Wade’s World: Are Carrier Services Tracking Firearms [Are FedEx & UPS being used as a Firearms Registry]
Are FedEx and UPS being used as a Firearms Registry?
Situational update Dec. 04, 2022
FEDEX and UPS may be being used as a de-facto firearms registry by the Federal government. By using shipping companies to do the leg work of the government, laws are subverted and warrants are not needed to gather intel on American citizens. If this is the case a Class Action Lawsuit may be filed by thousands of businesses for damages.
If carrier services are being directed by a government agency to track and store customer information, this could be an even larger constitutional violation.
Attorney’s Generals from several states are now stepping in to and demanding answers!
The letter in the Link below was sent to FedEx and UPS by Austin Knudsen; ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MONTANA.
https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MTAG/2022/11/29/file_attachments/2340501/11.29.2022_UPS-FedEx-letters.pdf
The letter to FedEx goes as follows;
“Dear Mr. Subramaniam:
I (Austin Knudsen), along with 17 other State Attorney’s General, write to request information about
FedEx’s updated terms of service for gun store owners. In recent weeks, several
Montanans who hold Federal Firearms Licenses (FFLs) have reached out to my office
with concerns about your company’s updated policies. Specifically, they allege that
the new regulations allow your company to track firearm sales with unprecedented
specificity and bypass warrant requirements to share that information with federal
agencies.
According to these reports, FedEx now requires FFL holders to create three separate
shipping accounts: one for firearms, one for firearm parts, and one for all other
firearm-related products. Under this three-tier system, gun sellers cannot mix and
match shipments, which reveals to your company whether they are shipping a gun,
gun part, or a gun-related item.
In addition to creating three distinct shipping groups, FedEx now apparently
demands that gun store owners retain documents about what specific items those
shipments contain and make that information available to FedEx upon request.
These demands, in tandem, allow FedEx to create a database of American gun
purchasers and determine exactly what items they purchased.
Perhaps most concerning, your policies allegedly allow FedEx to “comply with …
requests from applicable law enforcement or other governmental authorities” even
when those requests are “inconsistent or contrary to any applicable law, rule,
regulation, or order.” In doing so you—perhaps inadvertently—give federal agencies
a workaround to federal law, which has long prevented federal agencies from using
gun sales to create gun registries.1 But under these policies, FedEx can provide
information at will or upon request to federal agencies—information detailing which
Americans are buying what guns.
Finally, I’ve received reports that your new firearms shipping agreement contains a
gag clause. Specifically, your company allegedly instructs gun store owners that the
agreement is “confidential and shall be held in strict confidence by both parties and
may not be disclosed unless required by law ….”
Of course, this is very disturbing. I would like to provide FedEx the opportunity to
clarify these reports or provide any explanation for them. Specifically, I’d like FedEx
to provide a copy of these agreements to our offices and answer the following
questions:
- Did FedEx enact these policies with the goal of information sharing with
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) or any other
federal agency?
- Did FedEx enact these policies at the request of officials in ATF, a different
federal agency, or on its own initiative?
- If FedEx implemented these policies at the request of a federal agency,
please identify that agency, the officials who made that request, the nature of
that communication, and any legal authorization cited by those officials.
- If FedEx changed its policies on its own initiative, please explain why it
made those changes.
- Did FedEx communicate or coordinate with United Parcel Service (UPS)
in making these changes?
- Did ATF or other federal agency employees help draft the updated shipping
agreements?
- If your shipping agreement does contain a gag clause, please explain the
purpose of that clause and whether you intended it to prevent an investigation
into the legality of the agreement.
1 See 28 CFR § 25.9(b)(3) (preventing federal agencies from using the National Instant
Criminal Background Check System to create gun registries).
Within 30 days of this letter’s date, please provide our offices with a copy of your
updated shipping agreement along with answers to the questions above.
Additionally, I recommend that you consider taking actions to limit potential liability
moving forward, including the immediate cessation of any existing warrantless
information sharing with federal agencies about gun shipments.”
End of letter.
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