Whenever we talk about things like "secondary liability" and why it doesn't make sense to blame a company for something their users do, we'll often use examples like pointing out that it's inappropriate to blame AT&T if someone makes a bomb threat over the phone, or to blame Ford for someone driving too fast. Another example in the "of course that's silly" list may have to removed however: the inappropriateness of blaming UPS or Fedex for what's in the packages they deliver. That one now has to be retired. Because the good old US government has made UPS forfeit $40 million to the government for shipping drugs from "illegal internet pharmacies." Details on what actually happened here are sparse, but the DOJ will be celebrating this one, despite almost none of the important details being shared.

UPS put out a statement that doesn't sound even remotely forced upon it by DOJ people holding guns.

"We believe we have an obligation and responsibility to help curb the sale and shipment of drugs sold through illegal Internet pharmacies," said Susan Rosenberg, a UPS spokeswoman.

Of course, what is an "illegal internet pharmacy"? There's a bit of an issue there because the DOJ thinks that an illegal internet pharmacy includes that Canadian pharmacy that is much cheaper, but which is making perfectly legitimate drugs and then shipping them -- gray market style -- into the US. That's a very different picture than the "illegal internet pharmacy" selling sugar pills or worse. But, here's the thing about all that: for all the talk of the risks and dangerous of illegal internet pharmacies there are amazingly few stories of any actual harm. And, in fact, various random tests of the drugs coming from "illegal internet pharmacies" suggest that, for the most part, they're safe (and frequently appear to actually be what they say on the box). So what is the DOJ protecting us from here? The scourge of more affordable legal drugs?

The bigger issue, however, is the question of secondary liability. I don't want UPS going through my packages to make sure they're not illegal drugs. Perhaps the government showed direct plans and strategies by UPS to attract illegal pharmacies, but from the outside, given the information that's been revealed, it looks like the real problem is why is the DOJ even bothering? If UPS and Fedex are going to have to start checking what's inside packages to avoid getting itself fined again, that's a really bad and dangerous precedent.

With guns and violence in the news lately, you would think that everyone involved in the chain of the firearms business would be a teensy-weensy bit more careful, from manufacturers, to retailers, all the way up to those handling the shipping and distribution. As with any other business, you have to expect to deal with some human error, but one would imagine that the firearms industry would have the tightest of controls in place right now.

As it turns out, such notions are exactly that: imagination. Or, at least that appears to be the case in the Wired story of a man from Washington D.C. who ordered a television on Amazon and was shipped a Sig Sauer 716 Patrol Rifle. For anyone keeping score at home, that's a military grade weapon. Seth Horvitz, the guy who is guilty of attempted TV-buying, is not a military grade citizen.

“When I saw some metal parts inside the box, I thought, ‘Maybe this is a TV stand or mount or something,’” Horvitz said in a phone interview with Wired. “When I realized it was an assault rifle, it was pure shock and disbelief.”

The Wired interviewer chooses not to ask Horvitz if he attempted to point the weapon at his wall and pull the trigger to see if flat-panel televisions shot out, which is disappointing. In any case, Horvitz did the responsible thing and immediately called the D.C. police, who informed him that the weapon is illegal to own in the District of Columbia. There is no word yet on whether flat-panel displays are also illegal, but I'm guessing not. 

The story then details how the mistake happened, which essentially appears to boil down to a lovely bit of insight into the shipping warehouses of UPS, in which the Label Fairy made a mistake and put two shipping labels (only one of which was correct) on the box-'o-death and allowed the box to be shipped anyway. Everyone from the guy who let it leave the warehouse to the guy who delivered the rifle to Horvitz's door apparently decided to play the new hit game "Shipping Address Coin Flip", resulting in Horvitz getting his new Rambo Halloween costume accessory. Amazon, predictably, disavowed any responsibility for the mistake, which it's looking like it has every right to do. On the other hand, when Horvitz tried to post a review of his purchase, Amazon blocked it. Admittedly, the review was hillarious, and guns and funny just don't mix:

I'm not sure what pretending all this didn't happen accomplishes from Amazon's end, other than to perhaps flip open the cover to the Streisand Effect alarm, press it, and wait for the derision to ensue.

Just recently, we discussed whether or not ceasing Saturday delivery was a good idea for the USPS. John Potter, the US Postmaster General, recently said that the postal service's business model is as outdated as the newspaper industry's. Potter said:

"Twenty years ago we would laugh at the notion that a newspaper would ever embrace the idea that maybe the channel of the future is electronic and that you may have to change your business model,"

Sure, similarities between the industries definitely exist. Craigslist is a much cheaper and more efficient marketplace for local goods than the classifieds section in the newspaper ever was, and email is a much cheaper and more efficient means of communication than snail mail. That said, whereas for the newspaper industry, delivering a daily, physical newspaper to households may actually be an endangered business, the business itself of delivering physical items to households is still very much in demand. After all, with so much shopping happening online nowadays, someone still has to deliver the goods (until replicators, a la Star Trek, are perfected). In fact, for over a decade now, we've been talking about this opportunity to optimize the "last mile," and as of yet, nobody has really even come close to solving this problem.

That said, the USPS is a government institution, and even though it does not take any tax funding to run, an attempt to attack this opportunity may best be mounted by the private sector (like UPS and FedEx), especially when you consider the USPS's projected $238 billion shortfall for the upcoming decade. So, since it's not a private business, the best solution for the USPS may be to simply accept its diminishing role in the daily lives of Americans, and focus on continuing to run as efficiently as possible for as long as it remains useful. That said, the other solution may be to remove the government-mandated monopoly and privatize the USPS, and then let that private entity decide whether or not to invest in the business. Either way, it seems silly to ask taxpayers to invest anything further in the USPS since so many alternatives exist already. We should definitely all be appreciative of the part that the Postal Service has played in the foundation of our country, but what else can be done?