.  The fact that the unit was removed shortly after they made inquiries would seem to indicate that there was some type of covert surveillance going on, but I doubt that it was a ploy to just collect data on private citizens. 

Take away: the public, and the news media, do get riled up when video cameras are discovered. If you use covert cameras at your facilities, be sure they are in areas where you have legal right to record video.  If you happen to come across covert cameras that are unauthorized, be sure to document them and handle it carefully, as the discovery could reach news outlets faster than you could blink a shutter.

It is worth noting that a camera such as this one, if installed without authorization,  could possibly go undetected for quite a while. This particular unit was designed to look like a cable tv or telephone utility box. Since it had no wires going to it, it presumably had it’s own battery power inside the housing. Be aware of any odd utility boxes appearing on your property as well.