Securing the citizens

More homeland surveillance. Grant Goodman, an 81-year-old retired University of Kansas history professor has engaged in a 50 year correspondence with another professor in the Philippines for 50 years. He recently received a letter from her that had been opened and presumably read by Homeland Security. They make no secret about it. It's their "right" under this seige of terrorism we're under and all foreign mail is up for scrutiny.

“This process isn’t something we’re trying to hide,” Mohan said, noting the wording on the agency’s Web site. “We’ve had this authority since before the Department of Homeland Security was created,” Mohan said.

However, Mohan declined to outline what criteria are used to determine when a piece of personal correspondence should be opened, but said, “obviously it’s a security-related criteria.”

Mohan also declined to say how often or in what volume CBP might be opening mail. “All I can really say is that Customs and Border Protection does undertake [opening mail] when it is determined to be necessary,” he said.

More secret rules for surveillance, another little chip at our privacy. And one might think the criteria for opening the mail is set pretty darn low if the private mail of long time elderly correspondents is of such interest to homeland security. You have to wonder whose security they're protecting -- ours or theirs?
[hat tip Bill C.]