Personally liable doesn't help. All that does is encourage a lazy police force, where individuals aren't apt to do anything for fear of losing everything.
Institutional responsibility does work. If the police department faces real consequences, they'll figure out a way to clamp down on it. Maybe it's firing officers that are out of line. Maybe it's simply better training and guidelines. No matter what, if the organization as a whole suffers from unreasonable seizures, they'll figure out a way to avoid those consequences in a robust way.
If those officers are relatively certain the money is connected to drug activity, give them 30-90 days to build a case, or return the seized assets.. The wholesale forfeiture used is absolutely unconstitutional.
I'm curious if any of the police officers behind the seizures could be sued as personally liable when no charges are brought.
There has been a possibility of lawsuits against law enforcement officials for denial of civil rights under color of law for a long time. And, indeed, some of the worst practices of the past have been corrected by such lawsuits. The civil forfeiture cases that have become so commonplace in recent years are a new (and, in my opinion, aberrational) practice that does need to be rolled back a lot, and lawsuits will be one part of the toolkit for doing that.
In the US, where the constitution expressly prohibits it: that your property is seized w/o due process is complete and utter garbage.
By no means am I a right-wing/vigilante militia supporter, but this type of behavior from the police makes me support having a heavily armed citizenry.
> By no means am I a right-wing/vigilante militia supporter, but this type of behavior from the police makes me support having a heavily armed citizenry.
Do you mind elaborate how firearm would help with combating civil forfeiture?
Which doesn't work until we get to the point of all-out civil rebellion. The US has a heavily armed citizenry now and this is obviously happening. And drawing a weapon on a police officer will end badly no matter what the cop was doing. And that's not for entirely unreasonable reasons.
You mean more funding for swat teams and heavier militarisation to defend themselves? Which is the only way such a move would be politically spun in this universe.
You're being downvoted you because what you propose is a self-defeating policy - those who gun down cops are enemy #1 and remove themselves from the equation pretty quickly.
If the police continue to escalate their militarization, and continue to ramp up their asset thievery - let's say for illustration purposes here - to a dramatically greater degree.
What other choice would the population have than to defend themselves against that kind of extreme assault on their liberty and property by what would be an obviously hostile, violent and radically unconstitutional force? The police would become little more than armed bandits at that point, modern pirates. It seems like an outlandish scenario to me, but it may not be if the police asset theft continues to soar as it has been. How about if it's ten times larger ten years from now? Latin America has had plenty of this going on, scenarios where the police have become bandits that plunder the population in numerous ways.
The police operate at the will of the people. They are as heavily armed as they are because the political process highly rewards "tough-on-crime" politicians.
Maybe instead of buying guns we should invest more of our time and resources into the political process.
We'll keep that to ourselves. If you need a touchy-feely PC-approved reason why civil forfeiture leads to a more-armed populace, try this: Armed people don't need the police for immediate physical security. Unarmed people might need police for that (ignoring for a moment the fact police are actually terrible at that particular task), but because of civil forfeiture (among other reasons) they are reluctant to involve police. Therefore civil forfeiture makes unarmed people less secure, theoretically.
Yes we do have terrible police. Gun ownership doesn't change that, but it does mean you don't have to call the police until there are corpses to be collected. That's only the immediate benefit, because the likelihood of armed resistance to crime is a strong deterrent in the first place.
> Armed people don't need the police for immediate physical security
That seems contrary to evidence, surely. Looking at stats for residential shootings:
"For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides."
I note that any incident that involves a gun is assumed to be caused by the gun, as though no unarmed person ever were assaulted or committed suicide. That tells me everything I need to know about how conscientious the research is.
Don't even get me started on how suicide has been redefined as pathological, as if nothing in this shitty world could ever lead a rational person to take her own life.
If these researchers cared about public health they would have helped us end the damned drug war a decade ago. As if.
So there may be valid arguments in here, but you're using a bunch of flawed logic in the way you've presented them here:
> I note that any incident that involves a gun is assumed to be caused by the gun, as though no unarmed person ever were assaulted or committed suicide. That tells me everything I need to know about how conscientious the research is.
Yes, they're looking at correlation rather than causation, but looking at real world data that's usually your only option. Dismissing the research on as not 'conscientious' on that basis seems a little weak, perhaps you'd care to support it some?
> If these researchers cared about public health they would have helped us end the damned drug war a decade ago. As if.
This is entirely fallacious... the world doesn't conform to your "if X really cared about Y they would have done Z" narrative. By that same argument no president, no congress, and nobody who approves of the war on drugs, cares about human life.
Edit:
If you prefer not to talk about suicide; how about self-defence... in 2014 (according to FBI data) there were 229 cases (total) where a criminal was justifiably killed by a civilian [1]. To put that in perspective there were 281 mass shootings in 2014... 1,759 people were killed by firearms during arguments [2]... and 1,601 injured in gun-related accidents.
Similarly this study [3] found that carrying a gun increased your chance of being shot by a factor of 4.5.
The whole "armed citizens don't need police" thing may actually be fair... but you're much more likely to need an ambulance.
Ah yes, we must look under the lamppost. Sure, that's a pressing concern for "professional" "researchers" who must write grants somehow, but that doesn't oblige the rest of us to believe their tenuous constructed bullshit. Correlation might make sense, ceteris paribus, but they're comparing USA to nations of vastly different sizes, locations, and histories. Rather than, say, nations of similar sizes, locations, and histories. We are a high-population colonized nation of the Americas. We're not the only one, but we are the only one that shows up in this "research".
By that same argument...
Indeed. Normal voters have ignorance as an excuse (although that's less tenable as time passes) but every single legislator and drug warrior and surely every social scientist eventually figures out what's going on. Cops still don't join LEAP until they get their pension. Researchers continue to write grants that get funded rather than ask questions that data can possibly answer.
