Questions are being asked of the United States Postal Service after the release of an audit confirming that roughly 49,000 pieces of mail were monitored by the agency during the last fiscal year.
The New York Time’s Ron Nixon reported on Monday this week that a 2014 audit of the USPS’s little-known surveillance program showed that nearly 50,000 pieces of mail
were scrutinized during a 12-month span upon the request of authorities using a tactic called a “mail cover.”
But while the USPS green-lighted tens of thousands of these requests made by law enforcement agencies in the last year pursuant to criminal and national security investigations, the Times reported, the protocols in place for authorizing such scans are reportedly ripe with flaws.
The report is available on the website of the USPS Office of Inspector General and contains information about the “mail cover” program between October 1 2013 and September 30, 2014.