Top PRC Lawyer Has Bright Ideas for New Postal Revenues
By Tim Negris
Have you ever been really broke? What did you consider doing to raise some cash? Rifle the kids’ college fund? Sell your only car? Take in dodgy lodgers? Dire desperation has a way of blurring the line between creative and crazy, and, in the blooming USPS budget crisis, one particular postal apparatchik may have poked a toe or two pretty far past where that line should be. Or, maybe he just has too much time on his hands. That can make you nutty, too.
But, you be the judge. What do you think about tricking out every mail truck with a dazzling array of data-gathering devices and turning them into a mobile “listening posts” in the wars on terror and drugs? How about adding cameras to find stolen cars and traffic jams? Readers for utility meters? Sensors for gas leaks and potholes? Are you good with all that? Well, (cue Ozzy Osbourne’s song, “Crazy Train”) how about devices for the “Periodic Dispersal of Insect Pheromones from Postal Vehicles [to] Provide Pest-Control Benefits”? Still good?
Michael Ravnitzky is chief legal counsel to US Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) chairwoman Ruth Goldway and those are just a few of his many ideas for how US Postal Service delivery vehicles might be used to make some extra money. Ravnitzky is quick to point out that they are his own ideas and not endorsed by the USPRC. But his past influence on Goldway’s official thinking is well known, and links to the elaborate documentation of his ideas on this topic can be found on the PRC’s web site.
In the magnum opus “Offering Sensor Network Services Using the Postal Delivery Vehicle Fleet” comprising a detailed research paper (http://tinyurl.com/2dtq5ql) and snazzy presentation (http://tinyurl.com/26pr2hb), Mr. Ravnitzky provides an exhaustive catalog of notions that’s nothing short of breathtaking. One table enumerates no fewer than a dozen different “data collection and transmission modes.” Another presents a matrix of about two-dozen sensing applications running the gamut from detecting marijuana farms and meth labs to mapping electrical and magnetic fields.
For each application in the matrix it lays out “Likely Customers,” “Revenue Potential,” “Technical Feasibility” and whether or not it has “Possible Privacy Implications” or “Conflicts with Postal Mission.” With only two exceptions, prospective customers are all non-commercial entities, including every manner of federal, state and local government agency, plus scientific and academic institutions, and gas, water and electric utilities.
Not very surprisingly, the only commercial target customers on the list are Google and telecom companies. Somewhat more surprisingly, though, only a handful of the applications are seen as “probably” or “possibly” conflicting with the Postal Service’s mission. They are license plate scanning, methamphetamine lab, marijuana farms/drug depots, illicit explosives production, photo imaging, and pest control.
In Mr. Ravnitzky’s universe, and maybe that of the PRC, weather sensing, pothole mapping and detecting everything from gas and radiation leaks to the strength of TV, radio, and cell signals, plus a dozen more activities, having nothing to do with mail deliver, all somehow fit with the USPS’ mission.
Letter carriers had a different view. As one of them put it, “I can hear the gun fire already from drug dealers and gangs as they think we are spying on them. And just imagine, the carriers have no defense except a small can of dog sprayto which another added ominously, “My dog spray is a .38.” Nice.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.