I just noticed the references in your edit. About that last paper: I note that two of the four cites at your link are about the poor methodology used in the paper. Indeed reading the abstract is enough to reveal that no attempt was made to track a carefully randomized population, which is the only statistically valid way to conduct research like this. (Apparently it's not the only way to get a grant.) Rather, they selected a bunch of young dudes who had already been shot and then designated a "control" of people of all ages and genders to which to compare them. Then they made some "adjustments". As if GSW victims aren't more likely to be carrying already, do to their personal risk assessments. Good grief.
> Armed people don't need the police for immediate physical security.
Police don't exist to stop the lone burglar from sneaking into your house. They exist to stop the gang of armed men driving up to your house in a bus.[1] Even small groups of organized and armed criminals can terrorize a large population, armed or not. Police exist to make it unfeasible for such groups to operate in the open.
This is a good point, and that's what I was trying to indicate with the "immediate" qualifier. Armed gangs like that are not invisible in an ordered society, they do not appear overnight, and police are well suited to combat them in that context.
Were there any firearms in the house that was robbed? In that neighborhood, would criminals expect the average resident to be armed?
"Duty" is a legal term of art which refers to the circumstances under which negligence can give rise to a tort lawsuit. Police don't have a "duty" to defend anyone from any threat in the same way that teachers don't have a "duty" to teach your kids--i.e. you can't allege they negligently failed to act and sue for damages. But the fact there is no duty for the purposes of an action in tort doesn't mean there isn't an institutional obligation and other mechanisms of accountability.
If the the police believed that the average American is well armed and capable of defending their rights, that would change how Police interact with them, reducing the number of bullshit enforcements, such as civil forfeitures.
Those police do believe the average American is possibly well armed.. they live in the same country as everyone else and know what the Second Amendment is. Why do you think they have backup and guns at the ready every time they make a traffic stop?
Why is violence an effective means of coercion by the common citizen, but an unacceptable means of coercion by the state? Surely, if fearing for their lives would keep the police honest, having the people fear for their lives would keep them honest and law abiding as well?
No, it wouldn't. Heck, firearms are a not-infrequent subject of civil forfeiture, so clearly people having firearms doesn't discourage the government from applying forfeiture.
IMHO today cryptography and security are far more important and relevant than physical arms.
This sort of thing is why "I have nothing to hide" is not a legitimate justification for mass surveillance. Think of the abuse potential when dragnet surveillance is combined with machine learning and economic incentives for asset seizure. I can think of quite a few... umm... entrepreneurial things that might be done.
The Prohibition of the state grabbing the possession of innocent people dates back to the Magna Carta and thus to the foundations of the legal systems of our civilization.
This practice simply is breaking the civil pact that holds together our countries.
It does go through a process, which at this point is considered constitutional, or more properly worded, has yet to be ruled unconstitutional in court.
Civil forfeiture was a highly successful tool to combat organized crime and grew enormously in the 80s with Reagan's odious war on drugs. It basically solves the problem of illicitly used money being able to free people the government wanted wanted to stop.
As a tool for dismantling organized crime, it was effective, useful, and generally seemed basically fair and as such seemed to survive court review.
Then came the war on drugs and a dose of right-wing anti-tax thinking.
"It's now possible for a drug dealer to serve time in a forfeiture-financed prison after being arrested by agents driving a forfeiture-provided automobile while working in a forfeiture-funded sting operation." — Reagan attorney general Richard Thornburgh in 1989.
It was specifically designed to help fund agencies in a way that replaced tax revenue. Starting at roughly this same time period most government agencies at all levels became cash-strapped in various ways. This meant some agencies have turned to civil forfeiture to create revenue.
It's clearly a bad incentive and needs to be reined in and reformulated to ensure rights are being respected.
BTW, a heavily armed citizenry is precisely why local police departments advocate for more and more militarized equipment. They'll call them gang members and drug dealers, but they are heavily armed citizenry nonetheless. Armed citizens won't solve any part of this problem.
I'm not sold that civil forfeiture is an atomic bomb. It's more like guns in the hands of police. It's a very dangerous tool in the hands of people who are charged with achieving something that occasionally needs dangerous tools to solve.
Guns have obviously led to killing innocents by police, and I'd like that number to go down. Heck, I'd like most police officers to not carry guns most of the time, leaving guns to SWAT teams that can be called in when needed. In other words, I want the dangerous tool used effectively in a manner that respects everyone's rights.
Same with civil forfeiture. It's clearly being used in an abusive fashion. Innocents are losing money and property to help pay for police. It blows my mind that it's being used this way and needs to be reformed. To me it would make sense to hold the property in some form of escrow until the finding of guilt or innocence, essentially freezing assets.
I did not say, that cf is an atomic bomb. I just wanted to use a picture to make it more clear, that the end does not justify all means.
I don't know, if cf can be reformed, so that it stays useful and has not such by-effects. The usefulness of cf is largely drawn from the aspect of being arbitrary.
The side effect of a constitutional state is, that some times the bad guys can use it to protect their bad ways. But the alternative would be bad for all.
cf does not only make innocent people to victims, but does change those to crooks, that should protect the innocent -- and thus an even bigger harm is done to the whole society -- with very bad consequences in the long run!
It was never envisioned as a tool to dismantling organised crime. That use came later. It was originally created to allow the govt to seize assets of non-citizens where the laws of the US could not be used. For example, captured assets of foreign drug suppliers where they were unable to prosecute those people.
It was never envisioned to be used on US citizens because the laws of the US can be applied to citizens as their punishment. To have assets seized AND criminal prosecution is unconstitutional.
Wikipedia has a nice section on the history and includes this about constitutionality:
"While the 1993 Supreme Court case Austin v. United States ruled that a forfeiture could be considered as an excessive fine, the court upheld the principle of civil forfeiture generally. A 1996 Supreme Court decision ruled that prosecuting a person for a crime and seizing his or her property via civil forfeiture did not constitute double jeopardy, and therefore did not violate the Constitution. However, in 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that civil forfeiture was not permitted if the amount seized was "grossly disproportional" to the gravity of the offense."
