Have your letter ever been stopped by customs?

[MilanKov]

I am not completely sure, if this is the appropriate place to post this, so if any of the mods disagree with this I would be grateful if they would move this to appropriate section.

 

So, as it says on the tin. I have just received a letter from my pen pal from Germany. And his letter has been stopped, opened and inspected by the German customs office. They had included a small slip of paper that they did the control. And I mean I do not get why it had happened because there was clearly only slip of paper inside the envelope.

 

And honestly I feel more than little bit violated not only by the fact that the letter was opened, but the mere fact that somebody completely foreign read my friends letter.

 

It feels like I have woken some 33 year ago when the iron curtain still stood.

 

Has anybody experienced something like this in the recent times?

 

I guess I should start thinking up a code for our continuous correspondence... But just ugh.

 

Sorry for venting.

 

Cheers Milan 

[LizEF]

I've never seen this, but I find it interesting and am hoping others might add their experience.  I have recently started corresponding with someone in Germany, but no sign anyone's opened letters or packages.  And he's moving to another country for a while, so if it's only Germany doing this, I won't see it any time soon.

[gyasko]

It happened to me in Japan.  

[A Smug Dill]

11 hours ago, MilanKov said:

So, as it says on the tin. I have just received a letter from my pen pal from Germany. And his letter has been stopped, opened and inspected by the German customs office.

 

Firstly, there are letters and then there are letters. I used to send fountain pens and ink samples by international letter post — specifically, Economy Air Letters with Merchandise service — entirely legitimately, I might add, complete with the required CN22 customs declaration paperwork, and as advised by the local post office staff as being the/a proper way to sending stuff. Therefore, a postal article that is a letter — by the World Customs Organization's and Universal Post Union's definition, perhaps? — is not inherently exempt from Customs attention, scrutiny, or inspection. After all, it is the Customs staff's job to ensure what passes through the a nation's borders are allowed by and compliant with the applicable customs regulations.

 

11 hours ago, MilanKov said:

And I mean I do not get why it had happened because there was clearly only slip of paper inside the envelope.

 

I don't think the why matters, unless you're inquiring into the specifics of individual Customs offices' ‘playbooks’ to see what would trigger inspection action, with a view to deliberately trying to avoid or evade it — not necessarily for illegal or unethical reasons, but perhaps simply a belief that your idea of privacy is more important than systematic policing of border security that does not unduly care for anyone's feelings and sentiments. Just to be clear, I'm not preaching or advocating, “If you have nothing to hide, then you wouldn't mind or try to avoid being scrutinised,” or some such; what I'm saying is that you only need to know if you want to ‘play’ or ‘game’ the system to make yourself happier with the outcome, against imaginary antagonists who actually don't care if you're happy and wouldn't go out of their way to make you unhappy for the hell of it.

 

11 hours ago, MilanKov said:

And honestly I feel more than little bit violated not only by the fact that the letter was opened, but the mere fact that somebody completely foreign read my friends letter.

 

Inspected by Customs doesn't imply the information content was read. Simply opening the envelope, inspecting that the physical contents do not contain any powders or trace elements of what-not, or sticking the paper into a machine for detection of this substance or other, would constitute inspection without anyone's privacy, with regard to the information content of the written (or printed) word, being violated.

 

I think you'd have more of a ‘case’ arguing privacy violation, if the postal article was endorsed “PRIVATE and CONFIDENTIAL” on the outside, and sent by a law firm or some such (as indicated on the labels and/or paperwork on the outside), and sent by registered mail. Feelings don't count as to whether something warrants inspection at the border or ought to be allowed to past through undisturbed.

[LizEF]

2 hours ago, gyasko said:

It happened to me in Japan.  

Interesting.  Did they also put in a slip of paper saying that customs had opened the letter, or did it just arrive opened?  Also, did they tape it closed again?  (Same question of you, @MilanKov - did they reseal it to ensure the letter didn't fall out?  I assume they did, but my curiosity is piqued...)

[A Smug Dill]

22 minutes ago, LizEF said:

Did they also put in a slip of paper saying that customs had opened the letter, or did it just arrive opened?  Also, did they tape it closed again?

