[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 16 (Tuesday, January 25, 2000)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Pages 3857-3859]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-1668]
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POSTAL SERVICE
39 CFR Part 265
Release of Information
AGENCY: Postal Service.
ACTION: Final rule.
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SUMMARY: This final rule amends the Postal Service regulations that
govern the disclosure of information contained in PS Form 1093,
Application for Post Office Box or Caller Service, and PS Form 1583,
Application for Delivery of Mail Through Agent. The recorded business
name, address, and telephone number of a post office box used for doing
or soliciting business with the public will no longer be provided to
the general public upon request. Disclosure to the public of
information contained in Form 1583 will continue to be prohibited. In
addition, information from both Forms 1093 and 1583 will no longer be
made available in response to an oral request from a law enforcement
agency engaged in a criminal investigation. Disclosure of information
from either form also will be prohibited, except pursuant to the order
of a court of competent jurisdiction, when the individual customer has
presented the Postal Service with an appropriate court order of
protection.
EFFECTIVE DATE: February 24, 2000.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Lawrence Maxwell, (202) 268-5015.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This final rule adopts the change to the
regulation governing disclosure of names and addresses of post office
boxholders that was published as a proposed rule on August 26, 1999 (64
FR 46630). This change repeals the provision that authorized disclosure
to the general public, upon request, of the name, address, and
telephone number of the holder of a post office box being used for the
purpose of doing or soliciting business with the public. The purpose of
the change is to provide a greater degree of privacy and security to
the growing number of small-business owners who operate out of the
home. The background for this rulemaking was provided in the August 26
notice and will not be repeated here.
After consideration of the comments made on the August 26 proposal,
which are discussed below, the Postal Service has decided to adopt as
part of this final rule two additional changes to the regulations
governing disclosure of information about post office boxholders and
the customers of commercial mail receiving agencies (CMRAs). In
response to concerns for the safety of battered individuals and their
children, stalking victims, and other persons who consider themselves
at risk of harm if their physical location is not kept private, the
Postal Service will further restrict disclosure of the names and
addresses of post office boxholders and CMRA customers in the following
ways.
First, the existing provision that authorizes disclosure in
response to oral requests of law enforcement agencies for criminal
investigations, when made through the Inspection Service, is made
inapplicable to information concerning post office boxholders and CMRA
customers.
Second, when the individual boxholder has presented to the Postal
Service a protective court order, information from neither Form 1093
nor Form 1583 will be made available under the existing provision that
authorizes disclosure to federal, state, or local government agencies
upon written request. In such a case, the government agency seeking the
information must furnish to the Postal Service an order of a court of
competent jurisdiction that requires disclosure to the agency. The
Postal Service has already reserved the right to withhold information
about a particular individual's address, including a boxholder's
address, for sufficient reasons of personal safety, and has provided
for the submission of protective court orders to block access of the
general public in such situations. The present rule change respecting
post office boxholders and CMRA customers will block access not just of
the public but also of government agencies, including law enforcement
agencies, when there is a protective order on file, unless the agency
obtains a countervailing court order that requires the Postal Service
to release the information.
As revised by this rule, the regulations that govern the disclosure
of information contained in Form 1093 and 1583 may be summarized as
follows. Information provided by a post office boxholder on Form 1093
will not generally be available to the public. It will be disclosed
only to a government agency upon written certification of official
need; to an appropriate person when needed for the service of process;
and in compliance with a subpoena, when appropriate, or a court order.
When the boxholder is an individual, as opposed to a business or
organization, a subpoena will not be honored--a court order signed by a
judge will be required. In addition, copies of the 1093 will not be
disclosed except when requested by a government agency upon written
certification of official need or in compliance with a subpoena or
court order. When the boxholder has submitted a court order of
protection, the Postal Service will not disclose the boxholder's name,
address, or telephone number pursuant to any of the foregoing
provisions, nor make available a copy of the form, unless the requester
has obtained an order of a court of competent jurisdiction that
requires the disclosure notwithstanding the existence of the
boxholder's protective order.
