Plan Would Give FBI Expanded Authority to Track Mail

Plan Would Give FBI Expanded Authority to Track Mail

APWU Web News Article #23-05, May 24, 2005

Right-to-privacy advocates — and the U.S. Postal Service — are objecting to an administration proposal that would give the FBI broad authority to track the mail of people under scrutiny as part of terror investigations, the New York Times has reported.

Under the proposal, the FBI could require postal inspectors to turn over all information appearing on the outside of mail to and from people involved in intelligence investigations. (The information appearing on the outside of letters and packages is referred to as “mail covers.”) The proposal would not permit the bureau to open mail, the Times reported; such a move would require a search warrant.

The newspaper obtained a draft of the proposal and said that it is scheduled to be considered in a closed-door meeting of the Senate Intelligence Committee later this week. The plan would give the FBI complete authority to determine whether the material is “relevant to an authorized investigation to obtain foreign intelligence.”

Under this plan, the postal inspectors’ discretion in deciding when “mail covers” are needed would be eliminated. The Postal Service would be prevented from disclosing a mail cover and the Justice Department would be required to report twice a year on how many times the new power had been used.

For years, the FBI has been reviewing mail covers during criminal and national security investigations, and the prospect of expanding its authority alarmed privacy and civil rights advocates, as well as postal officials, who told the newspaper that they were caught off guard.

Calling the policy “a major step,” Zoe Strickland, the chief privacy officer for the Postal Service, said there could be a negative impact on the balance between protecting people’s mail and helping out in legal investigations. [The proposal] “removes discretion from the Postal Inspection Service as to how the mail covers are implemented,” Strickland told the Times. “I worry quite a bit about the balance being struck here, and we’re quite mystified as to how this got put in the legislation.”

“Prison wardens may be able to monitor their prisoners’ mail,” Lisa Graves, senior counsel for the ACLU, told the newspaper. “But ordinary Americans shouldn’t be treated as prisoners in their own country.”

APWU President William Burrus called the policy “very dangerous.”

“Under the guise of ‘homeland security,’ the administration is attempting to further erode the civil rights and civil liberties of American citizens,” he said. “They are attempting to use fear to justify keeping track of who writes to whom. And they are doing so without a court order. Americans should be very concerned.”