December 20, 2001

San Francisco Bay Guardian

COMBINE ONE OF the least accountable local police forces in the country (the BART police) and a powerful federal law-enforcement agency (the U.S. Customs Service) and what do you get? A mind-boggling assault on the civil liberties of the thousands of passengers who ride BART every day.

Under a BART program that started last week, Customs Service drug-sniffing dogs, working with a team of customs agents and BART officers, began patrolling the trains on a random basis, checking all passengers for contraband. The first night, 14 arrests were made – mostly for possession of small amounts of pot.

The questions are endless: Will people arrested by customs agents on the BART trains face federal charges? What about people who have medical marijuana prescriptions in California (which the feds don't recognize)? Won't this force casual pot smokers off mass transit and into their cars (and isn't that a really stupid thing to do)?

The whole thing makes so little sense, and is so intrusive, that it's hard to imagine why the BART Board is allowing it to happen. The board members need to put an end to this fiasco at once.

(Tim Redmond)