Information provided by a CMRA customer on Form 1583 will not be
available to the public. It will be disclosed only to a government
agency upon written certification of official need or pursuant to a
subpoena (only if the CMRA customer is not an individual) or to a court
order. When the customer has submitted a court order of protection,
however, the Postal Service will not disclose the customer's name or
address pursuant to these provisions, unless the requester obtains a
court order as provided in the foregoing paragraph.
Analysis of Comments Received
A total of 318 written comments were received in response to the
August 26 proposed rule. Nineteen of these were from state agencies,
four were from members of Congress, two were from public-interest
organizations, and the bulk of the remainder were from CMRA customers
and operators. Only one commenter objected to the proposal to
[[Page 3858]]
repeal the provision that authorizes disclosure of information
concerning a post office boxholder who uses the box to do or solicit
business with the public. This comment came from an asset recovery firm
that routinely relies on the provision to arrange for the return of
assets to boxholders.
Twenty-five commenters stated their unqualified approval of the
proposal. Nineteen others limited their comments to approval of the
existing regulations as they authorize disclosure to government
agencies. These latter comments were provided by the Attorneys General
for 18 states and one state agency for workforce development. The
comments of the states' Attorneys General stressed the need of state
law enforcement agencies (and those state agencies that work with them)
for the information in connection with the investigation and
prosecution of fraud, including consumer and charities fraud. They
stated that it is ``critical'' that these investigatory agencies have
access to the 1583s.
Twenty-four comments were limited to objections to the underlying
CMRA regulations and so are not within the scope of the present
rulemaking. While most of the remaining 80 percent of the commenters
stated approval of the repeal of the provision allowing disclosure of
information about post office boxholders doing business with the
public, none discussed that provision; instead, they focused their
attention on objections to various provisions relating to CMRA
customers. Overall, these latter comments revealed widespread
misinformation about the existing regulations and the limited nature of
the current proposal. Only a few of those providing negative comments
appeared to understand that no new disclosure was proposed in the
August 26 notice. A number of comments revealed a fundamental
misunderstanding of this rulemaking by complaining that the new rule
would allow the release of private boxholder information when the box
is being used to conduct business with the public. The Postal Service
withdrew its proposal to make such a provision applicable to CMRA
customers in the August 26 notice, and, in the same notice, proposed to
eliminate the existing parallel provision respecting post office
boxholders.
A national nonprofit organization interested in the prevention of
domestic violence objected to the release of information from the Form
1583 to government agencies, including law enforcement agencies,
without a warrant. The organization stated that it is ``imperative''
that no one obtain the address of a battered women's shelter without a
warrant. The commenter expressed concern that disclosure to law
enforcement would increase the possibility of unwitting release to the
public, to a person impersonating a law enforcement officer, or to a
law enforcement officer engaging in misconduct. Several other
individual commenters objected to release of information in response to
oral law enforcement requests made through the Inspection Service,
because they thought that this would produce no ``paper trail'' and
thus encourage abuse.
The national organization also objected to disclosure to government
agencies in general as an expansion of the categories of persons having
access to the information. This latter comment suggests a
misunderstanding of what the current regulation permits. Postal
regulations have authorized the disclosure of information from Form
1583 to government agencies, including law enforcement, in appropriate
circumstances for as long as the Postal Service has used the form. This
is not something newly proposed in one of the recent notices of
proposed rules. While the Postal Service is unaware of any instance in
which disclosure of this information to a government agency or law
enforcement officer has resulted in harm to a boxholder or other
individual, it is nonetheless sympathetic to the concern expressed in
these comments. Because of the potential for abuse, it has decided to
eliminate the longstanding rule that authorizes disclosure in response
to oral requests of law enforcement agencies when conducting criminal
investigations. The Postal Service is not, however, persuaded of the
necessity to require government agencies to obtain a warrant as a
precondition to access in all cases. This would place an undue burden
on an agency's performance of legitimate law enforcement or other
governmental functions. In the absence of any history of abuse of the
provision, the Postal Service believes that the requirement that the
requester certify in writing on agency letterhead that the information
is required for the performance of official duties provides a
reasonable amount of protection against unwarranted invasions of the
privacy of most boxholders. For those boxholders who are in particular
risk of danger if located, the Postal Service believes that it is not
an unreasonable burden for them to obtain an appropriate protective
order to be placed on file with the 1093 or the 1583, thus requiring
the requesting agency to first obtain a court order.