It seems the current legal interpretations do not support considering double-dipping like this to be unconstitutional. However, it's also clear that it should be able to be argued that due process is not being followed, and the dollar value of punishment is excessive, which seems to be ACLU's stance on the matter. I hope the unconstitutional elements are removed from this tool sooner rather than later.
" nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
Seems pretty mindbogglingly clear to me. Regardless of what the present Justice Department refuses to go after, or what the present Supreme Courts choose to go after, the people practicing these policies are corrupt traitors committing literal armed robbery in defiance of their compact with the People. That sounds like a hyperbolic statement, but it's not.
Imagine you're at a parent-teacher conference, and the teacher, out of the blue, assures you that while he doesn't wear a condom while teaching, all his STD testing is up to date and meets the state code as presently written; He has been inspected by the principal for venereal diseases on a weekly basis. He's clean, and your children are safe, no matter what their marks on the upcoming math test happen to be.
There have been no successful tools against the war on drugs, only a tremendous violation of our constitutional rights with a few show trials to keep us all believing in the childish fantasy.
If you're going to say something is successful, be clear about it. Yes, it has been successful at locking up more people than any country in the world. Yes, it has been successful at seizing tons of property. No it hasn't been successful at putting any sort of dent into organized crime, which is fueled by the gigantic black market of drugs.
How would heavily armed citizenry help solve the problem? Are you going to put a hole in the head of the officer who takes your cash out of your car? Won't that lead to anarchy or civil war, eventually? Maybe...consider changing the law, eh?
That's a rather naive way of looking at the outcome. For one, do you really think a someone with the training, experience, and exposure violence of a cop could be outmatched by you?
Second, the statement above didn't say much about requiring a warrant to take people's property - how do you get to USA v2, where that law is in place? Do you shoot enough cops, so they would change the law? What kind of wild-west mentality dwells around there, anyway?
How about writing a petition?
How about sending (e)mails to your congressmen, or whatever people with that kind of authority you have in US?
>For one, do you really think a someone with the training, experience, and exposure violence of a cop could be outmatched by you?
Sure, why not? Most cops don't train that much with their weapons, and there's a bunch of crazy rednecks out there who train constantly with various firearms. I'll put my money on the gun nuts against the cops. Check out some YouTube videos by guys at pistol ranges. Also, cops only train at standard ranges, where you stand still and shoot at a non-moving target, and don't generally do combat training. Face it, cops aren't soldiers; they're just thugs with guns, and most are about as skilled with guns as your average ghetto thug.
I'm a pretty fit guy, but I'm sure the recoil of a gun could break my wrist (well, maybe a desert eagle, I was pretty good with a kalshnikov on my military trainig). I spend more time typing on a keyboard than on a shooting range (which is kind of expected, i'm a programmer). I doubt you can apply such logic as a large scale solution. Do we begin introducing shooting classes in high school, to protect all our citizens?
As for your bet - the paradigm would shift from bullying all people to bullying frail people and avoid rednecks, as far as the violent cops go. This would hardly solve the problem.
Break your wrist? WTF are you talking about? Have you ever even shot a pistol? It isn't like shooting a 12-gauge shotgun. Women with small hands shoot pistols all the time.
Most cops only train with their pistols once or twice a year.
I've only shot a small caliber pistol. Leaving poetic derailments aside, my point is -
A: the solution doesn't scale
B: it will lead to further discrimination, only aggravating the problem
Absolutely. I live in an authoritarian country and people would love to be able to vote politicians out. Americans really can but they just complain then vote for the same two parties every time.
Clinton caused some of these tough on crime and drugs laws. So if you voted for his party (Obama), then you voted for this.
According to Howard Zinn in "A People's History of the United States", the political party and electoral system was created as a facade to placate the poor from revolting against the wealthy. It worries me how much of this may still be true today: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...
The real problem, is that shepherds (politicians) know how to play the game, while the sheep (citizens) are too stupid to realize that they're being played.
All the politicians do is stir up emotional issues like "they're trying to take away your guns", or abortion, to distract the sheep. It works all the time.
Most Americans approve of the war on drugs, three strikes laws and zero-tolerance policies. Even the militarization of police after 9/11 was welcomed by a populace that was outraged such a thing could happen on US soil. If the end result has become authoritarianism, we must recognize that it exists in the US, in no small degree, because we the wanted it, not because it was forced upon us against our will.
I don't think that's what anyone asked for, but I think, but those in power have seized it as justification for their authoritarian policies. Orwell predicted it quite well.
If there’s one useful outcome of the research of Pavlov and Freud and their peers, it’s the scientific discovery that humans are distressingly easy to manipulate into wanting things they did not want before. Ten years ago, the modern smartphone did not exist, and now I bet you don’t want to live without one.
In this case, we have the big media, big industry, and big government in a huge orgy of bribery and self-interest, that all benefit from people accepting authoritarianism. There’s a relief valve, a small minority of people getting their political analysis from Comedy Central or their security analysis from Bruce Schneier, but the vast majority get their talking points from people who are funded to act like there is still a debate about climate change.
It’s not technically against our will, but our will has been manipulated.
> Ten years ago, the modern smartphone did not exist, and now I bet you don’t want to live without one.
The smartphone example does not fit.
Very few needed to be manipulated into buying one. You've got to have a phone, whether it's a smartphone, a feature phone, or even a land line phone. Unless extraneous circumstances dictate otherwise, a phone is a necessity.
> not because it was forced upon us against our will.
In a sense it was forced upon us. You see, we were whipped into a frenzy where the most likely thing to do, given our emotional states, was support whatever the perpetrators wanted in the first place.
It's almost as if the voting process itself is part of the system, rather than being separate somehow? If we examined that process as a part of that system, we might conclude that it always produces the same results for durable structural reasons rather than because voters always fuck up in special contingent ways.
