Report: Feds, police are spying on the mail of thousands of Americans

Law enforcement has requested thousands of pieces of letters and packages every year for the past decade from the U.S. Postal Service without a court order. According to a report released on Monday, June 24, the Postal Service has mostly fulfilled the requests.

Data from 2015 through 2023 showed that federal agencies and state and local police made more than 60,000 requests to the Postal Service for information from Americans’ envelopes and packages. The Postal Service reportedly approved 97% of those requests.

The practice of monitoring mail goes back to 1879, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a Fourth Amendment case that it was legal but required a warrant to be obtained in order to open a sealed letter. The Mail Covers Program has been used to track down suspects, find fugitives or compile evidence — as long as all the details obtained came from the outside of the package or envelope.

The Postal Inspection Service has previously been reluctant to release the full scope of activity within the program out of fears that it could “alert criminals” to the practice and jeopardize the program’s effectiveness.

For more than a year, a bipartisan group of senators has been demanding to know more about the surveillance program. In a June 2023 letter, they shared concerns over the spying on U.S. citizens and accused postal officials of keeping customers in the dark about the fact that they have been the subject of monitoring.

The lawmakers also wrote that sensitive information is still on the outside of the mail, encompassing things like bills and political mail, which can reveal a person’s political beliefs and other sensitive information, like the church they attend. The lawmakers requested a federal judge to sign off on the requests by law enforcement before getting the green light.

Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale argued that Americans shouldn’t expect privacy when it comes to the outside of their mail, and contends that the spying is not widespread.

Barksdale said the Postal Service receives approximately 6,700 requests per year from law enforcement and the practice is only allowed for national security purposes and to help police in criminal investigations.