LetterAgent
Mail physical letters by just asking your AI assistant.
A mail cover is a USPS program that records the outside of your mail: the sender, recipient, postmark, and other visible details, photographed as letters pass through sorting machines. It never opens anything; that would need a warrant. Law enforcement requests covers in writing for investigations like mail fraud or locating fugitives.
Only the exterior. When a cover is active on an address or a name, USPS copies the information visible on the outside of each piece: who sent it, who it is addressed to, the postmark, the class of mail, and any tracking numbers. The contents stay sealed. Think of it as the postal equivalent of checking the return address on an envelope, done systematically, rather than reading the letter inside.
Covers run for 30 days at a time and can be extended with a fresh request. They are used in ordinary criminal investigations: finding a fugitive through their mail, tracing a fraud scheme, or identifying who is sending threatening letters. USPS approves the request internally before anything starts, and the resulting records go to the requesting agency.
The legal line is sharp. Recording the outside of mail is treated like observing something in plain view, and USPS can do it on an internal authorization. Opening sealed mail is a search under the Fourth Amendment and needs a judge's warrant, with very few exceptions. A mail cover never crosses that line. If investigators want the contents, they go to court separately, and the cover itself gives them no shortcut.
| Mail cover | Search warrant | Informed Delivery | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it captures | Exterior of mail for a target | Contents of specific mail | Exterior images of your own mail |
| Authorization | Written law-enforcement request, USPS approval | Judge | You, the recipient |
| Opens mail? | Never | Yes, as authorized | Never |
| Who sees it | The requesting agency | Investigators under court rules | You, by email |
Yes, and this is the part most people find surprising. Under a program called Mail Isolation Control and Tracking, USPS imaging equipment photographs the exterior of every piece of letter mail as it moves through sorting plants. The system was built for automation and for isolating dangerous mail after the 2001 anthrax attacks, and its existence became widely known in 2013. Those same images are what power Informed Delivery, the free service that emails you pictures of your incoming mail each morning.
A mail cover, then, is not the photography. The photography happens regardless. A mail cover is the decision to collect and hand over the photos for a specific target to law enforcement. Your mail's exterior is imaged as a matter of routine; a cover is when someone is watching for it on purpose.
The mail cover as described here is a US program under USPS regulations. Canada Post cooperates with Canadian law enforcement under separate Canadian laws, and the legal standards are Canada's own. If you are in Canada and this question matters to you beyond curiosity, the rules that apply are Canadian ones, and this guide does not cover them in detail.
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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