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Bugging Plants Defense lawyers, led locally by Pat Birmingham, discovered earlier this year that the Portland Police installed a device called a trap on the phone line of American Agriculture. The store, located on Southeast Stark Street, sells high-tech indoor growing equipment, and police suspect it's a favorite outlet for marijuana growing supplies. A phone trap records the phone numbers of all incoming calls. The Marijuana Task Force has used the trap to trace the numbers of the company's customers and find their street addresses. The cops then knock on their front doors and begin asking questions. These "knock and talks" have led police to basement marijuana grows. It's unclear how long the trap on American Agriculture's phones has been in place or how many arrests have stemmed from calls traced to the store. Two things bother defense lawyers about the set-up. First, they wonder why the police have kept it secret for so long when lawyers are supposed to be told what led police to their clients. "I know in my cases when I asked where did you get the information on my client, they were evasive," says Michelle Burrows. The second problem is the legality of the trap, which requires a warrant signed by a judge. In order to get the warrant, police must have probable cause to believe a certain individual is involved in criminal acts, according to Larry Olstad, an investigator for the defense. Deputy District Attorney Mark McDonnell says that the police had signed warrants for the trap; however, the defense bar contends they were obtained illegally. Not only did the trap fail to target a specific individual, but the warrant was renewed over and over again. State law says the trap may be placed on a phone for up to 30 days (and for an additional 30 days beyond that with a judge's OK). A judicial hearing on the trap's legality is scheduled for Dec. 15. If the device is ruled illegal, defense lawyers say they'll move to have cases against their clients thrown out. --Maureen O'Hagan Return of the
Monks After spending more than 10 years sending road communiqués to terminally hip and curious travelers, Jim Crotty and Michael Lane were back in Portland last week on a strange quest--to look for places to pick up chicks. The Monks have put their financially struggling Monk magazine on hiatus and are writing a monthly online column for Playboy called "Prowl." As always in Playboy, good writing is served up with a spicy dish of flesh. The recent "Prowl" column on San Francisco, for example, features interviews with Mayor Willie Brown, Alice Waters and Carol Queen (a lesbian sex educator and activist). It is accompanied by two seemingly random pictorials that are decidedly un-Monkish: "Tan Lines" and "Leather or Not." Crotty says he and Lane are part of Playboy's push to go for the younger, ironic crowd that is time-traveling back to the cocktail nation that Playboy never left. "By working for Playboy," Crotty says, "we've found ourselves unwittingly hip again." There are, of course, artistic differences. "Playboy is about good living, the high life and 'you can get the girl,'" Crotty says. "We're about bad living, the low life and 'you don't want the girl because she's passed out face down in the ashtray.'" Crotty says that in his assigned search for pickup places, he's more drawn to quirky enclaves than to traditional meat markets. He's more likely to send people to the Grotto of Our Sorrowful Mother than to the bar at ¡Oba!. --Patty Wentz correction
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