The experiment in democracy that is the United States has not been conducted properly ever since the commitment to privacy was abandoned with the rollout of the new communications system known as the Internet. Tech companies collect information on all our Internet activity. Allegedly, they use our data to better serve us—with targeted ads—assuming we are keen to trade our rights to privacy for the right to be advertised at more efficiently.

In truth, most citizens cherish the inalienable rights that are acknowledged in the U.S. Constitution. But those rights have been eroded away slowly and subtly over time. We need to backtrack a number of decades, find where we veered off the path, and get back on it.

The United State Postal Service (USPS) appears early and prominently in the Constitution as a means of secure communication necessary for a functioning democracy. Thus, the institution has been able withstand calls for its end in recent decades—much to the chagrin of real estate developers who would love to buy-up cheap some lovely old stone buildings. My beloved former post office in SoHo, Manhattan is now a fancy Apple store. In D.C., the Old Post Office and Clock Tower Building, owned by Trump at one point, is now the Waldorf Astoria. In this essay, I will argue that the trend of phasing out the USPS needs to be reversed.

When I ran for Congress in New York on the Libertarian line in 2020, I made decentralized government and expanding the role of the USPS central to my campaign. I realized that we can protect online privacy and free speech by recognizing the Internet as the new post road.

I think the responsibilities of federal government could be significantly reduced to upholding the Constitution, providing a sovereign (debt-free) currency, minding the borders, and supplying local governments with funding for public infrastructure, such as public transportation and communication lines. I do not see a role for the federal government in saying how the infrastructure is run. Ideally, that should be left to local stakeholders.

Let me say that again; otherwise, readers may miss it. I am not calling for a USPS Internet run by government bureaucrats. That's too much power. Civil servants would have to maintain equipment and manage day-to-day operations, but crucial audits and policy decisions should be made by local stakeholders—perhaps with a mechanism similar to Mark Gorton's idea for Citizen Oversight Juries for health agencies. In the U.S., after all, government is supposed to be by the people.