> They are breaking to constitution not the law. There is a huge difference.
No, there isn't. The Constitution is a part of the law (and a part that constrains whether other things that purport to be law actually are.) Violating the Constitution is violating the law.
>Won't that lead to anarchy or civil war, eventually?
Yes, hopefully (though hopefully not at the scale you may be imagining). Cops have turned into thugs in this country and something needs to be done about it. Maybe legalizing drugs would fix everything. I don't know. But cops in this country aren't even accountable for the people that they kill. There are no logs on how many murders are carried out by police.
Yes, they can take our property, including cash, for no reason (something like 90% of dollar bills test positive for traces of cocaine). And in this case all the officers had to do was say they smelled weed. I have been a victim of this "smell like weed" abuse myself, in which everyone in my vehicle was pulled out and searched. My vehicle was then searched without my permission. They found nothing and gave me a speeding ticket for going 5 miles over the speed limit.
But seizing our property means nothing when they can take our lives without the public knowing about it.
How would a heavily armed citizenry help solve the problem? Are you going to put a hole in the head of the carjacker who takes cash out of your care? Wont that lead to less theft and carjacking eventually? Maybe considering enforcing the legal right to do so, eh?
Being heavily armed (and also being white) alters how the police treat you, the Oregon stand-off demonstrates as much.
There would likely also be a presumption, as a heavily armed white person, that you're extremely confident in your ability to recite the constitution, quite possibly spoiling for a fight to defend particular rights that you see enshrined in the constitution, that you will not submit to a warrantless search, and are even less likely to allow the police to steal your money.
You don't need to put holes in the police officers, they would profile you from a mile off and assume you're a red-neck nutbag who is potentially going to put holes in them, move along citizen there's nothing to see here.
The Oregon stand-off just demonstrates that if you "occupy" buildings out in the middle of nowhere in the winter off-season the cops are going to ignore you and see if the cold convinces you to leave.
The situation in Oregon is larger than just this single incident. I recommend reading the report[1] put together by the SPLC on the previous incidents.
Page 9 of the report has photos of these militia scofflaws pointing rifles at federal and local law enforcement[2]. That show of force did get law enforcement to back off at the time. As for why the people involved still haven't been charged with - at a minimum - assault with a deadly weapon is another matter entirely that really needs to be remedied before those militia nutjobs escalate their tactics into a a reenactment of the Whiskey Rebellion..
When you strip away the usual political rhetoric an other distractions, the primary reason the Oregon stand-off didn't turn into a (possibly Waco-style) raid immediately is because the militia members are both white and conservative. We saw what happened to unarmed non-conservatives when the police started using CS gas on various Occupy Wall Street groups (e.g. the battles in Oakland). If the militia members were black or Muslim, the media would be calling them "terrorists" and the swat teams would have gone in shooting within the first day or two.
>When you strip away the usual political rhetoric an other distractions, the primary reason the Oregon stand-off didn't turn into a (possibly Waco-style) raid immediately is because the militia members are both white and conservative.
I don't believe that for a second. The government certainly didn't hold back at Waco or Ruby Ridge.
I should have included "mainstream xian" in that list.
> didn't hold back
I don't mean to imply that it's a perfect shield. There are numerous cases where the government has gone after more or less every subgroup. The point is that framing affects how people perceive a situation, which in turn affects how they respond.
What framing? Just look at the media. An example from today:
"The armed activists occupying a national wildlife refuge ..."
^^^^^^^^^
"... took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to protest ..."
^^^^^^^
Do you really the same framing would be used if the people involved were black? If liberals took over a similar federal building as with firearms, do you really think they would still be called "activists" by the media? If they were Muslim, do you really think they would be getting the same low-key treatment by the FBI?
>Do you really the same framing would be used if the people involved were black? If liberals took over a similar federal building as with firearms, do you really think they would still be called "activists" by the media?
Yes, I do. Are you seriously going to pretend the press is more sympathetic to Christians?
Are you seriously going to pretend that we're not? Come on man. We can't win this one. I mean we have a presidential candidate on stage defending bringing in only Xians as refugees.
I am as much intolerant of Muslims as anyone (PC be damned) but I don't think we have a leg to stand on here.
>Are you seriously going to pretend that we're not?
Remember Obama's remark about people "clinging to their guns and religion"? That's pretty insulting if you're a Christian (or a gun owner). He was still elected president. Twice.
Sure, numerically speaking there are a lot of Christians in the US. But they're not a majority and they don't control any part of the press, academia, or the government. The people running the executive branch (including Obama) are downright hostile to both whites and Christians.
Come springtime if those guys are still there ATF or the FBI will take the gloves off.
I wouldn't say these things. I'd like more blindness with regards to gender and race when it comes to government policies but I'm optimistic overall. I get that the candidates need to pander to minorities. That is OK. As the honorable mayor of new york will learn in a hard way, even a 90% approval rating among minorities is not enough to carry an election without support from whites.
I hate this fear you've succumbed to because I'm afraid it will be a self-fulfilling prophesy. We are destroying ourselves. Fear hurts us because it makes us follow lunatics and insincere people like Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush.
We need to take a step back and stop listening to fear mongerers. Of course, our work never ends. Of course, we need to push back to defend our rights. However, I don't see us pushing back. When we support antics like occupying a park office, we are not reaching out. We are withdrawing further. We are showing that we are afraid. Some dude not getting to graze his cattle in federal land is not a constitutional crisis much less a moral or religious one.
I equate it to me going to the NSA and demanding them that I be given a free vps on their servers. I mean clearly my taxes paid for the data centers...
I guess my point is if we stopped fearing and withdrawing into ourselves but rather tries to reach out then we will find a lot of the others will see what we really want isn't bad. However, we must discard the craziness and the insincerity. I think it will be a little easier to do that if we stop being afraid.
