PRIVACY GOING SAME WAY AS PONY EXPRESS; NEW POSTAL REGULATIONS TREAT CITIZENS AS IF ALL ARE GUILTY OF BREAKING LAWS.

Byline: LOCAL VIEW By Juan C. Ros

Our benevolent government is at it again. Barely one month after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation rescinded its Know Your Customer proposal to spy on bank customers, the Postal Service has issued new regulations that sound uncannily similar.

Published in the Federal Register of March 25, the new postal regulations require private mailbox customers to furnish two forms of identification - including one with a photo - when renting a private mailbox. In addition, mail delivered to private mailboxes must bear a new address designation - PMB - or risk being undelivered.

The identification provision took effect April 26. Private mailbox customers have an additional six months to notify senders to use the new address designation.

According to the Postal Service, the new rules are designed to combat mail fraud. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? In fact, at first glance the rules seem fairly innocuous.

But look closer and you'll see the same sort of bureaucratic, paternalistic thinking that has allowed government at all levels to grow at increasing rates over the last 40 years while slowly eroding the individual liberties that the Framers of the Constitution held so dear.

It's the sort of thinking that led the FDIC to propose Know Your Customer last December. Had that regulation been adopted, banks would have been required to develop profiles on every customer and report suspicious banking activity to the government. Thanks to a campaign led by the Libertarian Party, the FDIC dropped the proposed rules in March.

The new postal regulations carry many of the same hallmarks as Know Your Customer. To wit:

The regulations increase the burden on business. Private mailbox firms such as Mailboxes Etc. - known in the industry as Commercial Mail Receiving Agencies or CMRAs - must now bear the responsibility for verifying each customer's identity. CMRAs have an interest in reducing fraud, but they have no interest in inconveniencing customers. They should not be forced to do the Postal Service's dirty work.

The regulations eliminate privacy. Many private mailbox renters have good reasons for wanting to keep a low profile - battered spouses in hiding, police officers who wish to keep their home addresses confidential and celebrities. Thanks to the new PMB designation, that privacy is gone, and some of these individuals may become endangered. Small businesses getting off the ground - such as those started in homes and garages - may rent a private mailbox to give the appearance of having a physical office. Those businesses stand to lose under the new regulations.

But even worse, anyone - not just police - can request to see a customer's application information if that customer is doing or soliciting business from his or her private mailbox.

The regulations require reporting to the government. CMRAs always had to file a list of customers with the Postal Service, but that requirement was annual. Under the new rules, CMRAs must provide quarterly lists of new customers, current customers and customers terminated within six months, implying that the Postal Service will be taking a closer look at customer information - not a comforting thought.

The regulations operate under the assumption that the customer is guilty until proven innocent. This is probably the saddest fact of all. Like Know Your Customer, the Postal Service is depriving the many of their liberties for the sake of a very small few lawbreakers. The problem is, criminals do not follow the law and will find ways around these rules, while law-abiding customers are forced to sacrifice their privacy.

In the last two years of the Clinton administration, 8,645 regulations have been adopted. It makes one wonder how many other onerous regulations have slipped past the public's radar.

Anyone who cares about individual privacy should oppose these regulations. Unfortunately, the only way to reverse them - outside of the Postal Service experiencing an epiphany - is through an act of Congress.

So call, write, fax or e-mail your representative. Urge them to recognize the erosion of American privacy - and to stop it before privacy goes the way of the Pony Express.