Date: Thursday, November 9, 1995  
Source: Bruce Kollar.   
Section: COMMENTARY  
Column: Voice of the people (letter).   
Dateline: CRYSTAL LAKE    
Copyright Chicago Tribune

FAIR GAME?   

   On Oct. 26, two friends and I were returning from a hunting trip in
Colorado. Near Lexington, Neb., a game-check station was set up. All hunters
were asked to pull over to have their game checked.
   They had a series of approximately 15 stalls. When we reached our stall,
we were asked to exit the vehicle.  They asked what we were hunting, where we
were hunting, if we got anything and for both our driver's licenses and
hunting licenses.  No one in our party got any animals.
   They asked if they could look in our vehicle.  Assuming they were looking
for illegally poached game, we consented. Two agents began looking in the
vehicle.
   Their search began in the front seat of the vehicle, moved to the glove
compartment, ash tray and the front console. How we could fit an elk or deer
into those areas is beyond me.
   Suddenly one of the agents claimed he smelled an odor, implying that we
had drugs in the vehicle. After we had spent a week in the wilderness without
running water, the vehicle probably did smell, but not of drugs. The agent
informed us that if we cooperated, he could make a deal with us. My friends
and I do not do drugs, and we were insulted by his comment.

   The agent immediately called for the K-9 unit to check out the vehicle.
Another agent had my friends and me empty our pockets, and we were then
frisked.
   Meanwhile, the dog and the other agent were going through the car; the
agent removed and opened every bag and threw the contents of the bags on the
ground and removed the inside door panels looking for drugs.
   During this 1 1/2-hour search, we were standing in mid-40-degree
temperatures with a 30 m.p.h. north wind without coats (and one of our party
without his shoes).
   We were also being videotaped and photographed.  One of the conservation
agents commented that earlier they had found illegal aliens and drugs in
vehicles that had been through before us and that "we fit the profile of drug
users."
   All they could find was a bottle of aspirin. We told him what it was, but
the agent replied, "I'll be the judge of that!"  He licked his finger and
touched the pills in the bottle and touched them back to his tongue, ruining
the whole bottle of aspirin.  Upset that they didn't get the bust that they
wanted, they said we could repack our belongings and go.
   With all the recent hearings regarding the role of government agencies
acting beyond their jurisdiction, it is surprising to me that these actions
are continuing.

   We were stopped on the premise of a game check, but the inclusion of other
government agencies (Drug Enforcement Agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms and the Immigration and Naturalization Service) in this
"shakedown" was uncalled for.