In one instance, the Los Angeles Times reports, a grandmother from Ohio gave up $4,000 after police pulled her over. In another, a Houston couple coughed up more than $6,000 after police threatened to seize their children and put them in foster care.

And when Mr. Guillory managed to track down and contact 40 of the motorists directly, guess what? All but one were black.

"The whole thing is disproportionately targeted toward minorities, particularly African-Americans," Mr. Guillory told the Times last week. "None of these people have been charged with a crime; none were engaged in anything that looked criminal. The sole factor is that they had something that looked valuable."

Well, Tenaha cops sure put a quick stop to that.

Here we go again. TV documentaries exposed this kind of willful abuse of the asset seizure laws along interstates in southern Florida, years ago.

How many Americans have to be subjected to this nonsense before Congress repeals or massively overhauls and limits the use of asset seizure laws that charge the car, the boat or the money as the guilty party, placing the onus on the "former" owner to retain costly lawyers, return to the scene of the highway robbery and fight an uphill battle against a presumption of guilt?

Various Washington figures have been warning bailed-out bankers and other Americans not to go to Las Vegas and "have a good time on our money," of late.

Maybe it's time for them to tell Americans of all colors to stay the hell out of Tenaha, Texas.