In article , Davoud
wrote:

I didn't know that the (snail mail) post office retains
all from/to information.

Is that really true and verified?
(or just conjecture?)

It is verified that the USPS records and reports to security
authorities a relatively small amount of sender and receiver data.
WaPo, 27 October "In a rare public accounting of its mass surveillance
program, the United States Postal Service reported that it approved
nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its
own internal inspection unit to secretly monitor the mail of Americans
for use in criminal and national security investigations."

50,000 out of approximately 212 billion pieces of mail. That's about
2.358x10e-5%.

that's for requests.

the usps photographs *every* piece of mail. every single one. this
began after 9/11.

It is also not true that the NSA has the capability of reading every
e-mail sent in the world or listen to every phone call. SIGINT is labor
intensive; most of the people at NSA are so busy that they don't have
time to read their own e-mails.

yes they do. they may not read them now, but they are stored 'just in
case'.