Quote from: sunny1 on October 12, 2012, 07:57 pmI'm pretty sure that would be an illegal search if they simply punched a hole in a first class letter or package and used a sniffer. If they did that on a regular basis it would come out and there would be trouble for them. I also don't think they x ray packages. Incoming over the border, sure. You have no protections then but inside usa it takes a warrant to open and i'm pretty sure for an xray too. What they can do if they are suspicious is to present it to a drug dog along with some other mail. If the dog alerts to the one they suspect they get the warrant and open it, etc.I think the holes are an accidental result of sharp wires, rods, and so on. I've seen letters and packages nearly destroyed as well as some that never made it.Quote from: sunny1 on October 13, 2012, 12:14 amI have never gotten a letter with a neat hole punched right through it. I've gotten lots of mail from overseas which they could have legally opened and nada. I've gotten stuff in country that they might have been suspicious of, hundreds of small packages over the years and none of that. I think you are being paranoid.Lets say it was intentional and they were looking for drugs. They find the drugs with this method. Now they are fucked legally, they did an invasive search without a warrant and its fruit of the poisoned tree so no evidence found will be admitted later on. Any warrant issued from that will be quashed when the facts come out. Yes, they could lie but i can't see this being used on a regular basis. It would come out sooner or later and be a scandal.Just because you have never experienced something, sunny1, doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. As far as x-raying goes, that is a non-invasive method of determining the contents of a letter or package and is therefore allowed without a search warrant.Small holes are regularly punched in international letters and packages by an Ion Mobility Scanner, as explained by DrDeepWood.- grahamgreene