By: Frank Albergo, Postal Police Officers Association
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) is a constitutional anomaly — an independent federal agency wielding vast law enforcement power without direct Department of Justice or Executive Branch oversight.
In Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), the Supreme Court approved a limited vision of independent federal agencies: entities exercising quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial functions, shielded from presidential control under narrow circumstances. But a federal law enforcement agency — with the power to surveil, to arrest, and to use force — was never meant to operate outside the President’s direct supervision. That principle is rooted in Article II of the Constitution, which charges the President with the responsibility to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
