ACLU: RACE PROFILES USED IN DRUG WAR

NEW YORK (AP) The war on drugs has resulted in a sharp increase in the
incidence of racial profiling by law officers patrolling highways across the
country, civil rights activists say.

"Skin color has become a substitute for evidence in a way that really
resembles Jim Crow justice on the nation's highways," Ira Glasser, head of
the American Civil Liberties Union, said Wednesday as the group released its
report on the controversial practice.

The Drug Enforcement Administration's "Operation Pipeline" has trained at
least 27,000 law enforcers to use race as a factor in spotting potential
drug couriers, Glasser said.

The practice is so common that the minority community has given it the
derisive term DWB "driving while black or brown," or stopping minorities
for no reason other than their skin color.

DEA officials in Washington did not immediately return calls for comment on
"Operation Pipeline," launched in 1986.

The ACLU's report is largely a collection of case studies from 23 states and
not a statistical analysis.

"By laying out the facts in such detail in this report, we hope that we can
now get beyond `Is there really a problem?' to `What are we as a nation
going to do about it?"' said David Harris, a University of Toledo law
professor and author of the report.

"We don't suggest that this will be easy, only that it is necessary if we
are to call ourselves a democratic nation."

The ACLU is calling on police departments to voluntarily begin documenting
incidents of racial profiling. Some already have, including the forces in
San Diego and San Jose, Calif.

In April, North Carolina became the first state to pass a law requiring data
collection on all traffic stops. Similar bills have been introduced in
Congress and in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland,
Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas and Virginia.

"If you're a young black man there's three things you can count on in your
lifetime: death, taxes and police harassment," said ACLU lawyer Reginald
Shuford.

The ACLU has pending lawsuits in Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey and Oklahoma
regarding racial profiling.