NO-WARRANT PLAN CORRUPTIBLE

Reading the April 6 article about state Sen. John Minnis' bill to allow
recording conversations without a warrant, in particular for police
informants in drug deals, brings to mind a recent quote by Nobel laureate
economist Milton Friedman (from an article in the April 2 edition of Barron's):

"The special feature about drug enforcement is that, unlike crimes like
theft or murder, you have no victim with an incentive to report it to
police. So the only way a government can enforce such a law is by using
informers, just as the only way the Soviet Union could enforce laws against
indoctrination was through the use of informers. And that tends to corrupt
the whole process."

John Marshall, Olympia, Wash.