POLICE WORK SPURS A FEW SOBERING THOUGHTS

Pagans are in the news again, but not the kind that chant incantations,
wear ropes and disrupt school board meetings.

These Pagans drive motorcycles, wear leather vests stitched with their club
colors and disrupt the peace of a community.

The Citrus County Sheriff's Office last week threw a wrench into what they
say were the Pagans' efforts to run loads of cocaine and other drugs
through the county by arresting five men and seizing cocaine, guns and
thousands of dollars.

Investigators said that some of the suspects have ties to the motorcycle
gang, which has earned a brutal reputation in Florida and throughout the
East Coast for crimes ranging from rape, murder and prostitution to drug
and weapons sales.

Local law enforcement has been aware of their activities here for some time
and this is not the first encounter they've had. In December, police raided
a house in Homosassa they described as a Pagan clubhouse. A short time
later, they arrested a Dunnellon man said to be an enforcer for the gang
along with two other suspected members on various charges related to local
shootings, beatings and other mayhem.

Yes, it appears little Citrus County is growing up, much to our dismay.

The latest arrests are said to have broken a drug-trafficking ring that
extended deep into South Florida. I'd like to think that the drug pipeline
really is closed, but common sense says that as long as there is a market
here for the cocaine, someone else will fill the void. The basic laws of
supply and demand work in the drug world just as they do in legit business.

The investigators are rightly proud that their hard work in this case paid
off. And they should be commended for their diligence. Seasoned drug
dealers don't make it easy to catch them and police know they have to
gather strong enough evidence to meet the threshold for a conviction in a
courtroom.

Not to throw a wet blanket on the celebration, but two things about the
sting operation are bothersome.

One is a comment by Sheriff Jeff Dawsy at the news conference on Monday
announcing the arrests and seizures. "These people are major traffickers,"
he said. "We've been aware of them for years."

It's troubling to think just how much drugs and violence were imported to
Citrus County by these "major traffickers" during those years when the
police were watching and gathering evidence.

Again, it takes time to build a case. But years?

The other concern deals with a new tool that the sheriff's office used to
break the case. Investigators now have special technology that allows them
to monitor cellular phone conversations. They listened in on the suspect's
cell phone calls for weeks and came away with all sorts of valuable
information that led to the arrests.

Something about law enforcement being able to listen in on citizens' cell
phone conversations whenever they please bothers me, however.

Courts have ruled that cell phone users, unlike people talking on regular
telephones, do not have a legal expectation of privacy in their
conversations, apparently because of the nature of the technology. Police
still need to get warrants to tap regular phones, but not cell phones.

In this case, the investigators used the new technology as it was intended,
to arrest lawbreakers. But I can see where these eavesdropping devices
could be ripe for abuse in the hands of police agencies with less admirable
intentions.

And the low cost of the equipment, only $5,000, makes it an attractive buy.
Before you know it, every agency in the country will be able to while away
the hours listening in on our private conversations for no legitimate law
enforcement reason.

Call me paranoid, but that prospect chills me.

None of this should detract from the top-notch work turned in by the
sheriff's investigators in this case. They recognized a cancer that was
growing in Citrus County and they took the necessary steps to surgically
remove it.

Cases like this, though, can have far-reaching consequences beyond the
arrests and seizures. We got some bad dudes off the streets, but lost a bit
more privacy in the bargain.