Is snail mail a loophole?

While Jimmy Carter is hardly known for his sense or insights, I was surprised earlier to see him say something that made sense. He claims that he uses snail mail to avoid NSA surveillance:

Washington (AFP) – Former US president Jimmy Carter has admitted he uses snail mail to evade monitoring by the National Security Agency and that he feels such surveillance methods have been abused.

“When I want to communicate with a foreign leader privately, I type or write a letter myself, put it in the post office, and mail it,” Carter said with a laugh, as he was questioned on the matter on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program.

“I have felt that my own communications are probably monitored,” he said on the Sunday show.

No kidding! Of course his communications are monitored.

But I think he may have a point about snail mail. Confidential communications are probably best handled within the confines of a plain old envelope. The “technology” (if it is that) is so old that messing with it requires old-fashioned methods (such as tampering with the flaps and seals). And the search warrant requirement under the Constitution (“the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects”) clearly contemplated searches of ordinary mail. So, even if the government bastards claim (as they do) that cell phones may be placed under surveillance with the latest “Stingray” gadgetry, they are up against centuries of legal precedent where it comes to ordinary mail.

It is shocking to think of snail mail as a “loophole,” but that’s life in the unconstitutional police state that dares to call itself the United States of America.