Category: Surveillance Conspiracies

• The Postage Stamp Tax Plot

  This theory held that the government had adulterated the gum on newer stamps in the 1930s in order to identify political dissidents, habitual complainers, or other suspect populations through licking behavior. In some versions, the glue contained poison; in others, it carried tracers, irritants, or compounds intended to sort “excessive lickers” from normal users. The theory played on the intimacy of stamp use, the growth of federal surveillance fears, and real sanitary discussion around stamp and envelope gum.