§3008 — Title 39 Postal Service | U.S. Code

Summary

You can ask the Postal Service to stop a sender from mailing you material you believe is sexually arousing or provocative. If you tell the Postal Service and ask for action, the Postal Service will order the sender to stop mailing to the specific addresses you name. The order takes effect 30 calendar days after the sender gets it. The sender must remove the named addresses from all their mailing lists and must not sell, rent, exchange, or trade lists that still include those names. If the Postal Service thinks the sender ignored the order, it will send a complaint by registered or certified mail and give the sender 15 days to answer in writing. After a hearing if requested (or without one, if not requested), the Postal Service can ask the Attorney General to go to a U.S. district court to force compliance. The court can order compliance and punish disobedience as contempt. Mail received 30 days or more after the order starts is presumed to have been sent after the order (unless proven otherwise). On request, the order can include any of the addressee’s minor children under their nineteenth birthday who live with them. The usual administrative and judicial review rules in title 5 do not apply. Mail addressed only to the address named in an order is treated as addressed to the person named, and “children” covers natural, step, adopted children, wards, or others living in a parent-child relationship.

Title 39, §3008

Postal Service — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)Whoever for himself, or by his agents or assigns, mails or causes to be mailed any pandering advertisement which offers for sale matter which the addressee in his sole discretion believes to be erotically arousing or sexually provocative shall be subject to an order of the Postal Service to refrain from further mailings of such materials to designated addresses thereof.

(b)Upon receipt of notice from an addressee that he has received such mail matter, determined by the addressee in his sole discretion to be of the character described in subsection (a) of this section, the Postal Service shall issue an order, if requested by the addressee, to the sender thereof, directing the sender and his agents or assigns to refrain from further mailings to the named addressees.

(c)The order of the Postal Service shall expressly prohibit the sender and his agents or assigns from making any further mailings to the designated addresses, effective on the thirtieth calendar day after receipt of the order. The order shall also direct the sender and his agents or assigns to delete immediately the names of the designated addressees from all mailing lists owned or controlled by the sender or his agents or assigns and, further, shall prohibit the sender and his agents or assigns from the sale, rental, exchange, or other transaction involving mailing lists bearing the names of the designated addressees.

(d)Whenever the Postal Service believes that the sender or anyone acting on his behalf has violated or is violating the order given under this section, it shall serve upon the sender, by registered or certified mail, a complaint stating the reasons for its belief and request that any response thereto be filed in writing with the Postal Service within 15 days after the date of such service. If the Postal Service, after appropriate hearing if requested by the sender, and without a hearing if such a hearing is not requested, thereafter determines that the order given has been or is being violated, it is authorized to request the Attorney General to make application, and the Attorney General is authorized to make application, to a district court of the United States for an order directing compliance with such notice.

(e)Any district court of the United States within the jurisdiction of which any mail matter shall have been sent or received in violation of the order provided for by this section shall have jurisdiction, upon application by the Attorney General, to issue an order commanding compliance with such notice. Failure to observe such order may be punishable by the court as contempt thereof.

(f)Receipt of mail matter 30 days or more after the effective date of the order provided for by this section shall create a rebuttable presumption that such mail was sent after such effective date.

(g)Upon request of any addressee, the order of the Postal Service shall include the names of any of his minor children who have not attained their nineteenth birthday, and who reside with the addressee.

(h)The provisions of subchapter II of chapter 5, relating to administrative procedure, and chapter 7, relating to judicial review, of title 5, shall not apply to any provisions of this section.

(i)For purposes of this section—

(1)mail matter, directed to a specific address covered in the order of the Postal Service, without designation of a specific addressee thereon, shall be considered as addressed to the person named in the Postal Service’s order; and

(2)the term “children” includes natural children, stepchildren, adopted children, and children who are wards of or in custody of the addressee or who are living with such addressee in a regular parent-child relationship.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Effective Date

Section effective July 1, 1971, pursuant to Resolution No. 71–9 of the Board of Governors. See section 15(a) of Pub. L. 91–375, set out as a note preceding section 101 of this title.

§3008 Prohibition of pandering advertisements

Summary

Title 39, §3008

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Effective Date

Citations & Metadata