Prohibitory Order

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A Prohibitory Order is a legal instrument issued by the United States Postal Service, against a mailer, on request of a recipient. Its effect is to criminalize any further attempt by that particular mailer to contact that particular recipient by United States Mail. It is requested by filing United States Postal Service Form 1500, either with a local Postmaster, or directly with the Prohibitory Order Processing Center. This form is available on the USPS web site as a PDF. Please note that the entire mailpiece must be enclosed, including the envelope, and you must open it before enclosing it, as the Post Office is prohibited from opening mail not addressed to it.

Historically, the Prohibitory Order was devised as a means of protecting freedom of speech, while recognizing the rights of individual recipients not to receive advertisements they deem to be pornographic or otherwise offensive, and the absolute and unreviewable right of the recipient of a mailpiece to determine whether or not it is offensive.

Needless to say, neither a Prohibitory Order, nor a request for enforcement of one, can be made with regard to bills, dunning notices, or other lawful creditor-to-debtor correspondence concerning a lawful obligation.

In addition, recipients may apply for a general prohibitory order, covering any mailpiece that may be deemed offensive on the basis of explicit sexual content. By contrast, a prohibitory order against a specific mailer, although the language of the application form implies that explicit sexual content is the only basis for finding a mailpiece offensive, has been extended by case law to allow the recipient to declare any mailpiece obscene, for any reason whatsoever, with no requirement to state the reason(s) for taking offense. The only absolute requirement is that it must be possible to construe the mailpiece as an offer to sell goods or services. In practice, any organization soliciting contributions, and offering some sort of premium in exchange for a fixed minimum contribution, is offering that premium for sale at a fixed price; moreover, any organization which is engaged in political lobbying, and soliciting funds to support its lobbying operations, is in effect selling lobbying services to its supporters.

In order to maximize the chance for success in obtaining a Prohibitory Order against a political organization, certain additional steps should be taken, beyond those needed for a prohibitory order against a commercial mailer.

• Include a cover letter.
• State, in the cover letter, that you are invoking your "Unreviewable Discretion" (the exact phrase appears to carry some weight) under the Rowan v. United States Decision.
• State, in the cover letter, exactly how you construe the offending mailpiece as an offer of goods or services for sale. Statements of why you consider it offensive are optional; this is not.
• Mail the application, along with the complete, opened mailpiece, directly to the address given on the application, by First Class or Priority Mail. While local Postmasters are officially required to accept and forward all Prohibitory Order applications without passing judgment upon them, in practice, this writer's personal experience has shown that they can be uncooperative if the grounds for offense are anything other than completely conventional in nature.