U.S. Customs Opening Mail – Presidential Warrantless Searches Take Two

According to recent reports,^[1] U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents open and search some mail entering and exiting the United States as part of efforts to secure the American Homeland. The program was first brought to the public’s attention when Grant Goodman an 81 year old former University of Kansas history professor, received a letter from his friend in the Philippines with whom he had been corresponding for over 50 years. The letter, it was apparent, had been opened and resealed with bright green Department of Homeland Security tape by CBP. Opening of mail has long been the practice when a given package is sufficiently suspicious so as to raise legal concerns over its contents, as in the case where a drug-sniffing dog triggers on a given item. But a letter, enclosed in a normal-sized enveloped, is unlikely to be identified as such. Indeed, though details remain sketchy, it appears that CBP’s mail interception may not be altogether unlike the recently discovered National Security Agency’s interception of telecommunications in the name of national security (see previous discussion of NSA’s program here). Goodman’s is not the only story. According to other reports, Jenifer Winter at the University of Hawaii Manoa apparently had a bra she ordered from Britain intercepted and inspected as well.^[2] According to the CBP spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino, officials cannot read the mail without court order. But the claim has been viewed with some skepticism in light of the President’s apparent belief that the authority to prosecute the Global War on Terrorism permits otherwise protected communications. Only time will tell whether these isolated incidents prove to be merely the first indications of a broader surveillance effort.

[1] CNN Online, “U.S. Opening Some Private Mail In Terror Fight,” Tuesday January 10, 2006, accessed online here.
[2] Matt Sedensky, “Old Policy On Examining Foreign Mail Creates New Fears,” Associated Press, Thursday, January 12, 2006, as reported by Kansas City Star here.