Q. I saw that the U.S. Postal Inspection Service last week said in your column that it was acceptable for a police officer to look in a private mailbox. That didn't sound right to me. Is there more to this story?

A. Postal Inspector Jeff Fitch, agency spokesman in San Francisco, said you and the original caller are right and he wanted to further clarify the answer that the Honolulu office provided last week.

The reader described a police officer knocking on a neighbor's door and then looking in the mailbox when no one answered. "Technically, that officer should not have done that," Fitch said, unless there was an emergency, "such as hazmat teams and bomb squads under special circumstances." He said local law enforcement does not have the authority to search the mail.

"The mail is protected by the Constitution and the federal statute," Fitch said. There are specific ways that law enforcement can contact federal postal officials when the mail might be at issue, he said. But it's not as simple as looking in the box.

"There are procedures that are to be followed," he said. "Many law enforcement agencies come to us directly."

Normally, state search warrants don't work on U.S. mail, Fitch said.

"It has to be a federal search warrant," he said.

Q. At the end of March, I was driving home at about 4 p.m. while it was raining really hard and saw sprinklers going full-blast on the side of the freeway — Waimalu/Pearl City off-ramp. And that wasn't the only time recently. Does the state have moisture sensors or remote controls on the sprinklers to allow them to turn off the water when it's raining? Can they see the rain and sprinklers through the traffic camera system?

A. The landscape sprinkler system at that location is run on an automatic timer, self-activating at preset times regardless of weather conditions, said state Transportation Department spokesman Scott Ishikawa.

"Unfortunately, there are no moisture sensors or remote controls on this industrial system," he said.

However, he said that during the recent rainy period in February and March, the department was monitoring its sprinkler systems more vigilantly to try to cut down on wasting water.

If you have a question or a problem and need help getting to the right person, you can reach The Bureaucracy Buster one of three ways:

Write to:

The Bureaucracy Buster
The Honolulu Advertiser
605 Kapi'olani Blvd.
Honolulu, HI 96813

E-mail: buster@honoluluadvertiser.com

Phone: 535-2454 and leave a message. Be sure to give us your name and daytime telephone number in case we need more information.