this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
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Apparently the US Department of ~~Defense~~War thinks that they can order non-US citizens not resident in the USA to cease and desist from mailing things.

Uh…

Hilarity of the items involved aside, the gall of the US military postal service to give orders to civilians not under their command and not even of their nation is shocking.

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[–] malle_yeno@pawb.social 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

So what I find interesting is that this exact story was reported in CTV like a week ago, but in this one, the reasoning has changed somehow?

https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/article/stop-sending-butt-plugs-to-bahrain-toronto-sex-store-receives-letters-from-us-department-of-war/

Originally reported, the problem was that Bahrain does not allow adult items to be shipped to them. But the adult shop said that it actually doesn't ship to Bahrain and most of Asia because of rules like that making it more complicated to do business. Owner said that it was likely forwarded to a base (so a third party shipper, ~~something the shop has zero control over~~.)

But in this one, the rationale has changed to "these objects are dangerous", and I don't see focus being placed on the third-party ~~seller~~ shipper.

edit: shipper, not seller. We don't know if this was after market, just that it's not directly shipped. They might actually have some amount of control over that, if that's the case, because they would have needed to label the original package as being shipped to Bahrain.

The more I think about this story, the more I think that it's being ramped up as a "look how the US military is interfering with canada on behalf of a middle eastern country!" instead of like "someone made a mistake by ordering something not allowed in Bahrain, and the business didn't check whether they were allowed to ship it there or not." I dont get what the big deal here is. This actually kinda looks bad on the business now that I take a second look at it.

[–] grey_maniac@lemmy.ca 1 points 16 hours ago

Why would it look bad on the business? You, yourself, said earlier:

the adult shop said that it actually doesn't ship to Bahrain and most of Asia

[–] GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

From the article:

The United States Postal Service and the DOD work together through the Military Postal Service Agency (MPSA), managed by the Army, to provide worldwide mail services (APO/FPO/DPO) for service members. These address formats don't reveal the country, just the person and military unit.

Bennett had no idea her business's products were going to a country where they would be illegal.

So how exactly is it her fault if someone buys something they will have shipped somewhere, she has no idea where it's going, and the MSPA redirects it there? How does she even know where it's going? Certainly, the buyer should have known, as should the MSPS.

[–] malle_yeno@pawb.social 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah I saw that part in the article too, but you actually can tell what country something is going to from the APO/FPO/DPO code.

Im not denying that the buyer had responsibility in this.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 11 hours ago

Wait so everybody in the world is required to just understand US military shipping codes? Assuming that information is even on the delivery package (because you could also just have someone in the US redirect the product after receiving it).