 

I haven't had anything that fit the definition of a ‘letter’ arrive having been opened and inspected by Customs; but every time I've received a not-a-letter postal article (i.e. parcel thicker than 20mm in the narrowest dimension) that has been inspected by Customs personnel in Australia, Netherlands, Spain, etc. it has arrived taped shut, often with special tape marked as being applied by either a country's national postal service provider or its Customs office.

[LizEF]

4 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

I haven't had anything that fit the definition of a ‘letter’ arrive having been opened and inspected by Customs; but every time I've received a postal article (i.e. parcel thicker than 20mm in the narrowest dimension) that has been inspected by Customs personnel in Australia, Netherlands, Spain, etc. it has arrived taped shut, often with special tape marked as being applied by either a country's national postal service provider or its Customs office.

Thank you.  This is what I assume they do.  Not sure why I'm so curious about this, but I am.  I'd actually be interested in the details of whatever rules surround opening letters (as opposed to packages, which seem much more obvious).  My search for US rules on outbound letters isn't getting me a lot - apparently several years ago there was a law under consideration to allow outbound mail (packages or letters, as far as I can tell) to be searched without a warrant (at the time, a warrant was required).  I haven't figured out whether it passed (though I suspect it did).  But everything supporting the law is all about packages, not letters...  Anywho, I should probably go read a book or something else, and see if that cures my curiosity.

[gyasko]

32 minutes ago, LizEF said:

Interesting.  Did they also put in a slip of paper saying that customs had opened the letter, or did it just arrive opened?  Also, did they tape it closed again?  (Same question of you, @MilanKov - did they reseal it to ensure the letter didn't fall out?  I assume they did, but my curiosity is piqued...)

 

 

I don’t remember precisely. It happened several times.  I think there was a stamp that said “Inspected” or some such. It was a while ago.  

[LizEF]

12 minutes ago, gyasko said:

I don’t remember precisely. It happened several times.  I think there was a stamp that said “Inspected” or some such. It was a while ago.  

Thanks!

[MilanKov]

4 hours ago, LizEF said:

Interesting.  Did they also put in a slip of paper saying that customs had opened the letter, or did it just arrive opened?  Also, did they tape it closed again?  (Same question of you, @MilanKov - did they reseal it to ensure the letter didn't fall out?  I assume they did, but my curiosity is piqued...)

Yes, they resealed it with a tape with a customs logo and put a note which announced the inspection and with a printed link to relevant web site. But to be honest their tape was quite flimsy and I would love to hear explanation why print a long weblink  on paper.

[Dione]

Even letters are put on conveyor belts to go through the X-ray machine and to be sniffed by Customs sniffer dogs. Any slight alert could probably be enough for a letter to be opened. It may be enough that someone who has handled drugs and subsequently handled the letter enough for it to have interested a dog. Once upon a time my partner was stopped at US Customs because the sniffer dog was attracted to something in his back pocket. It was that strange type of paper receipt that came from handing in the rental car, but it was enough to cause a trigger. Strange things happen. Pieces of paper can be stuck together with drugs in between them and sent in innocuous looking letters. Not suggesting anything untoward as far as you're concerned OP but merely possibilities that may explain letters being opened and examined. In all likelihood it may not have even been read.

[LizEF]

3 hours ago, Dione said:

Any slight alert...

An they could have a program of selecting letters at random - like many employers do random drug testing.  Personally, I think such random searches are wrong, but no one cares what I think.

[LizEF]

5 hours ago, MilanKov said:

Yes, they resealed it with a tape with a customs logo and put a note which announced the inspection and with a printed link to relevant web site. But to be honest their tape was quite flimsy and I would love to hear explanation why print a long weblink  on paper.

[pic]

Thanks!  I had google translate the letter:

Quote

Your shipment has been opened by customs (legal basis: Sections 5 and 10 of the Customs Administration Act). The random checks carried out did not reveal any customs-related findings. No data is stored / processed for the control carried out.

So it seems they do random checks.  As for the printed URL on paper - that's government for you.  As for the length - that's German for you.

[inkstainedruth]

Never had that happen with any packages I've gotten from overseas, AFAIK.  Most of the pen shipments have, of course, gone through US Customs.

