Utility companies collude with drug warriors

I remember this being a story in Cincinnati back in the mid-'90s: At the time, the electric company (not 'The Electric Company', but the electric company) was found to be reporting folks to the police if their electric usage spiked, as they assumed this to be "evidence" that the customer was using lights to grow pot. Police also had stores turn over records of who buyed certain kinds of lights. (If I remember correctly, this story was accompanied by a drawing in The Last Word of a cop visiting a laundromat and asking the clerk to hand over customers' pissed underwear so the police could do a drug test on the pee stain.)

Now it's been discovered that this garbage is going on in Austin, Texas, too. The power company in Austin has an agreement with the city police that lets cops access electricity usage numbers of customers. An Austin Energy spokesperson says Texas law allows power companies to share customer data with government agencies such as police - so it's aaaaall legal!

Or is it? Police are searching people without probable cause or a warrant by accessing Austin Energy's records, so it sounds mighty damn unconstitutional to me. And if a state statute does let utility firms share data with police without any reasonable suspicion, that has to change.

The "war" on "drugs" is and always has been a cloak for violating the people's rights. And utility companies are some of the worst tyrants in Corporate America. I guess they have to be, in order to be awarded their monopoly status.

(Source: http://www.kxan.com/global/story.asp?s=7322955&ClientType=Printable)