Washington, D.C. — The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has been sharing information from thousands of Americans’ letters and packages with law enforcement agencies annually for the past decade. This information includes names, addresses, and other details visible on the outside of mail items, all without requiring a court order.
A decade’s worth of records, provided exclusively to The Washington Post as part of a congressional probe, reveal that the USPS received over 60,000 requests from federal agents and police officers since 2015, approving 97% of them. These requests allowed law enforcement to monitor mail sent to or from specific addresses for days or weeks. In total, postal inspectors recorded more than 312,000 letters and packages between 2015 and 2023.
This surveillance technique, known as the mail covers program, has been a long-standing practice of postal inspectors to aid in locating suspects or gathering evidence. While legal and limited to information visible on the outside of mail, the program has traditionally been shrouded in secrecy. A 2015 audit revealed the approval of over 158,000 requests from various law enforcement agencies, including the IRS, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security, over four years.
Senators, including Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have urged the USPS to require federal judge approval for these requests and to provide more transparency about the program. In a May 2023 letter, they criticized the lack of oversight and public awareness regarding the monitoring of their mail.
Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale, in a June 2023 response, defended the program, stating it is not a “large-scale surveillance apparatus” but a tool to help law enforcement and national security agencies protect the public. He noted that the practice has been legally authorized since 1879, a year after the Supreme Court mandated warrants for opening sealed letters.
“There is no reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to information contained on the outside of mail matter,” Barksdale wrote, reaffirming the legality of the program.
Senator Wyden, however, expressed concerns over the broad scope and lack of judicial oversight, pointing out that similar surveillance of emails and texts requires a court order. “These new statistics show that thousands of Americans are subjected to warrantless surveillance each year,” he stated, urging the USPS to raise its standards.
The senators argue that even the exterior information of mail can be deeply revealing, potentially exposing personal details about an individual’s associations, financial activities, religious beliefs, political views, and social causes. Historical anxieties about postal surveillance date back to 1798 when Vice President Thomas Jefferson expressed fears about the privacy of his communications due to the “infidelities of the post office.”
In 1978, a circuit court judge noted that mail covers could reveal intimate aspects of a person’s life in ways surveillance of their movements could not, essentially rendering their life an “open book.”
The ongoing debate highlights the tension between law enforcement needs and privacy rights, with the USPS mail covers program at the center of this crucial issue.