"In 1971, the Postal Service and Customs Service entered into an agreement. It provided that customs employees could open sealed mail coming into this country from abroad if there was reasonable cause to believe the mail contained dutiable goods or contraband. No search warrant was required for these openings. In fiscal 1976, working from a number of offices around the country, Customs opened an estimated 270,000 such items; 48,000 of those searches yielded prohibited or taxable goods. Last month, in a case titled United States v. Ramsey, the Supreme Court held that such openings, conducted in accord with applicable regulations, are not an unconstitutional violation of the search and seizure language of the Fourth Amendment"--Page 1.