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:: DLO: DOA ::
Monday, November 24, 2003
In 1777, the Continental Congress created a system for handling “dead letters,” pieces of mail rendered undeliverable by incomplete, improper, or even missing addresses. Employees of the Dead Letter Office were–and still are–allowed to break the sanctity of the mail by opening and reading mail only as far as needed to ascertain the proper recipient. If they are unable to make to determine either who the letter came from, or to whom it was intended, the letter is destroyed.
Section on dead letters, from the Smithsonian's list of "learn more" links covering the postal service.
“Sanctity” - interesting choice of wording. Couple this with the use of retired clergy in the DLO (for their perceived, ahem, rectitude - couldn’t risk sticky fingers with all those valuable errant goods and documents) and one begins to glean just how sacred and protected private communications used to be. I’m not filtering out the intentions of miscreants with the rose-colored glasses of nostalgic retrospection, as I’m sure thievery and snooping were commonplace amongst the more nefarious elements, but the general public perception was one of entrusting the delivery service with a Hermetic task indeed: that of disinterested and reliable delivery. After all, breaking this covenant was, and continues to be, a federal offense.
And all the Socratic method singers say:
Would we dare hold ISPs, mail providers, or workplaces to the same standard with the modern electronic counterpart? Better yet, should we? Do we not trade-off security and privacy for low transmission costs and delivery which is faster by several orders of magnitude? Have we debased ourselves through willing capitulation to efficiency, accepting lax security as a cost, or instead divested ourselves of the delusion that privacy can coexist with the wants of human nature?
Just curious.
Posted by morland @ 12:30 PM
:: Comments ::
Hmmmmm...."404 page not found" on a link for dead letters? Sheer wit!
Posted by: #47 on November 24, 2003 01:27 PM
Drat, they took it down. I re-linked to Google cache.
Posted by: morland on November 24, 2003 10:14 PM
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