Top Five WTF Postal Service Moments

When a federal agency loses $5 billion in a “good” year, it’s a sign that change is needed. Unfortunately, the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS’) problems extend far beyond fiscal irresponsibility. The struggling agency also has a growing reputation for snooping on consumer mail. According to a recent report by Wired reporter Dell Cameron, the USPS, “conducts surveillance on physical pieces of mail going to and from the homes and businesses of tens of thousands of Americans” without a court order. Information gleaned from the outside of mailpieces can be used to “identify property” to be seized, even if the parties being surveilled are not suspected of wrongdoing.

As a bipartisan group of senators noted in a letter to chief postal inspector Gary Barksdale, “there is a long history of documented abuses of postal surveillance.” In addition, the USPS has regularly ventured far outside the confines of its mandate to increase its power and punish potential competitors. TPA presents the top five of these WTF moments in postal history:

1. Social Media Surveillance

In April 2021, Yahoo News reported that the service runs an investigation unit known as the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP; since renamed the “Analytics Team”) that spies on Americans via social media. Yahoo noted, “[t]he work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as ‘inflammatory’ postings and then sharing that information across government agencies.” The previous Congress showed little interest in investigating this grave misconduct. Hopefully, this Congress can make things right and demand accountability.

2. Information Sharing on Environmental Groups

In 2013, the New York Times homeland security correspondent Ron Dixon reported that the USPS was handing over information on mailpieces to law enforcement to spy on environmental groups. 

The shocking revelations came to light when consumer Leslie James Pickering “noticed something odd in his mail last September: a handwritten card, apparently delivered by mistake, with instructions for postal workers to pay special attention to the letters and packages sent to his home. ‘Show all mail to supv’ — supervisor — ‘for copying prior to going out on the street,’ read the card. It included Mr. Pickering’s name, address and the type of mail that needed to be monitored.” It turns out that, as part of the same “mail covers” system described by the recent Wired report, the USPS was collecting information at the behest of law enforcement. Pickering, who was the spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front a decade prior to surveillance, was being snooped on.

3. Going Rambo on…a Credit Reporting Company

The USPS has jealously guarded its monopoly on first-class mail, even if that means raiding private companies for doing nothing wrong. The USPS allows for “extremely urgent” mail to be delivered privately but interprets this niche in a very narrow way. Postal scholars J. Gregory Sidak and Daniel F. Spulber recount, “In a highly publicized incident in 1993, armed postal inspectors arrived at the Atlanta headquarters of Equifax Inc., a large credit reporting company, and demanded to know whether all the mail that it had sent by Federal Express was truly urgent.” While subsequent postmasters general have pledged not to repeat these costly raids, private companies delivering time-sensitive correspondence must now constantly watch their back against an aggressive agency.

4. ..Everything

The USPS revels in pretending it’s the CIA and keeping everything a state secret. A quick trip to the Inspector General’s (IG) website reveals the sort of information that the agency prefers to keep secret. For years, heavily redacted reports hinted that USPS leadership wasn’t happy with the IG pointing out flaws in the postage reselling program, which resulted in commercial consumers who would have used USPS anyway benefiting from special discounts.

A (still heavily redacted) IG report released thanks to a FOIA request by the Capitol Forum claims that management’s hostility toward investigating the reselling program amounts to an “attack on the independence of the OIG and an attempt to keep important work from being disclosed to critical stakeholders.” After a decade of criticism, the USPS finally ended the reseller program in 2022. The secrecy bug nonetheless continues, and even the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has caved to postal secrecy. Likely at the request of the USPS, the GAO restricted a report it released about mail truck purchases. The American people deserve answers on why basic USPS financial figures remain under wraps.

5. Seizing Black Lives Matter Apparel

Inappropriate actions by the USPS have made Americans less confident in their political freedoms and free speech rights. NBC News reported that the USPS is facing legal scrutiny for “seizing shipments of Black Lives Matter masks intended to protect demonstrators from Covid-19 during protests following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd.”

These (and other items) were seized because of the external physical characteristics of the parcels, leading to the frightening possibility that the USPS will seize items based on return labels it doesn’t like. It’s critical that organizations such as BLM, the ACLU, and the NRA feel comfortable communicating with supporters or sending them apparel.

In conclusion….

The recent Wired report exposes just the latest in a long line of postal wrongdoing and mission creep. America’s mail carrier should cut out the snooping, seizures, and secrecy, and stick with its mission and mandate of delivering the mail.