The United States Postal Service is a unique government agency that touches virtually every household and business nearly every day. It has visibility and a physical presence in almost every community. It has an impact that goes far beyond its basic mission of delivering the mail in a competitive marketplace.

The American people have long relied on the mail to conduct the commerce of the nation. This trust is based, in part, on the existence of a specialized and particularly effective law enforcement agency — the Postal Inspection Service — with a specific mission to protect the mail, employees, and customers.

Postal inspectors arrest more than 11,000 criminal suspects each year for attacks on the mail - including mail theft, robberies, assaults on employees, and the destruction of Postal Service property. In 2005, the Inspection Service will be increasing its partnership with major mailers to incorporate their mail loss data into a new financial crimes database that will permit earlier identification of trends and more effective investigation and prosecution of incidents.

The Inspection Service investigates, in cooperation with other agencies, the mailing of hazardous materials, bombs, and other potential threats. The Inspection Service established an Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security Group in 2003. In 2004, the Inspection Service established advanced capabilities to mitigate and investigate threats from dangerous mail. The Postal Service, supported by the Postal Inspection Service, is participating in the Critical Infrastructure Protection Program of the Department of Homeland Security and will upgrade its capability in 2005. The Postal Service is responding effectively to every incident or reported threat. Although this sometimes causes temporary local service disruptions, overall service performance has not been affected and customers usually do not experience any adverse effects.

The Postal Service has formed a new organizational structure to address the numerous issues regarding emergency preparedness. This organization consists of a vice president of Emergency Preparedness, three executive directors who are responsible for incident response, infrastructure protection and mitigation, and emergency preparedness integration. Emergency Preparedness is focused on preparing employees to sustain postal operations during emergencies and establishing better systems for mitigation, response, and recovery from both natural and man-made threats.

Key to protecting the mail, employees, and customers is the Biohazard Detection System (BDS). This system was developed under the Postal Service Emergency Preparedness Plan and is being deployed at over 280 major postal facilities. The system is designed to detect the presence of potential biohazards in the mail stream so that response action can be taken to protect employees and customers and to reduce the possibility of further downstream contamination.

The Postal Service has been involved with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the development of the Postal and Shipping Sector portion of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan as required under Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7, Critical Infrastructure Identification, Prioritization, and Protection. The strategies in this plan will provide the foundation for future protection of the mail, postal employees, and customers.

The Postal Service has adopted policies to protect the privacy of its customers and employees. It adheres to the best practices and requirements of both the public and private sector.

In 2000, the Postal Service was one of the first agencies to establish a Privacy Office. The mission of this office is to protect the value privacy brings to the trust citizens and customers place in the Postal Service and in the sanctity of the mail.

The Privacy Office is charged with keeping Postal Service policies and procedures current with the rapidly changing privacy requirements for both traditional hard copy communications and for new technologies and applications as they are developed and used by the Postal Service.

For 2005, the Privacy Office will focus on customer testing and acceptance of privacy notices, updating Privacy Act systems for Postal Service employees, the impact of evolving database technology on privacy, record retention and disposal, and a comprehensive training program for employees. The goal is to position the Postal Service as one of the leaders in the field of privacy protection, in keeping with the tradition of the sanctity of the mail.

Because of that tradition, and recent Postal Service efforts to update the application of that tradition to the new information technology-based world, the Postal Service continues to be regarded by the public as one of the most trusted private or public institutions.⁴

In addition, the Privacy Office and Marketing will be undertaking efforts to help lead commercial customers to develop and implement strategies to respond to consumers' expectations on protection of their privacy, related to protecting personal information and creating relevant and valued mail. Using research conducted by the Postal Service and other respected organizations, the Postal Service will provide advice and counsel to its commercial customers.

The Postal Service uses a rigorous and disciplined process to optimize its information infrastructure and reengineer its systems. Information is regarded as a critical asset that must be protected and is a cornerstone of maintaining the public trust.

Included in this process is the Information Security Assurance (ISA) program. The ISA program is composed of security policies, including an infrastructure, services, applications assessment, and a system accreditation process. The program includes an active response team to address any security related incidents, an audit function which actively monitors compliance to information technology security policies and standards, and an active communications program to increase employee awareness about computer security issues.

The Postal Service's ISA program is geared to address and support the introduction of new technologies, such as wireless communication. The ISA program also recognizes the importance of the seamless integration of supplier and customer information systems with the Postal Service, and actively works to provide complete security throughout the system in cooperation with the partners of the Postal Service.

The ISA program uses industry-standard measures of performance and complies with all relevant government directives. All programs are subjected to Business Impact Assessments. Key applications have Risk Mitigation Plans and Application Disaster Recovery Plans.