This commenter also urged the need for security measures to govern
the maintenance of Forms 1583 at the local post office and the need for
a method by which a victim of abuse could confirm with local postal
officials whether the information had been released. The Postal Service
already has procedures in place, mandated by the Privacy Act of 1974,
that address these last two concerns.
One private corporation claiming to comment ``on behalf of the
several million American citizens that choose to receive their mail at
private and P.O. boxes'' stated that the underlying CMRA revisions made
final on March 25, 1999, ``are in fact the only issue.'' Those
revisions are not at issue, however, in the present rulemaking.
Principal among its comments regarding the present rule is an objection
to the ``changes'' in the August 26 notice that would allow release of
information about private or post office boxholders to anyone without a
warrant, subpoena, or court order. These ``changes,'' the commenter
states, are in conflict with the safeguards of the Privacy Act and
violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects against warrantless
searches and seizures. The commenter's references to ``changes,''
supposedly made by the August 26 notice, indicate a basic
misunderstanding of the Postal Service's regulations in this area. The
regulations have long authorized disclosure to government agencies upon
written certification and to law enforcement when oral requests are
made through the Inspection Service. These objections, therefore, are
to regulations that have been in effect for a long time, and not to any
recently proposed changes. The Postal Service, moreover, is not
persuaded that its regulations are in conflict with the Privacy Act or
violate the Fourth Amendment. The Postal Service's routine uses provide
sufficient authorization for disclosure of information on Form 1583 to
government agencies, consistent with the requirements of the Privacy
Act. The safeguards required by the Act have long since been
implemented by the Postal Service with respect to the information
contained in the 1583. Further, the Postal Service is not aware that
any court has extended the protection of the Fourth Amendment to an
individual's name or address. The commenter also states that the
Privacy Act statement on Form 1583 is ``defective'' because it does not
inform the customer how the information will be used or released. The
Postal Service intends to amend the statement to bring
[[Page 3859]]
it into conformity with the regulations as revised by this final rule,
after this rule becomes effective.
Almost all of the remaining commenters, primarily CMRA customers,
echoed nearly verbatim the objections discussed in the preceding
paragraph. A number of these commenters also took the opportunity to
voice their objections to the underlying CMRA regulations, which will
not be addressed here.
A nonprofit organization that is interested in rights and
responsibilities in the ``electronic world'' objected to the creation
of a national database of information from Form 1583, because the
existence of such a database would be a ``boon to identity thieves.''
Several other individual commenters stated their concern that the
Postal Service will use Forms 1583 to create a national database. In
the August 26 notice, the Postal Service addressed this concern by
stating that the forms are maintained locally and that it has no
intention of creating a national database with the information
contained in them. The nonprofit organization stated that although the
Postal Service may not intend to create such a database, this will
necessarily be the result of storage of the forms in a Federal Records
Center and from the maintenance of the forms at each CMRA and local
post office. The Postal Service disagrees with this analysis. There is
a great deal of difference in terms of risk to personal privacy between
a collection of paper records locally maintained in secure conditions,
or stored in boxes in a federal records depository, and information
collected and maintained in a national electronic database. The secure
storage of paper records simply does not pose the same kind of risk of
improper data sharing as is posed by maintenance in an electronic
database. Moreover, the maintenance of these paper forms over many
years has not resulted in any incidents of identity theft so far as the
Postal Service is aware. This commenter also complained that the
proposal ignores the Fair Information Practices of the Federal Trade
Commission. These guidelines, developed specifically in connection with
the FTC's work regarding online privacy, are already embedded in the
procedures required by the Privacy Act of 1974 and so are addressed
elsewhere in the Postal Service's regulations that implement the Act.
