Ran across this interesting NYT article from 1908. After President McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist, Teddy Roosevelt demanded action against anarchist publications being sent through the postal service. And yet he clarifies this does not apply to normal mail - "sealed documents" - explaining the government is "expressly forbidden to ascertain, what the purport of such messages may be":

The greater portion of his opinion is devoted to the question of whether, in the absence of any legislation by Congress, the Postmaster General has the right to exclude such publications. On this point his conclusion is: "The Postmaster General will be justified in excluding from the mails any issue of any periodical, otherwise entitled to the privilege of second-class mail matter, which shall contain any article constituting seditious libel, and counseling such crimes as murder, arson, riot, and treason." The Attorney General makes a clear distinction with reference to the authority of postal officials over sealed and unsealed mail matter. In conveying letters and newspapers to persons to whom they are directed, he says the United States "undertakes the business of a messenger." He adds: "In so far as it conveys sealed documents, its agents not only are not bound to know, but are expressly forbidden to ascertain, what the purport of such messages may be; therefore, neither the Government nor its officers can be held either legally or morally responsible for the nature of the letters to which they thus, in intentional ignorance, afford transportation."

https://www.nytimes.com/1908/04/10/archives/roosevelt-demand...

Fast forward to today, and we're somehow arguing that end-to-end encrypted messages (our modern sealed letters) should be scan-able "just in case."

Unfortunately the postscript to liberty being writ clear like this is quite dark. Merely a decadeatter Albert Sidney Burleson became postmaster general.

> "Has been called the worst postmaster general in American history, but that is unfair; he introduced parcel post and airmail and improved rural service. It is fair to say however that he may have been the worst human being ever to serve as postmaster general -G. J. Meyer

This guy shows up time and time again in Hochshild's amazing American Midnight, to keep careful watch over & to ban various inconvenient political, civil, labor, racial, and anti-war folks from being able to send their letters. Empowered via the 1917 Espionage Act, by a Congress where many members quite loudly vociferously argued for it for letting the government shut down the left's ability to express problems of the world and a desire for a better world. Then as now (at least at POTUS level), to wish for a better state was perceived by the right as hating America, as a form of treason, as propaganda.

Burleson solicited post offices everywhere to send him anything suspicious. He also was a frequent at Wilson's Whitehouse, and would distribute postmaster positions in return for voting certain ways on bills. But in general, banning publications is the main of his legacy as a rotten evil fucker. He banned 15 publications in the first month after passage of the Espionage Act, largely for anti-war sentiment, and sent a huge huge huge chill through what journalism was permitted.

The foes of democracy are legion and oh have mercy, the snowflakes are back in power again. At war with and trying to run out of business a press that reports after them.

Apologies for my shitty post. I'm not worthy. Please please please read American Midnight. It's insane what this country was up to 100 years ago, how lopsided & vulgarly self-dealing & unjust the power was arrayed against the left & speech & progress & peace. Hopefully this trip around to the darker side of mankind is much shorter and much less a cooption of the state for political and economic exploitation.