Newsgroups: alt.privacy,alt.society.civil-liberty,talk.politics.drugs
From: whughes@lonestar.utsa.edu (William W. Hughes)
Subject: BIG BROTHER is watching you in Texas!

From the Sunday, 10 October 1993 edition of the  San Antonio Express-News,
page 8B. Reprinted without permission. All typos are mine.


LETTERS TO TARGET DRIVERS IN ALLEGED DRUG ZONES

Associated Press

GRAND PRAIRIE - Police say they plan to wite letters to businesses and
individuals whose vehicles are spotted in an allegedly drug-infested
neighborhood in the Dallas suburb of Grand Prairie.

   "Basically, what we'll do is send a friendly letter," said Joe Babina,
a police storefront officer in the neighborhood of Dalworth. "We're not
going to allege anything."

   The letters will inform people that police saw their vehicles on a
particular date in a pearticular time in a known drug area.

   "The majority of people who come through Dalworth, they come in here
to buy drugs," Babina said. "Why would you come down here if you don't live
here?"

   Babina said more than half of the people arrested in Dalworth for drug
offesnses are not from the town. Over the past six weeks, police have made
17 drug arrests in the 2-square-mile neighborhood.

   The letter-writing operation, praised by city leaders, has drawn fire
from the American Civil Liberties Union. The civil-rights group says
notifying companies that their vehicles drove through known drug areas
may put employees under undue suspicion.

   Police say they will send the letters to owners of vehicles that they think
have no legitimate reasons for driving through the neighborhood.