From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: A Security Question
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 18:24:29 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

----- Original Message -----
From: "N Lynch" <sfbookfan at yahoo.com>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2003 2:55 PM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: A Security Question

> --- ronkean at juno.com wrote:
> (Cut)
> > colonial America mail was mostly handled by private
> > means.  Private mail
> > service was thought to be unreliable, and people
> > worried that their mail
> > could be opened and read while in transit.  So the
> > Post Office was
> > established as a government monopoly for handling
> > regular mail.  With a
> > government agency handling mail, private snooping
> > was less of a worry,
> > but Thomas Jefferson, even when he was President,
> > would sometimes
> > encipher letters sent via the Post Office, just as
> > some people today
> > encipher their email using PGP.
> >
> > Ron Kean
>
> Since the Post Office hasn't been part of the federal
> government for a number of years now, is private
> snooping more of a problem?

No, because it actually never left the Feds -- it's a federal corporation,
kinda like Amtrak.  And it still enjoys a monopy on the mail that goes in
your mailbox -- it is *illegal* for anyone other than your mailman to put
mail in your mailbox.

--Ted White