The U.S. Postal Service has shared information from thousands of Americans’ letters and packages with law enforcement every year for the past decade, conveying the names, addresses and other details from the outside of boxes and envelopes without requiring a court order.
The surveillance technique, known as the mail covers program, has long been used by postal inspectors to help track down suspects or evidence. The practice is legal, and the inspectors said they share only what they can see on the outside of the mail; the Fourth Amendment requires them to get a warrant to peek inside.
In a letter in May 2023, a group of eight senators, including Ron Wyden , Rand Paul and Elizabeth Warren , urged the agency to require a federal judge to approve the requests and to share more details on the program, saying officials there had chosen to “provide this surveillance service and to keep postal customers in the dark about the fact they have been subjected to monitoring.
“There is no reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to information contained on the outside of mail matter,” Barksdale wrote.
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