Post offices no longer want the FBI’s Most Wanted, says the Kansas City Star. Only a few regular customers have missed them. “I kind of liked seeing Osama up there to remind me that we're still looking for that dude,” said Mike Webb of Olathe, Ks. Richard Watkins, a postal spokesman, said that most of the nation's 34,000 post offices took the posters off the walls several years ago. “We decided to take them down and keep them in binders behind the counter,” Watkins said. “They're still available, but customers have to ask to see them. Of course, they still might be up in smaller, rural post offices.”
“It's the Wal-Marting of post offices across America,” said Ron Pry, a retired postal inspector in Texas who collects old wanted posters. “Make them all look the same. Sell more stuff. Think about it. Would you ever see that FBI list (while) standing in a grocery store line?” The FBI's Most Wanted Fugitives began when a newspaper reporter in 1949 asked J. Edgar Hoover for a list of the “toughest guys.” Hoover liked the idea – and the publicity that followed. The last official post office mailing from the FBI was in 2007.