More on Mail Cover

I've previously written about mail cover -- the practice of recording the data on mail envelopes. Sai has been covering the issue in more detail, and recently received an unredacted copy of a 2014 audit report. The New York Times has an article on it:

In addition to raising privacy concerns, the audit questioned the Postal Service's efficiency and accuracy in handling mail cover requests. Many requests were processed late, the audit said, which delayed surveillance, and computer errors caused the same tracking number to be assigned to different requests.

[...]

The inspector general also found that the Postal Inspection Service did not have "sufficient controls" in place to ensure that its employees followed the agency's policies in handling the national security mail covers.

According to the audit, about 10 percent of requests did not include the dates for the period covered by surveillance. Without the dates in the files, auditors were unable to determine if the Postal Service had followed procedures for allowing law enforcement agencies to monitor mail for a specific period of time.

Additionally, 15 percent of the inspectors who handled the mail covers did not have the proper nondisclosure agreements on file for handling classified materials, records that must be maintained for 50 years. The agreements would prohibit the postal workers from discussing classified information.

And the inspector general found that in about 32 percent of cases, postal inspectors did not include, as required, the date on which they visited facilities where mail covers were being processed. In another 32 percent of cases, law enforcement agencies did not return documents to the Postal Inspection Service's Office of Counsel, which handles the national security mail covers, within the prescribed 60 days after a case was closed.