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From: teda!maven.DNET!ardai@sun.com
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: US West and the War on Drugs
Message-ID: <6270@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 11 Apr 90 14:38:44 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 247, Message 6 of 14


This is from Tuesday's (4/10) [Washington Post]:

Dialing For Drug Dealers (Assoc Press, St. Paul Minn)

   "A telephone company is taking a technological leap backward in an
effort to fight the drug problem.

  US West has replaced push button pay phones with rotary models in
about 18 Twin Cities locations to make it harder for drug dealers to
conduct business with telephone pagers, US West spokesman Mike Breda
said.

  Because most pagers don't work unless the call comes from a
push-button phone, drug dealers with pagers can't use the rotary
phones.

  Pagers have become a way of life for dealers, who often fear their
telephone lines are tapped.  Customers order drugs by telephoning a
dealer's pager and then punching in a phone number or a prearrainged
code, police say. "

                    --------------------
I guess the police have never heard of those little tone pads that can
be picked up at RS!  Just another way for the phone company to
complicate the lives of average people without actually having an
effect on the real problem.


Michael L. Ardai   Teradyne EDA   ...!sun!teda!maven.dnet!ardai