(Content warning: Episode contains discussion of gun violence, workplace violence and toxic work environments) Summary Postmaster General William Henderson proposes giving every American a free government email address with the suffix ".us", with privacy protections like sealed mail, where the government can't read your correspondence without a warrant. Congress and customers reject it. Instead we got Gmail, where you're the product and corporations scan your messages to sell advertising.  Episode 12 reveals how the 1990s and 2000s became decades of systematic strangulation. Marvin Runyon arrived in 1992 with the nickname "Carvin' Marvin" (earned by laying off 7,000 TVA employees in one day) and eliminated 48,000 postal jobs through early retirement while overtime doubled to 140 million hours. The toxic management culture created the phrase "going postal" after workplace shootings between 1986-1999, but postal workers were actually three times LESS likely to be murdered at work (0.22 per 100,000) than the national average (0.77 per 100,000), the phrase stigmatized 800,000 workers for systemic failures. Automation eliminated 300,000 jobs while GAO reports showed savings were "taking longer and producing less than expected." Meanwhile, the Post Office tried repeatedly to innovate: Electronic Postmark (1996) doing blockchain-style digital authentication 13 years before Bitcoin, PosteCS (2000) doing secure document delivery 3 years before DocuSign, eBillPay (2000) before online payment became standard, and Henderson's partnership discussions with Jeff Bezos before UPS grabbed the deal. All canceled or blocked. Then came the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, creating the prefunding mandate we covered in Episode 7, but also Section 102: legally prohibiting the Post Office from offering "nonpostal services" that might compete with private firms. No email, no digital notarization, no postal banking.  The law passed by voice vote with no recorded opposition, locking the Post Office into physical mail delivery just as mail collapsed. FedEx spent $12 million lobbying in 2012 alone while the Post Office was legally prohibited from lobbying Congress. Corporate capture became law, and every digital service Americans need, email, banking, document authentication, stayed private and profitable while the Post Office was prevented from adapting. Key takeaways to listen for [00:00:00] Introduction [00:06:20] Act I - Carvin' Marvin: The Restructuring Pressure Cooker: How Marvin Runyon eliminated 48,000 jobs through early retirement and 23,000 management positions while overtime doubled from 69 million to 140 million hours, why the GAO found 49% of workers weren't treated with dignity and 52,000 grievances backlogged for up to 696 days, and how "running like a business" meant treating workers as costs to minimize [00:16:24] Act II - Going Postal: When Institutions Break People: The 1986-1999 workplace shootings (34 postal employees killed in 29 incidents) that created the phrase, why postal workers were actually 0.22 per 100,000 murdered at work versus 0.77 national average (three times SAFER), how toxic management culture with arbitrary discipline (suspended for saying "damn" to yourself) and collapsed grievance systems broke workers, and why 800,000 postal workers got stigmatized for systemic failures [00:31:14] Act III - Automation: Who Pays for Efficiency?: DBCS machines processing 40,000 letters/hour with 2 operators versus 30,000/hour with 17 operators, how 300,000 career jobs were eliminated (clerks down 45.9% from 1990-2010), why GAO found automation was "taking longer and producing less than expected" with $761 million in exceeded work hour costs, and how the no-layoff clause couldn't protect against jobs being automated out of existence [00:39:44] Act IV - The Digital Future They Tried to Build: Electronic Postmark (1996) doing blockchain-style authentication 13 years before Bitcoin, PosteCS (2000) secure document delivery 3 years before DocuSign became worth billions, eBillPay (2000) before online bill payment became standard, Henderson's Amazon partnership discussions before UPS grabbed the site, and why institutional trauma from E-COM made leadership scared to invest long-term [00:49:15] Act V - The 2006 Legislative Capture: Section 102 of PAEA legally prohibiting "nonpostal services" to protect private firms, rate caps tied to CPI preventing the Post Office from covering costs, expanded Postal Rate Commission authority, FedEx spending $12 million on lobbying in 2012 while the Post Office was legally barred from lobbying, and how the law passed by voice vote during December 2006 lame-duck session with zero recorded opposition [01:03:00] Act VI - What We Lost and Why It Still Matters: Universal ".us" email addresses with sealed-mail privacy protections, digital trust services for authentication and notarization, postal banking for 40 million unbanked/underbanked Americans spending $173 billion annually on payday lenders, and why corporate capture became law, preventing public alternatives to private services while leaving people who can't afford private options behind Follow Us On Social Media Instagram @Peopleof_Agency TikTok @Peopleof_Agency YouTube @Peopleof_Agency   Connect with Us Ready to explore how ordinary people built extraordinary public institutions? Subscribe to People of Agency wherever you listen to podcasts. Find us on social media @Peopleof_Agency. Have stories about how the mail shaped your community, or thoughts on protecting public services? We'd love to hear from you! [email protected] Quotes: "A government email service could have operated under the same legal framework as sealed mail, where the government can't read your correspondence without a warrant. Instead we got Gmail, where you're the product." - Aileen "When your coworkers hear about a mass shooting and their reaction is 'yeah, that tracks,' that's when you know something is deeply broken about a workplace." - Maia "The Post Office wasn't obsolete because email replaced letters. The Post Office was made obsolete by being legally prohibited from offering email or anything else digital." - Maia "Section 102 is corporate interests writing their preferences into legislation. 'The Post Office cannot compete with us' became legally binding." - Aileen "The Post Office didn't fail to adapt. It was prevented from adapting. The fight isn't about efficiency or modernization, it's about who gets to profit from services people need." - Maia "Defense isn't enough. We need to move forward. Repeal Section 102. Let the Post Office offer digital services. These aren't nostalgic dreams, these are urgent needs that aren't being met because corporations wrote a law preventing it." - Aileen Hashtags #PeopleOfAgency #AileenDay #MaiaWarner #GoingPostal #MarvinRunyon #PAEA #Section102 #WorkplaceViolence #PostalBanking #ElectronicPostmark #UniversalEmail #DigitalPrivacy #Automation #CorporateCapture #Lobbying #FedEx #UPS #2006PostalAct #RegulatoryCapture #PublicInstitutions #WorkerRights #ToxicWorkplace #USPSHistory #PostalService #DigitalInfrastructure #PaydayLenders #Unbanked #PostalReform #LegislativeCapture #HistoryPodcast Credits  People of Agency is created and written by Aileen Day, with additional writing by Maia Warner-Langenbahn. It is hosted by Aileen Day and Maia Warner-Langenbahn. This episode was edited by the amazing Kelsi Rupersburg-Day. Our beautiful cover art is by Sam Woodring.  Sources Here are some of our other sources (use the tab function to review different episodes). How the Post Office Created America, by Winifred Gallagher, served as a significant guiding light for this project. Many of our sources were pulled from online Smithsonian resources and the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. Thank you to our anonymous Historian fact checker who reviewed many of our scripts and provided invaluable feedback.