abstract:Mail cover is a law enforcement investigative technique in which the United States Postal Service, acting at the request of a law enforcement agency, records information from the outside of letters and parcels before they are delivered and then sends the information to the agency that requested it. The Postal Service grants mail cover surveillance requests for about 30 days and may extend them for up to 120 days.
But while the proposed new legislation would cover phone tapping and mail interceptions, it conspicuously fails to deal with other, no less intrusive, forms of electronic surveillance such as long-distance microphones, laser devices and the placing of bugs.