Thanks to coverage on NBC's Today Show and other broadcasting sources, some Americans may believe that postal employees are irresponsibly throwing deliverable mails in dumpsters to ease their route delivery work. In response to the adverse publicity, the Postmaster General today revealed that the recently, and widely, released surveillance video instead reveals a bold new Postal Service initiative.
JIMSMIND, NC (August 8, 2014)--USPS today confirmed its implementation of "Operation Junk Mail Saver."
Postmaster General Frank Donahoe announced today the inaugural test of its latest customer courtesy initiative, "Operation Junk Mail Saver." "Ladies and gentlemen, we at your US Postal Service know too well the inconvenience and clutter that results from receiving dozens of advertiser mailings and circulars each week. We have heard your cry and have developed a unique program that combines the maintenance of a high value income stream to your Postal Service while alleviating the taxing tasks associated with reviewing and disposing of unwanted mail."
Although the initiative was not intended to be made public until studies were complete, Donahoe explained his decision to come forward with word of the program when a local news reporter broadcast surveillance video showing one test of the program being conducted by an Austin, Texas participating Post Office:
"I'm sure that, not knowing that this disposition of mailings was intentionally done as part of this customer courtesy initiative, many would assume that the news reporter's video showed a criminal act of postal negligence. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We have highly developed algorithms that have been developed to calculate the likelihood of any individual piece of mail actually being of interest to a Postal Service consumer.
The Postmaster General confirmed that Operation Junk Mail Saver was part of a larger package of initiatives designed to improve service efficiency and convenience. "As you are aware, another aspect of the program in which the Operation Junk Mail Saver was the initiative to spare postal customers the difficult and tedious task of opening, evaluating, and responding to, package deliveries." In that instance, Operation What Granny Don't Know Won't Hurt Her had come to light last month during initial testing of that program. In Operation What Granny Don't Know, the Postal Service disposes of shipped packages that are anticipated not to be of use, or meaningful to, our customer base.
"This isn't the Postal Service of dear old Ben Franklin, friends. We have employed the latest technologies and consumer sciences to preserve this Service as a method of bringing unwanted mailing to the homes of over 300 million Americans. This initiative allows us to continue to sell bulk mailing opportunities to unsuspecting merchants and small businessmen, while sparing consumers of the ugly task that actual delivery of unwanted mailing would impose on them.
"As we roll this initiative out across the country, it is our hope, eventually, simply to take money from America's small businesses and merchants while providing absolutely no value in return at all."
Donahoe did not respond to a reporter's question as to whether that goal -- taking money and not providing anything in return -- was, in fact, the definition of taxation.
Donahoe did not respond to a reporter's question as to whether that goal -- taking money and not providing anything in return -- was, in fact, the definition of taxation.
