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The postal service is America’s original all-access speech platform. Long may it thrive. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/08/18/cutting-back-us-postal-service-would-hurt-lifebood-democracy/
It would be really fun to research and write about the postal service as a model of platform regulation. I even have some notes on point. But I’ll probably never get around to it, and have not systematically researched. So here are a few thoughts / some free association. 2/
There’s con law about when and how the govt can make the USPS exclude content. In Lamont, the S Ct struck down a law requiring it to block foreign propaganda mailings by default. Recipients could then opt IN to receive the mail, putting their name on a govt list to do so. 3/
This article on the Lamont case is great. It notes that the USPS needed 40 employees to filter the mail this way, and the postmaster general said he worried that the program hurt speech and information access rights. 4/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2015/05/29/fifty-years-ago-a-philosophy-professor-won-a-landmark-free-speech-case-at-the-supreme-court/#561652c02c5d
Manual Enterprises, Inc. v. Day, 370 U.S. 478 (1962), a case that some might think is about the boring question of whether mid-century gay beefcake mags were obscene, is also about the more exciting issue of the post office’s power to restrict content in the mail! 5/
Rowan v. Post Office, in 1970, upheld a rule letting recipients require senders to stop sending them unwanted material. Here’s Justia’s summary. 6/
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/397/728/
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/397/728/
The postal service is a classic common carrier, but also govt historically has spent $$ to subsidize certain content, like news. People who think about infrastructure and edge provider regulation might find interesting things there. @blakereid @AnnemarieBridy @haroldfeld 7/
There’s got to be a joke to be made (or even a serious point) about the postal service and packet switching. Like, did the Pony Express involve packet switching in some sense? 8/
The association's getting freer, here, folks. 9/
If I ever did write a postal platforms piece, I’d definitely re-read The Crying of Lot 49 to refresh my memory about paranoid alternate postal service theories of history. 10/
Finally, everyone should read this amazing Twitter thread about the Sears catalogue (delivered by the USPS) bringing fair commercial offerings to southern Black customers, disrupting the gatekeeper power of racist local shopkeepers. 11/ https://twitter.com/louishyman/status/1051872178415828993
Update! @randypicker shared his course slides for the day he teaches on the USPO and telegraph networks. Super interesting stuff here. 12/ https://twitter.com/randypicker/status/1295778643738865664
Also, I keep meaning to read this @EthanZ piece--it seems relevant to thinking about the post office as a model for platform regulation. (I'm pretty pessimistic about govt-produced tech, but a public option seems important as a theoretical matter...) 13/ https://knightcolumbia.org/content/the-case-for-digital-public-infrastructure
Also I always get that band called The Postal Service mixed up with that band called Interpol, for obvious reasons. 14/
