Letter: Postal Service needs changes

Thursday, Nov. 1, 2001 | 8:44 a.m.

It is incomprehensible that the U.S. insists on fighting terrorism by maintaining an inflexibility to change.

Our irrational insistence on maintaining the status quo negates a major aspect of our country that made it great -- the ability to quickly adapt to constantly changing variables outside our control -- a willingness to experiment.

An excellent example of our crippling rigidness is our complete failure to temporarily modify our mail system to counter its use for disseminating biological agents. The intelligence community has made little progress in locating the responsible terrorist(s) because the U.S. Postal Service and the government at large continue to direct their energies to defensive measures.

Obvious offensive actions can be taken to greatly increase the chances of either stopping further use of the mail by terrorists or our ability to locate the perpetrators. Two obvious measures to implement are: A) Suspend the use of ALL drop-off mailboxes nationwide and; B) require all letters picked up at private mailboxes or mailed from post offices to have full return addresses that match the address from which they are mailed.

While these actions would impose large demands on the part of the U.S. Postal Service, they would prove far more cost-effective and protective of human health in the long run. It would also greatly lessen the chances that we will reach the point where a widely contaminated postal system may need to be shut down.

Our government needs to show some creativity and to think ahead -- especially when it's so obvious as to what needs to be done.

CHRISTIAN DAUGHTON