The Postal Service conducts ongoing surveys of both residential and business customers. It receives completed surveys from about 200,000 households and 100,000 businesses per quarter. The survey is supplemented by focus groups and analyses integrating survey data with other measures of corporate performance. Customer satisfaction reporting helps the Postal Service focus on issues that are most important to customers.

The Postal Service also provides multiple channels for customers to obtain information and resolve problems. This focus has helped the Postal Service to become one of the highest-rated firms with the most improved service, as measured independently by the American Customer Satisfaction Index.⁵

The Postal Service Office of the Consumer Advocate partners with the Postal Inspection Service and other agencies to educate consumers about how to avoid becoming victims of fraud. The Office sponsors National Consumer Protection Week each February.

The Postal Inspection Service protects the public against specific criminal use of the mail through investigations of fraud, illegal drugs, money laundering, child exploitation, and pornography. On an annual basis, postal inspectors investigate over 3,000 mail fraud cases, and arrest over 1,400 suspects. Over $2 billion in court ordered and voluntary restitution has been made to citizens as a result. Inspectors arrest more than 300 suspects each year for child sexual exploitation and obscenity offenses, and more than 1,300 for drug trafficking and money laundering.

During 2005, the Inspection Service plans to focus on corporate fraud and international mail crimes. Although the use of the mail only accounts for less than 6 percent of all identity theft, the Inspection Service will continue to pursue this crime aggressively to ensure that mail continues to be the most secure and trusted method of communication and financial transactions.

The Postal Service's presence in almost every community brings with it the responsibility of certain environmental considerations. Since 1993 when the original environmental Guiding Principles were signed, the Postal Service has made significant strides in managing its core business processes to advance operational excellence while promoting sound environmental practices. The Postal Service takes great effort to ensure as little harm to the environment as possible and has implemented a number of programs that reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink its use of resources and their impact on the environment. The Postal Service's environmental strategy is consistent with the organization's overarching strategic goals. During FY2004, the Postal Service implemented several new environmental initiatives while continuing to support existing environmental programs. These new initiatives further the Postal Service's environmental mission, and include Green Purchasing, Shared Energy Savings Projects, Keeping Undelivered Marketing Materials From Landfills, and Environmental Education and Training.

Looking into FY2005 and beyond, the Postal Service's environmental strategy will continue to include environmental stewardship into all core business processes within the Postal Service. To meet this objective, the environmental strategy will continue to focus on the following:

• Improving accessibility of and improvements in training programs.

• Incorporating information technology systems.

• Establishing program performance indicators.

• Increasing revenues and reducing costs.

6.6 Protecting Diversity

The U.S. Postal Service continues its strong commitment to diversity among its employees and suppliers. The Postal Service has set clear objectives for building an environment that is healthy, prosperous, and inclusive. Its main diversity strategies include investing in our workforce, strengthening succession planning, and ensuring a diverse pool of suppliers. Each of these strategies addresses the needs of our employees, customers, and suppliers.

Equal opportunity is the key in developing a competitive, highly qualified workforce and the organization attempts to fully utilize all workers' talents, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, or disability. The organization protects its diversity in the work environment by conducting harassment and discrimination awareness and prevention programs. The success of these training programs has been reflected in significant improvements in the Voice of the Employee survey results. The Postal Service has recently been recognized by a major national business magazine as one of the "50 best places for minorities to work."

The Postal Service respects the diversity of its customers. Multilingual programs provide the information and resources that allow diverse customers to do business with the Postal Service.

The Postal Service has developed a Supplier Diversity Plan to ensure a continued focus on, and improvement in, our relationships with small, minority-owned and woman-owned businesses. The Postal Service works to improve its processes and procedures to ensure opportunities for suppliers. The Postal Service's goal is to continue to be a leader in Supplier Diversity. The Postal National Diversity Leadership Committee reviews progress in the nine objectives of the corporate Supplier Diversity Plan. Postal Service policy is to give preference to domestic-source products and materials when purchasing supplies and services. ⁶

Footnote:

4 In a recent Privacy Trust Survey conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by the CIO Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (January 2004), the Postal Service ranked first out of 60 agencies in how confident the public felt about the agency's commitment to protecting personal information. A similar survey, conducted by the Ponemon Institute and TRUST(e), showed the Postal Service among the top 10 most trusted private sector companies.

5 Transportation/Communications/Utilities and Services, American Customer Satisfaction Index, June 3, 2004.

6 Environmental Impacts of Standard Mail, USPS, April 2002, based on data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.