A growing number of police chiefs are starting to like armed citizens. Because if there's an active shooter like Colorado, San Bernardino, or Sandy Hook, armed citizens mean the guy is more likely to get popped before the police get in the line of fire.
Some officers are starting to embrace drug legalization too. This apparent upsurge in libertarian views among cops is almost enough to make me consider becoming a libertarian again. Cops adopt these stances because they think it makes their lives easier and safer. A stressed fearful cop is like a cornered animal: far more likely to lash out. So, more relaxed police = less police violence, better relations between the police and the citizenry.
I really wonder if this isn't a case of people in different places being really different.
For instance, people here in the US say particular generalizations about "the Europeans" all the time, but there's a world of difference between the cultures of Spain, England, Sweden, Latvia, Greece, and Moldova (and Russia, which is part of Europe geographically).
So when you say some police chiefs like armed citizens, I really wonder where those chiefs are. I'm willing to bet good money the chiefs of NYPD, Chicago PD, LAPD, etc. are not among those chiefs. However, I can certainly see some police chief in some pop. 30k city being like that; I can also see the police in a random small city like that not having any real problems with police misbehavior; we're likely judging ALL police nationwide for actions of a lot of police who seem to mostly be in cities. Are the cops in rural North Dakota known by the people there to shoot unarmed people or beat people or steal from them?
Note also that I'm not claiming that it's only a small number of police that are bad cops; I think it varies by jurisdiction, and I think they stick up for each other and that a few obviously bad ones in a department probably indicate the entire department is bad (much like the old saying, "one bad apple spoils the entire bunch"). But not all police departments are the same, and again it seems we usually hear about problems in cities.
One of the armed-citizen supporters is the chief of the Detroit PD.
Another is a former Cincinnati chief.
I dunno, make up your own mind.
And I was certainly not blaming all cops for police violence committed in the inner cities. The evidence we have to date suggests a pattern consistent with my statements that stressed out police officers who expect shit to go down at any minute are more likely to react with excessive violence. That's far more likely to be the situation in a major city. Police in rural and low-density areas are less likely to react this way.
This is fair and good, but not the whole story. Recruitment has emphasized the macho and gun aspects of policing in many jurisdictions, abetted by the provision of military equipment to PDs (including grenades and rocket launchers to LA school district FFS). There is a significant socialisation and culture problem within many PDs, due to lack of effective feedback mechanisms against such abuses of power. Add that to the inevitable draw of PDs to psychopaths (*notallcops ;) and the problems get out of hand, as we have now.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government"
I would say based on the declaration of independence, if it comes to that the answer is yes.
It's pretty clear how a heavily armed citizenry would disincentivize cops from this sort of thing. It's because the cops would be afraid that if they rob someone they will be met with a violent response, as they well should.
As for leading to anarchy (let's save discussing whether that would be a good thing for another time) or civil war, I don't see why it would.
No, its pretty clear that a heavily-armed citizenry would not disincentivize this, since the portion of the citizenry targetted by the powers at issue is alreadY heavily armed compared to the citizenry at large.
> It's because the cops would be afraid that if they rob someone they will be met with a violent response, as they well should.
The cops already are afraid that if they exercise seizure or arrest powers they will be met with a violent response, and conduct such operations based on the assumption of a violent response (often with tragic results.)
This manifestly does not prevent them from executing these powers.
Weapons aren't necessary. Ending the War On Drugs would remove the prime reasoning for this larceny. Bonus points: less people dying and going to jail, less corruption, etc.
The wrinkle is that the seizure of contraband has never been understood to be a seizure of property without due process, dating back to the First Congress. I think civil forfeiture is definitely bad. But it's debatable whether it's unconstitutional.
Interesting that militant opposition to the police is associated with the right-wing; not trying to nitpick or condemn, in Ferguson that was absolutely true. Here in NYC it's still not, though, and generally I feel like resistance to armed government forces has generally been more left-aligned.
Ok, how about we set up a fund to give an AK47 and 1000 rounds of ammo to every homeless person in the country.
That people seriously consider more guns to be a solution to anything let alone this problem shows the profound level of insane indoctrination and delusion in the country more than anything else.
>That people seriously consider more guns to be a solution to anything let alone this problem shows the profound level of insane indoctrination and delusion in the country more than anything else.
I'm going to jot that sentence down in my "how to make friends and influence people" notebook.
Is there some possibility of convincing a gun rights advocate that he is wrong? Only as much as there is to convince a climate change denier or creationist they are wrong. So for all three I'm afraid the above adjectives are accurate.
I am only guilty of the sin of posting ridicule rather than psychotherapy.
>Is there some possibility of convincing a gun rights advocate that he is wrong?
When you use that kind of rhetoric there's no possibility of common ground. People who believe in gun rights, as I do, used to be much more open to restrictions on the margins - things like magazine size restrictions, say, or background checks.
But there's no better way to engender intransigence than to ridicule someone without even attempting state your own position. Given the shift in public opinion toward gun rights, you're really just marginalizing yourself and your co-restrictionists.
Is the gun control position unknown? It's the same as has been recited ad nuasum for 50 years: there is no right to bear arms in the same way as speech or religion and increased availability of firearms doesn't reduce violence. Only one portion of one country one earth seems to think otherwise, amounting to roughly 1% of mankind.
If two generations of discourse has had no effect then certainly nothing I could ever post will change even one member of that 1% any more than I could change a creationist's view which has been demonstrably invalid 150 years now.
But I might challenge a gun advocate's consistency this way though: why not establish a charity to hand out guns to poor inner city kids so as to reduce crime in those areas or at least give them too the opportunity to exercise that alleged fundamental human right; gun ownership?
This happened to a coworker of mine, when he was flying from the midwest back to San Francisco. He had $15,000 cash on him and it was noticed at security. As he was boarding the plane, government officials grabbed him and took the money.
However, it did happen to be money he had made selling drugs several years prior. They had identified him as a convicted felon with a drug related offense and connected the money to it.
