The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has shared information from the outside of thousands of Americans’ letters and packages with law enforcement agencies over the past decade without requiring a court order. This data, which includes names, addresses, and other external details of mail items, has been used to help find fugitives and investigate crimes.
The Mail Covers Program
This surveillance technique, known as the mail covers program, allows postal inspectors to record information from the outside of mail without opening it, which would require a warrant under the Fourth Amendment. This practice has been legally authorized since 1879, a year after the Supreme Court ruled that government officials needed a warrant to open any sealed letter.
According to a decade’s worth of records provided to The Washington Post through a congressional probe, the USPS has approved over 60,000 requests from federal agents and police officers since 2015. The data shows that postal inspectors rarely deny these requests, approving 97% of them, and have recorded over 312,000 letters and packages between 2015 and 2023. Each request can cover days or weeks of mail sent to or from a person or address.
In a letter from May 2023, a group of eight senators, including Ron Wyden, Rand Paul, and Elizabeth Warren, urged the USPS to require a federal judge to approve these requests and to provide more transparency about the program. They criticized the lack of oversight and the potential for abuse.
Gary Barksdale, the Chief Postal Inspector, defended the program, stating it is not a “large-scale surveillance apparatus” but a focused effort to assist police and national security agencies. He emphasized that the practice is legal and has been part of postal operations for over a century. Barksdale provided nearly a decade’s worth of data showing an average of about 6,700 requests a year, with an additional 35,000 pieces of mail recorded annually.
Barksdale argued that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy concerning the information on the outside of mail, a stance rooted in historical legal precedents. He stated that the program helps protect the American public by assisting law enforcement agencies in carrying out their missions.
Despite the legal justification, the program has raised significant privacy concerns. Senator Ron Wyden expressed that the statistics reveal thousands of Americans are subjected to warrantless surveillance each year and criticized the USPS for not raising its standards to require a court order for such monitoring. He pointed out that similar surveillance on emails and texts already requires judicial oversight.
Historically, anxieties over postal surveillance have deep roots in American society. Thomas Jefferson, in 1798, expressed concerns about the “infidelities of the post office” potentially exposing his private communications. In 1978, a circuit court judge noted that mail covers could reveal someone’s personal life to an extent that even surveillance of their movements could not, making “the subject’s life an open book.”
The mail covers program, while legal and defended by the USPS as necessary for law enforcement, remains controversial due to its implications for privacy and civil liberties. The recent revelations and congressional scrutiny highlight the ongoing debate over the balance between security and individual privacy in the digital age.