The regulation at hand is not the appropriate place for their
inclusion. See the Postal Service's Privacy Act regulations, 39 CFR
Part 266, and the system notice for the system of records titled USPS
010.050, Collection and Delivery Records--Delivery of Mail Through
Agents, last published in full at 54 FR 43660 (October 26, 1989), with
amendments appearing at 59 FR 22874 (May 3, 1994) and 64 FR 8878
(February 23, 1999). Finally, this commenter claimed that the Postal
Service is violating two provisions of the Privacy Act: subsection
(e)(1) through the ``over-collection of information,'' namely, the ages
of any children who will receive mail at the CMRA address, and
subsection (e)(2) by ``coercing'' the CMRA to collect the information
rather than collecting the information itself. The Postal Service sees
no merit in either contention. Subsection (e)(1) limits an agency's
maintenance of information about an individual to that which is
``relevant and necessary to accomplish a [legally required] purpose of
the agency.'' The provision permitting the boxholder to list the names
and addresses of his or her minor children is an exception to the
general requirement that all individuals receiving mail through a
private box submit a Form 1583. Ages are necessary to determine when
the child no longer qualifies for this exception. Subsection (e)(2)
provides for collection of information ``to the greatest extent
practicable directly from the subject individual.'' Since the CMRA
customer is asked to fill out the Form 1583, the Postal Service
believes that it is in compliance with this provision.
Finally, a number of commenters stated that the Postal Service has
no authority to collect information about CMRA customers. Others stated
that the Postal Service is expressly forbidden to collect the
information. No reference to an authority for either proposition was
given, and the Postal Service knows of none. The Postal Service
believes it has ample authority to require agents for the receipt of
mail to prove the bona fides of their agency agreements with postal
customers. This cannot be done without submitting the names and
addresses of the principals to such agreements.
List of Subjects in 39 CFR Part 265
Administrative practice and procedure, Courts, Freedom of
Information, Government employees, Release of information.
For the reasons set forth in this document, the Postal Service is
amending 39 CFR Part 265 as follows:
PART 265--RELEASE OF INFORMATION
1. The authority citation for part 265 continues to read as
follows:
Authority: 5 U.S.C. 552; 5 U.S.C. App. 3; 39 U.S.C. 401, 403,
410, 1001, 2601.
2. Section 265.6(d)(3) and (d)(8) are revised to read as follows:
Sec. 265.6 Availability of records.
* * * * *
(d) * * *
(3) Post office boxholder information. Information from PS Form
1093, Application for Post Office Box or Caller Service, will be
provided as follows:
(i) Except as provided in paragraph (d)(3)(iii) of this section,
information from PS Form 1093 will be provided only in those
circumstances stated at paragraphs (d)(4)(i) through (d)(4)(iii) of
this section.
(ii) Except as provided in paragraph (d)(3)(iii) of this section,
copies of PS Form 1093 will be furnished only in those circumstances
stated at paragraphs (d)(4)(i) and (d)(4)(iii) of this section.
(iii) When the boxholder files with the postmaster a copy of a
protective court order, information from PS Form 1093 will not be
disclosed except pursuant to the order of a court of competent
jurisdiction.
* * * * *
(8) Private mailbox information. Information from PS Form 1583,
Application for Delivery of Mail Through Agent, will be provided as
follows:
(i) Except as provided in paragraph (d)(8)(iii) of this section,
information from PS Form 1583 will be provided only in those
circumstances stated at paragraphs (d)(4)(i) and (d)(4)(iii) of this
section.
(ii) To the public only for the purpose of identifying a particular
address as an address of an agent to whom mail is delivered on behalf
of other persons. No other information, including, but not limited to,
the identities of persons on whose behalf agents receive mail, may be
disclosed to the public from PS Form 1583.
(iii) Information concerning an individual who has filed a
protective court order with the postmaster will not be disclosed except
pursuant to the order of a court of competent jurisdiction.
* * * * *
Stanley F. Mires,
Chief Counsel, Legislative.
[FR Doc. 00-1668 Filed 1-24-00; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7710-12-U