Still problematic. If you removed all due process, a hypothetical police officer could grab someone they're reasonably certain is a criminal and throw them in prison. They could also grab someone they are reasonably certain cut them off on the freeway and throw them in prison. Just because suspending due process makes it easier to apprehend criminals isn't the point. Due process wasn't included in the Constitution because of naiveté.
I don't think the comment parent was arguing that such a distinction is reasonable, but it is the basis of civil forfeiture in the United States. Money has no constitutional rights, so it can be presumed innocent and seized until its owner can argue on behalf of its innocence.
There's a difference between the cops taking your money because it's there and the cops taking it because you broke the law. If he took $15k onto an international flight without declaring it he broke currency smuggling laws.
I had to look it up because it's so bizarre. The explanation is even more bizarre.
>Charles was carrying his cash because his bank has few physical branches and he and his mother were in the process of moving and he didn’t want to lose his life savings in the move while he was in Cincinnati.
So open up a Chase, or Bank of America, or <insert bank here> account instead of risking someone just stealing your cash in a checked bag that you won't be watching for a few hours, much less airport security?. I've lost bags at the airlines before and had them sent to the wrong cities and such.
This. I can accept that carrying lots of cash is foolish because you might be robbed by a criminal. I can not accept the idea that carrying cash is foolish because you might be robbed by the government.
"I don't understand how he saved that money, so it's probably via some nefarious means".
No, a thousand times no. The government has billions of dollars to spend on prosecuting me. I have much less to spend defending myself.
The standards should be set such that it is very hard for the government to convict me, by requiring things like "evidence", and "probably cause". The standards should be that it is very easy to defend myself "prove your conjecture beyond a reasonable doubt, or I walk".
The alternative is totalitarian dictatorships. The guy in charge thinks you're bad? Yup. You're bad. No trial, no defence, no conviction. Just secret police knocking down your door at 2am, and your neighbors waking up the next day with you gone.
Everyone is too afraid to defend themselves, so the dictatorship continues.
History shows that's the result of opinions like yours. It's why you're getting downvoted.
First off, upon googling this case beyond the two paragraphs, the money didn't just come from waiting tables and working retail. I've done both, and saving that much would have been nearly impossible for me. So while you question that assumption, it turns out I was right. At no point did I suggest the source of the money was nefarious.
Second, I'm much more concerned with the foolishness of putting one's life savings ($11,000) in a bag, and handing that bag off to someone, who will hand it off to someone else, who will hopefully put it in the right plane, and then someone else will hopefully pick it up, and that person will put it on the right conveyor belt, and nobody else will just take the bag anyway off the conveyor belt and walk off with it.
> Second, I'm much more concerned with the foolishness of putting one's life savings ($11,000) in a bag, and handing that bag off to someone, who will hand it off to someone else, who will hopefully put it in the right plane, and then someone else will hopefully pick it up, and that person will put it on the right conveyor belt, and nobody else will just take the bag anyway off the conveyor belt and walk off with it.
There's no doubt about this being an insecure method of transferring money. A criminal could steal it. All the more reason to be disgusted when the thief turns out to be the police.
I'll respond to myself instead of to your response to me. You're getting downvoted enough that I can't reply.
In short, you don't seem to understand or care that your attitude leads to dictatorship and oppression. I have ethical problems with this attitude.
For me, I don't care where he got the money from. If the government can't prove it's the result of criminal behavior, it should have no right to seize the money. It's that simple.
Except that I didn't say anything at all about the Government's right to seize the money.
I commented on the stupidity of transporting the money in such a fashion, and the skepticism of what the article was telling me about how he got the money. And, no, even though you would like to misrepresent that statement, it does not imply he did something nefarious to get it.
So if I understand what you're saying here: "You don't believe that the Government had a right to seize this guy's money, but since you question the story you're given in any way, your attitude leads to dictatorship and oppression."
The only thing curious about that is that he didn't save more. You can make a lot of money as a waiter or waitress in the US, assuming you work at a place that lets you keep the majority of your tips.
As a non-American, it's pretty scary for the rest of us to see how your society can tolerate these Eritrean standover tactics, while still retaining this "freedom loving" doublespeak in the national cinema you project into the world.
It's scary for us too! At least, those of us who have noticed the cracks in the facade. This is any nation, with an unrestrained military-enforcement-industrial-complex. For instance, I don't think we're any worse off than Pakistan. Make sure to prevent the armaments manufacturers from purchasing your country's political system!
That can be maintained because it's still extraordinarily isolated and small in occasion. America remains among the freest nations on earth in nearly every measure - even if it's not the best at every measure. Your premise though is very flawed in my opinion, I don't know very many people that are unaware of the erosion of liberty that has occurred - both sides of the voting aisle are extremely aware of it, it's constantly discussed at a national level (eg the Washington Post has run countless articles on it), and every side of the US politically have their opinions on its nature and what should be done about it.
You're acting like this is affecting every American and is very common. It's not. Eritrea? That's laughable, you're intentionally dramatizing to try to insult the US. It is in fact a very, very small problem, that is very serious and needs to be put down before it gets any larger. Steps have already begun to put an end to it. Why pretend it's not an understood problem that almost everyone agrees needs to be dealt with? The only reason to pretend that, is to levy a cheap shot at the US.
What is your yardstick? Third world banana republics?
People in the United States are less free than most advanced European countries. In those countries, governments tend to respect people AND limit the power of corporations so people can be free from coercive economic activity.
Sorry, but even when I can to a degree see your point it sounds like you feel overly insulted by someone stating basic facts.
The US has been pretty bad off when it comes to civil liberties compared to many other other countries for quite a while now.
