Viet-Justice

With all the talk of NSA snooping going on, it was only a matter of time before old tech snooping came into fashion. Professor Goodman is a little angry that his correspondance with a friend in the Phillipines is being spied upon.

“All mail originating outside the United States Customs territory that is to be delivered inside the U.S. Customs territory is subject to Customs examination,” says the CBP Web site. That includes personal correspondence. “All mail means ‘all mail,’” said John Mohan, a CBP spokesman, emphasizing the point.

This should be a lesson to anyone who has friends, family, or pen-pals outside the US should now understand that your letters and packages may be cavity searched by US Customs. Some people may not have access to email where they live of course but I think nothing really beats using PGP or S/MIME to encrypt your email. I wonder how Customs would react to opening a letter and finding PGP encrypted text on paper.