U.S. Postal Service and Free Speech

So, postal management doesn’t appreciate whistle-blowers like Bruce Webb any better than the Defense Department likes the occasional Ernest Fitzgerald. And why should they? Don’t they, in a way, enjoy the same sort of monopoly arrangements?

Here’s a question for everyone who spends too much time waiting in line at the post office and who is frustrated every time postal rates go up again: Don’t we have a right to know what postal workers like Webb have to say? How dare the postal service reprimand him for writing a letter to the editor! It’s not as if a competitive firm was trying to protect some valued trade secrets. Webb is giving us an insider’s view of a very special giant corporation--one that has access to your tax dollars whenver it runs a deficit. Amazingly, it also has the power to call out the federal marshalls if anyone is so bold as to offer cheaper or better delivery of the mail!

I say three cheers for a guy who cares enough about his work to write The Times in defense of his brethren, but is honest enough to tell both sides of the story.

DAVID W. MELENEY

Mar Vista