Next to civil forfeiture the US unlike most other countries still has death penalty, still has a rather big amount of the population rotting in one of the worst prison systems of the western world, still doesn't legalize things like most drugs or prostitution, still doesn't do anything against the decline of education, making it only possible for wealthy to get one, has even when compared with development countries a pretty bad health care system, many archaic laws, has things like the DMCA killing off freedom of speech, has that NSA scandal going on that made KGB and Stasi look like nothing, presidents that are dynasties of families, barely any protection against discrimination of minorities, etc.
I really don't want to talk bad about the US, but your statement of "America remains among the freest nations on earth in nearly every measure" really doesn't seem anywhere close to true. What are you basing that statement on? Or are you purely talking about so called "economical freedoms"?
Oh and not saying country X is better. I just think that statement you made is wrong.
Patriotism: you're doing it wrong. Real patriots don't strain to find reasons for taking offense. Rather, we're pissed off that "offensive" statements happen to be objectively true. Only USA people can change USA. If you don't want to change it, then get comfortable with seeing many more rational assessments of our problems.
I have no problem calling out America for its faults. I just misinterpreted the comment and thought they were saying America was worse than Nazi Germany. I didn't realize they were talking just about data collection.
Huh? Why? It's true. If you look about the possibilities then they were way more limited. In in a more general sense. The Stasi was limited to a handful individuals that they wanted to surveil. If their limit was reached they had to choose which other person to give up. That means that there still was nothing even close to mass surveillance. That's an established fact that one can read up in a random history book.
Civil Liberties are not big in the US anymore. I think that's also kind of established. Or do you have something that disproves that?
Also hint hint, I've got no reason to talk bad about the US. I actually often talk good about the US. There is a bunch of stuff that everyone should copy. Like the Freedom of Information Act that still seems to be pretty much unique to the US. Have I confused you now? ;)
And yeah, I am sorry. I didn't write that sentence in the nicest way. I am however not even denying the fact that there is many countries doing worse and fewer and fewer that could be doing better.
But if you think I only wanna talk bad about the US it's your right to do so. Just saying it's not true as I actually think that a change in US politics regarding these things is one of the few chances for pretty much the whole world to stop being in a downward spiral when it comes to civil liberties. Right now everyone is pointing at each other being like "It's okay that we take those liberties away, because country X is doing it too".
It's like history and long thought for rights are getting reversed. And the intention is not to talk bad about the US, but to talk bad about all those things, kind of hoping that the US starts a trend for civil liberties (again), because I think that's maybe the most likely country others will copycat from.
Sorry, having no national pride, so I'm usually a bit blunt about those things and how I word them. Will try to find a better wording next time. :)
I just thought you were making a knee jerk, America is worse than Nazi Germany, comment. I didn't realize you were talking about data collection alone. My bad.
That line about how it's "only possible for the wealthy" to get an education is demonstrably false, even though I wouldn't discount some of your other points. Have you ever heard of federally-guaranteed student loans? The USA has them. Almost everybody in the US who wants to go to college does.
I do. I am not saying that you cannot go to college, but that it's still not exactly easy to go get good education on varying levels.
First off even though I know about the loans I also know that for many people (people I know) it means decades of debt. I also know that this still doesn't mean you will have good access to good education (Ivory League colleges).
The thing that I wanted to point out is that it's still a decision that one cannot just make or if you do it might be one that one might really regret.
The problem with that is that it's not efficient in many ways. The US compared to other countries appears to end high school education at a slightly lower level. Therefor college becomes way more important. At the end of college the difference is evened out (sometimes/often better, sometimes worse than other countries, also depends on many factors). So that's good.
However the problem is that it's a loan. Yeah, it's better than not federally-guaranteed, but then for a country that claims to be the best in this sector it's kind of bad. The amount of money one needs for college, both for paying back and for just "living" are on the rise.
I'd consider the US democracy being designed in a really good way, but like founding fathers, various presidents and thinkers pointed out education is very important for a democracy.
The state with the loans is sadly kind of ridiculous. It's actually bizarre when one has to start out their live with ten thousands of USD of debt for going to college and that even after a successful college time there is still a big chance for the debt growing because of the interest.
And yeah, in many cases one can say "your own fault" and I even agree on that one, but as a CS person one is on the extremely "lucky" end of the spectrum.
I am not saying that it is realistic to just be perfect or just be like Scandinavia, but education is important and might to a degree even influence the other topics when it comes to civil liberties.
I hope I won't be called a communist, but I once knew a person from East Germany and at least he said something like "the Berlin Wall and Communism fell because they educated their people too well" and hey I think that should be a reason for the US to invest into good education.
I know that's just a random anecdote, but hope it gets my point across. The US could really benefit from some reform in certain areas and probably with that even reduce the costs of inefficient systems. Someone (not sure if that's true, don't know the exactly details) once told me that if the US would copy the welfare system of - I think - Sweden regarding healthcare and education they'd have way more money, better education and better healthcare and they could lower the taxes. Also said something about the system being largely based upon "making it not look socialist, even though it means more tax money and government control".
Not sure about my last statement. All I know about the US regarding education I know from a bunch of US citizens I am close to and a documentary called Ivory Tower. The documentary being a bit scary, but it also shows some really cool stuff that should be used more.
Like I sometimes don't get what's hindering to make the US way closer to how "the US" likes to depict itself. Is it just that nobody picks up those topics? Or is it that the parties just can't agree? Maybe someone knows more? What's the reason that the US seems a bit stuck with status quo on some issues.
I'm not sure our society, as a whole, does 'tolerate' it. Can you tolerate something you're completely ignorant of?
I'd say the vast majority of US citizens have no idea what asset forfeiture is, how it's used, what it's legality is or isn't... and what they do know, if anything, is that it's a tool used by the police/govt to keep those pesky drug cartels in line... because that's what the media tells them.
I often wonder if there is a tech solution to these types of issues. For example, are records of every instance of a civil forfeiture publicly available? Would it be helpful (and ethical) to publish this list to shine a bright spotlight on the practice? Would that make a difference?