Years ago, when my husband and I got married, we went to Nova Scotia on our honeymoon, taking the "ferry" (a cruise ship with an entire parking deck) to Yarmouth.  When we got off the boat, we were trying to explain to Canadian Customs why we said we were from PA but driving a car with NY plates (it was my car because I can't drive a stick), and said "We just got married...."  The Customs people said, "Okay -- pull off to the right please...." and they searched our car really thoroughly (even opening the emergency road kit, and when the one guy pulled the gas siphon out of it and said "What's this?" and my husband said "It's a gas siphon...." and the guy had enough.  We just assumed it was that they did spot checks (say, every Nth vehicle) and we just happened to be the Nth.  (Ironically they asked me to take my purse out of the car, and I had a large one at the time which was doubling as a camera bag -- and I could have had a couple of grenades in it for all they knew).

The last night we were there, we found a B&B in Yarmouth because we knew we'd have to get to the ferry terminal early in the morning (the boarding time was about 8:30 AM local time IIRC).  In the evening, after we got back from dinner, we sat on the front porch talking to the owners, and to a friend of theirs who had come over for the evening.   Turned out the guy worked for Customs and we told him the story about having the car searched (my husband had crossed the border hundreds of times growing up because he lived on an island in the Niagara River outside Buffalo, NY when he was little, and his mom grocery-shopped on the Canadian side a lot).  The guy said "Oh, I can tell you why you got searched -- they were looking for drugs!  The minute you said you were newlyweds -- cocaine is the new yuppie wedding present!"   

We were both sort of sitting there, blinking at the guy from Canadian Customs in complete shock... and said, "Well, a couple of our friends gave us booze...."  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[Mercian]

Back in the early 1990s, I posted a handwritten letter from my home town in the Midlands of England to a friend of mine from university who had just moved to London (the one in England).

I didn’t hear back from her for ages, which I thought odd, because she had sent me her new address with the specific request that I write to her.

I put it down to her being busy getting to know her new neighbourhood, colleagues, etc, and the fact that London is not exactly short of things to do.

 

Anyway, two months after I had posted the letter, I got another (slightly put-out) one from her asking why I hadn’t written yet, and then, two days after that, my letter was returned to me.

Despite it having been correctly addressed, it had been routed to Northern Ireland, and opened and read there by an official from some branch of government of which I had never previously heard, before being returned to me (as opposed to being sent on it its addressee in London).

 

There was no explanation of why it had been intercepted, let alone re-routed over the Sea to Northern Ireland; the cut-open then taped-shut-again envelope came back to me containing my letter and a slip of paper on which was typed “Inspected by the Office of blah-blah” (I cannot now remember its name), and its address in Northern Ireland. The envelope had also been re-franked with an N.I. mark before being returned to me.
My friend found it highly amusing when I was eventually able to meet up with her and show her the letter & slip.

 

I never did find out for sure why my letter not only got opened & read by HMG, but re-routed so far out of its way.
As this was during ‘The Troubles’, I presume that my friend had moved in to an address that had previously been occupied by members of the IRA or INLA. But MI5 is headquartered in London, and so are Special Branch. The blatantly-obvious opening of the letter suggests that no ‘spooks’ were involved, and that it was just some Weapons-grade snafu at Royal Mail - but they too are headquartered in London.
Why the need to send it to Belfast?

 

The ways of the Postal System are an Ineffable Mystery.

 

[LizEF]

1 hour ago, Mercian said:

The ways of the Postal System are an Ineffable Mystery.

Fascinating story.   Makes me glad they need a warrant to do that to domestic mail in the US.  (Although any more, they can get secret warrants in secret courts, so I'm not really sure that does us any good.  I think I'll go back to coloring a greeting card now...)

[jchch1950]

Intelligence tracing can also be a reason of opening letters.

[Mercian]

On 9/14/2021 at 10:19 PM, jchch1950 said:

Intelligence tracing can also be a reason of opening letters.

Well, if They were looking for intelligence, They will have been sorely-disappointed when they opened mine!

[jchch1950]

Are you a special interest person?

[Mercian]

1 hour ago, jchch1950 said:

Are you a special interest person?

 

Me?
Not in the least!

My reference to there being a lack of intelligence in the letter of mine that got pulled was, of course, an absolutely first-class play-on-words! A genuinely hilarious one that can only be described as Comedy Gold. Gold, I tell ye!
(I aver that this message board has need of an animated 'Tumbleweed' emoji )