Suspicious Packages Spotlight Vast Postal Surveillance System
The Postal Service photographs the outside of every piece of mail, and frequently shares images and metadata from mail with law enforcement
Published in
5 min readOct 26, 2018
By Steven Melendez
A s law enforcement investigates possible mail bombs sent to prominent Democratic Party figures and liberal activists, the tools available at their disposal include digital images and delivery metadata commonly associated with mail sent in the United States.
The U.S. Postal Service regularly photographs the front and back of every piece of U.S. mail, or about 150 billion parcels, envelopes, and postcards every year. A longstanding practice known as the “mail cover” program enables law enforcement to obtain address information and images of the outsides of mail as part of an investigation without the need for a warrant through the Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Postal Service’s policing arm.
