LetterAgent
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Most ordinary letters are never X-rayed. Mail screening, including X-rays, is concentrated on mail to government buildings, courthouses, military bases, and other high-security sites, plus items that look suspicious. Your letter to a friend or a business passes through sorting machines that scan the address, not the contents. Inspection of private mail needs legal authority.
Every letter passes through sorting machines that photograph the outside of the envelope and read the address. That image is used to print a barcode and route the letter, and in the US it also feeds the Informed Delivery service that shows recipients a preview of incoming mail. This is scanning of the envelope, not of the contents: the machine does not read your letter, and the photograph shows only the outside.
Beyond that, ordinary first-class mail is not routinely opened or X-rayed. The volume alone makes it impractical: the US and Canadian postal systems handle hundreds of millions of pieces, and screening each one would bring delivery to a halt. Instead, screening focuses on risk. Mail headed to sensitive destinations gets screened at the destination's own mailroom, not at the post office, and suspicious items get pulled aside anywhere in the system.
In the United States, first-class mail is protected by the Fourth Amendment: opening it requires a search warrant based on probable cause. Postal inspectors cannot open a sealed letter because they are curious, and neither can a curious postal worker. The same protection does not extend equally to every mail class: parcels and lower classes of mail can be opened for inspection under broader authority, which is one reason sealed first-class letters carry stronger privacy protection than a package does.
Canada works similarly, with an added wrinkle. Canada Post can open undeliverable mail to look for a return address, which is how dead letters sometimes find their way home, but it cannot open deliverable mail for general inspection without legal authority. In both countries, a letter that is undeliverable and has no return address may be opened at a dead-letter facility purely to identify the sender or recipient, and then held or destroyed if nobody can be identified.
| Screening step | Applies to ordinary letters? | What it sees |
|---|---|---|
| Address scanning at sorting | Yes, nearly all mail | Outside of the envelope only |
| X-ray at destination mailrooms | Only for sensitive destinations | Shape and density of contents |
| Opening by postal inspectors | Only with legal authority | Contents, under a warrant |
| Opening undeliverable mail | Only if no return address | Clues to sender or recipient |
X-rays used in mail screening do not damage paper, ink, or photographs, so a letter that passes through a government mailroom arrives looking the same as it left. Chemical and biological detectors sample the air around the mail rather than touching the letter itself. The real risk to a letter is not screening but handling: a letter pulled aside for inspection may be delayed by days while it waits for clearance, and in rare cases a suspicious item is destroyed rather than delivered, with the sender notified only if the item can be traced back to them.
One practical note for senders: do not put anything in a letter that could look like a threat or a hazard, even as a joke. A fake powder, a threatening note, or a bulky metal object in an envelope can trigger a security response that delays your mail, draws law enforcement attention, and in the worst case ends with the letter destroyed and an investigation opened. Keep letters to paper, and ship anything else as a parcel through the proper channel.
Ready to mail it? Send your letter with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it is printed and mailed.
LetterAgent is a working name. Prices include print, postage, and our service fee. US prices in USD, Canadian prices in CAD (Canadian prices exclude applicable sales tax, added at checkout). Currently in private testing.
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