Thousands of Americans’ Mail Monitored by Law Enforcement, Records Reveal
by Jo Ellen Nott
A congressional probe revealed that the U.S. Postal Service (“USPS”) has shared a decade’s worth of data with law enforcement. This information, known as metadata, is gathered from the outside of envelops and packages and does not require a warrant.
The USPS collects this data under the Mail Covers Program and turns over names, addresses, and other revealing details to law enforcement. The practice has been legally authorized since 1879, a year after the Supreme Court ruled in Ex parte Jackson, 96 U.S. 727 (1878), that the government needs a warrant before opening any sealed letter but made an exception for the exterior of the letter: “Letters and sealed packages … are as fully guarded from examination and inspection, except as to their outward form and weight.”
The USPS cooperates 97 percent of the time with requests from law enforcement to access mail cover data. That percentage translates to an average of 6,700 requests per year, with postal inspectors recording information from an additional 35,000 pieces of mail on average. A single request can ask for days or weeks of mail sent to or from a person or address. Records show that postal inspectors made record of more than 312,000 letters and packages between 2015 and 2023. The top requesters of exterior data on mail include the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Privacy advocates in the Senate have pushed back against the Mail Covers Program, citing Fourth Amendment concerns. In a May 2023 letter to Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale, a group of eight senators, including Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Steve Daines (R-Montana), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), urged the agency to require a federal judge to approve the requests and to share more details on the program, accusing the agency of not letting its customers know “they have been subjected to monitoring.”
The USPS defends the Mail Covers Program by citing its long history of legality and the benefits to national security efforts. A notable instance in which tracking mail led to suspects being arrested were the ricin-laced letters sent to President Obama and former N.Y. mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2013. Two different individuals, one in Mississippi and one in Texas, conspired to frame other people for their attempts and received 25 and 18-year sentences.
The debate over the Mail Covers Program highlights the historical tensions between privacy and security. Historical anxieties about government surveillance through the mail go back to Thomas Jefferson. In 1798 the then-Vice President wrote that he had stopped “writing fully and freely” because of his fears that the “infidelities of the post office” would expose his private communications.
The senators in their May 2023 letter to Chief Postal Inspector Barksdale wrote of their concerns around the potential for the seemingly unimportant details on mail covers to paint a revealing picture of a person’s life, including his or her associations, beliefs, and activities. This surveillance could threaten citizens’ First Amendment rights to freely associate with political or religious organizations and the right to peacefully assemble without the eyes of the government on them.
The outcome of the debate between privacy and security remains to be seen. With growing public awareness and pressure from legislators, the USPS may be forced to re-evaluate the Mail Covers Program and its impact on Americans’ privacy.
Sources: The New York Times, Tampa Free Press, Washington Post
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