Throughout most of the Cold War, my father, a U.S. diplomat, served in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and other communist countries, and whenever we drove anywhere therein, we’d see cars being stopped by police as drivers and passengers were made to produce proof of citizenship or more specific political identification.

I remember how safe it felt to have American diplomatic plates. We were never stopped or even waved down, and I knew we never would be.

Now this practice has come to America – on Interstate 95 in Maine, no less. What will come next?

Rhoda Ackerson Weyr

Boothbay