Big Brother is watching us

Welcome to this group!
From now on you are watched more closely by Big Brother (and Sister) than before, too!

I was triggered, and decided to start a group on this subject, by the newspaper article you see below.
I found it in a Dutch newspaper recently (it was published the 6th of July 2013). It says that in the US all - snail mail! - envelopes and postcards are photographed for the authorities.
In total yearly it's 16 billion (16 Dutch miljard = 16,000,000,000) pieces of mail.

On one hand it's a nice idea that also our mail art is pictured by the American authorities. We hope they'll appreciate our art!
On the other hand it makes me frown and wonder: how much time there will be between innocent 'photographing', and injust incriminating, simply because of creative mail?
For the non-US world citizens: how about your countries?

If art is never innocent ... so it is necessarily guilty? And the mail-art is a traveler... so is it doubly suspect? ;-)

Yes, an interesting envelope from Australia! (thanks a lot, Sender!).

Showing some phenomenon which is new to me: a sticker (in real it's fluorescant orange) by the Australian Post, saying 'ID Recorded'!...

Seems to be an other example of postal BB. Always good to watch 'them', investigate in return :-)

Looking for an answer to the question: 'What's this about?' I found several solutions.

According to one of these writers it's the sender who has to show his/her ID and therefore cannot send post anonymously. According to this official looking document and this one stickering is necessary for items which are heavier than 500 grams (my received mail was 64 grams).

According to some people, we don't have to worry about it, we can continue sleeping well. According to others you should be cautious and not fill out more paperwork than you have to (see Dangermouse's comment here), in other locations the sticker confuses the local post office, and others have vivid and interesting discussions about the subject.

http://www.slashgear.com/man-uses-hidden-camera-to-chronicle-a-pack...

Thanks to all of you for your contributions so far!
Note that your telephones and emails will be tapped from now on :-)

Awesome movie by Ruben van der Vleuten, thanx for sharing, Borderline Grafix!

Good to know that unknown beholders can be viewed secretly, too.
And of course for mail lovers like me it's great to be able to follow a mailed item on his/her journey.

For the ones who didn't see the video yet: see the parcel above. Can you see where the hidden camera's eye has been hidden?!?
(Picture copied without permission from and with great admiration for the maker.)

Also his short movie 'Highlights' is worth seeing (see the video at the bottom of his website).

Very interesting group, Heleen!

I don't think they scan the mail in Morocco (but I KNOW all the post office staff read my postcards...). But anyway, here you feel guilty just for sending mail...

The first time I wanted to send a parcel with books, I had to explain to the employer, his boss and their "big boss" that there were just two children books in the parcel. I offered to open the packet for them to see, but finally it wasn't necessary. Books in Morocco are terribly suspicious...

WOW! Its time more people woke up about this! Thanks for starting the awareness and Conversation! There is no such thing as privacy anywhere anymore, i have friends who have had their pictures pop up on Google earth "innocently" and other places on the net. Its not paranoia or conspiracy, simply the truth. The world we exist in is a Technocracy, not "democracy".... Keep this Going, please!

these 12 people are online at IUOMA right now.  That is how big brother already is there....!

And we know who exactly were these online people! :-)

Thank you Ruud, for sharing the Google Anaspylytics! Incredible, I think, every time when I'm considering... What on earth would these watchers want to achieve with all of it? 
'Safety', we are told. But too many data will cause too many mistakes as well.
I heard from someone who knew someone who once bought a one way flight ticket (and unhappily happened to pay cash) from Europe to the States, just because he wanted to decide by himself when and from where to travel back. Since then he apparently is on a list - which is sad for him, because he has to travel a lot to overseas to speak on symposia, and since then every time at the airport he's the dupe. Looses tons of time and gains a lot of frustration.

Welcome Neil! Thank you for sharing your thoughts. But beware, we're not alone here, be aware! :-)
Welcome Eva! Hmm, books suspected...
Thank you Borderline G. for your great pictures, beautiful artistamps.

YEs Heleen, that is how it works these days. The systems track all we do, and sometimes we must decide not to be tracked. Google is a tracking service, and when you enter their world with an ID, you are tracked and will see the results in the advertisings you get. This is the new world, I understand it, work in it, but don't like the developements.

Google has Barges off the coast of California working hard too on watching us....

Google has Barges off the coast of Maine Too now! I wonder what they are up too???!!!??

No worries, Google says "it intends to use the structures as learning spaces for people to find out about new tech." If they say so, then it is as they say. And it appears that Google embraces IUOMA, so we can go back to sleep peacefully.  :-|

NSA encryption rotors -

Interesting objects, Borderline, thanks for showing them!

I've never seen these before, even never heard of them before. Of course one question arises: how  large are these things; are they mailable? 

Heleen - these are old-school, not like the equipment they have today.  I made sure these were public domain photos before picking them off the wiki commons website from a 'NSA' search.  It would be great to mail them, but unfortunately they belong to the government!

I found an interesting book, issued in 1994, about the mail art scene in the former DDR (East Germany) during the years 1975-1990.

The book is in German only, but has many interesting pictures, and information on the art, the mail artists and of course also on the Big Brother practices which were clear there (and which still exist everywhere, be it in the western world far more hidden!?*). The letter ('Kopie') top left is an example of some state control.

The head of the newspaper article you see above bottom left, 'Briefe verschwanden - wohin ging ihr Inhalt?', means: 'Letters disappeared - to where did their content go?'

It's an excerpt of a very interesting article about the so-called 'Stelle 12', and via google I found this also interesting  article, 'Knast für eine Postkarte', which means 'Jail because of a postcard'.
(hopefully you can decipher it via an online translator if you are an interested, not-German-reading, reader :-) ).
I think it hard to believe, but these things happened (and might still happen in several places..).

*) By the way, the newspaper article you see on the cover, below, is about spionage the other way round, it says "West-German (BRD) security service controls letters from East-Germany (DDR)".

So, some historical food for thought..

Hi Heleen, A great find that book..... In those years I was in contact with lots of mail-artists in the DDR, and you can find some traces of that in the book. Got a copy for my collection too from the author.......

published in the magazione Rubberstamp Madness in the end nineties...

There is a great free-thing that you can download on Firefox called"lightbeam" that shows who is tracking you on the internet!

we are always being watched and recorded some how...

With Google analytics you can follow all activities on any website you own. So don't think you are anonymous anywhere. When they want to trace your moves they can do so. Anywhere where you are on Internet!

If you own a cell phone, you have the capability of being tracked anytime.  Beware.