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.