(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A group of bipartisan senators have raised concerns that the U.S. Postal Service is allowing numerous federal agencies to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans’ mail.
“Each year, the United States Postal Service (USPS) surveils tens of thousands of Americans’ postal communications,” said Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky.; Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; Mike Lee, R-Utah and three others in a May 17 letter to Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale.
The senators noted that most of the surveillance is conducted by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service—the law enforcement branch of the post office. However, the Postal Service also allows other agencies to conduct mail surveillance upon request, they said.
Internal government audits say that the agencies who conduct the most mail surveillance are the FBI, IRS, Homeland Security Department and Drug Enforcement Administration.
The senators are particularly concerned about the surveillance practice known as “mail covers,” where requesting agencies are provided with sender and recipient information for letters and parcels sent to or from a particular target.
“USPIS’ mail covers regulations only require that the agency or postal inspector requesting a mail cover submit the request in writing,” they said. “No court order is required. In contrast, government agencies may only monitor Americans’ metadata associated with electronic communications, such as email or instant messaging, with a court order.”
Even though the surveillance supposedly doesn’t extend into the contents of the mail, the senators said it still violates privacy and puts a chilling effect on free speech.
That’s because law enforcement can glean information about a person’s political leanings, religious beliefs or causes they support simply by looking at where they’re sending letters.
The senators requested that Chief Postal Inspector Barksdale provide them with a “plan of action” detailing the reforms he’ll make to protect Americans’ privacy and liberty.”
They also wanted statistics on the amount of sealed mail that USPIS and USPS were opening or inspecting the contents of.
In a joint statement, the senators said that law enforcement agencies should need warrants to spy on the mail, “except in emergencies.”
“USPS and USPIS should, except in emergencies, only conduct mail covers when a federal judge has approved this surveillance—a policy that USPIS already has in place for searches of the contents of mail—and it should also notify the targets of surveillance after the fact, unless a judge requires that such notice be delayed,” they said.
The government’s history of spying on the mail dates back to the time of the Founding Fathers.
As the senators noted in their letter, Thomas Jefferson expressed fears about the “infidelities of the post office.”
Jefferson and James Madison went to extreme lengths, using encryption technology that Jefferson himself designed, to protect their letters, which included an early proposal for the Bill of Rights.
Mass surveillance of U.S. mail continued under J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI and Jesus James Angleton’s counterintelligence division of the CIA, as exposed by the Church Commission in the 1970s.
“The Church Committee ultimately recommended that the mail covers program be reformed so that only the Attorney General be able to authorize requests for mail covers, but this reform was never implemented,” the senators lamented.
The senators requested Chief Postal Inspector Barksdale to submit his “plan of action” and answers to their questions by June 16.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