It also raises the age-old question of "who polices the police?" The (federal) DOJ can only do so much, it seems. But maybe ordinary citizens can demand reform if injustice stares them in the face?
From what I've read in the press (especially NyTimes), the USA justice system seems to fundamentally disadvantage poor people [1]. The saddest part about the civil forfeiture business is that it probably affects the poorest people, who then have the least resources to challenge it.
On a separate note, I know the press is more likely to publish instances of injustice vs run-of-the-mill "just" justice. I honestly have no concept of if we live in a society with a tiny bit of corruption, or a lot more than I ever realized.
DoJ wishes they didn't do the little they already do. They are not opposed to cops. They are cops. We need something like NTSB, which is specifically set up not to be friends with FAA.
Your comment about the poor is spot-on. If you're curious and you have some free time, hang around a courthouse or other judicial building for a day on which traffic and other minor violations are being adjudicated. You will be disgusted by the number of people sent to jail because they're not able to pay the fine for not being able to pay the fine for not being able to pay to fix their cars. Then note how many people are begging the clerk for more lenient payment plans on the bill they have for their room and board when they were sent to jail, because if they can't keep up, guess what? More jail! Ferguson wasn't really about Michael Brown.
It happened to me. I was flying out of San Francisco once on an international flight.
And at SFO some of the international terminals go through these long corridors to connect to that moveable tunnel that connects to a plane.
I was fixing some bug on my laptop and decided to wait till the last minute to board (though I was sitting right infront of the check-in desk).
When I went past the check-in desk and into the corridor, two police officers approached me and asked me if they could ask a few questions.
It felt suspicious right away why they were stopping me as there were hardly any people around - there was no one behind me, and everyone had already gone through the corridor.
They took me aside into a small room and asked me where I was travelling to and for what purpose. But then they repeated
a number of times that it's illegal to carry more than $10,000 in cash and if I was carrying over that amount and that if I was it would have to be confiscated.
I told them I wasn't and I think I only had less than $500 in my wallet. They went through my wallet, went through my bag pack, even flipped
through my Clojure book and then they let me go. But I kept having that feeling that something didn't feel right. Later I wished I had asked for the officers names or if that would have gotten me into trouble with them.
I think the point of the story was that the police suspected him of carrying a lot of cash, and they were fishing for it, but didn't find enough to confiscate. Correct me if I'm wrong OP.
That's correct. If you're the last person to board a flight as its about to leave, and the police had found any amount of substantial cash on me and confiscated it, it would have made it a pretty difficult process for me to find and recover that cash from them afterwards - legal process and all.
It is not illegal[1] to carry more than $10,000 (talking US law here) but you do have to report it when you take it across the border, and if you don't, it can legitimately be seized per the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act of 1970.
However, in many (most?) parts of the USA, you are vulnerable to having the cash seized by police any time you are carrying cash. (Typically this only happens with a large amount.) This is insane, but it is the reality today. Theoretically, you may recover the money via the legal process, but this may not actually work, and in any event will very often cost more in legal fees than was seized.
Between the police shooting innocent people, tasering and bearing up our kids, does anyone even feel safe around them anymore?
Whenever I see police, I have the same fight or flight response as if I'd see someone in a dark alley. The police have become dangerous, and none of my friends trust them. They would be the last people I'd call if there was something happening. Too much of a risk they would beat you, kill you, or rob you.
Don't take this as a direct response to your comment, but it sparked a thought: perhaps we can expect a new dismissive PCism regarding attitudes toward police rather than e.g. gender. Maybe "poliphobe" or "citizen-sympathizer"? I'm sure the police unions and prison corporations can come up with something better, but this seems like a logical next step for them.
You are describing how political correctness is becoming (or has become) Orwellian NewSpeak; the language has been changed to control public debates and thought in general.[1]
> Too much of a risk they would beat you, kill you, or rob you.
Yap pretty much.
I came from a country where cops would torture people to get confessions out of them. Basically chances were, if they caught you, and they were bored / were bribed by someone, or just had a bad day, they could make you "confess" to crimes easily.
One time my friend and I caught a pickpocketer. Pickpocketer's associate swiped my friend's wallet. There was a group of them, all scattered except one. We caught him and eventaully ended up with him at a police station. It was a quiet evening there. One cop even had his 1st or 2nd grader son there playing around in the hallway. So being bored, the cops decided to get this pickpocketer to tell them where his buddies are hanging out. They needed the wallet to officially to charge him so they could arrest him. So to get him to talk, they asked us to leave the room. Then proceeded to torture him. Holy crap! I can still hear his pleas for help. What started with us being happy we caught him and him getting some justice, turned into us feeling pretty sorry for him... at some point we signed some papers and just left.
Long story short, there is a good reason there to be afraid of cops. They are just like an organized criminal gang are are sanctioned to operate by the law. You never know what they'll do, they have guns, friends with guns, and could beat or torture you to death on a whim.
Now it is night and day to what is in this country, and I felt pretty safe in general around cops here. But in later years, the stories I hear, camera recordings of cops shooting people, the whole forfeture thing, I see things slowly start to nudge into a bad direction. I start feeling a little bit more like I felt there, in the old country.
Also, I can't decide if cops have started to do this more, or that they've always done but there weren't as many cameras around to record it, and only the poor people got to experience that side of the "law".
> Also, I can't decide if cops have started to do this more, or that they've always done but there weren't as many cameras around to record it, and only the poor people got to experience that side of the "law".
I very much doubt that police treatment of black people is WORSE than before. Maybe we were briefly better in the 80s and 90s, but I don't see any reason to believe so.
I think it's more that police treatment of black people is more visible to mainstream American consciousness due to the ever increasing coverage of it on the news - which is itself mostly chasing after the ratings brought in by the Michael Brown shooting case.
That sounds like someone who lives in a safe neighborhood and hasn't been robbed. A few nights before Christmas, a couple of guys came out of an alley and robbed some neighbors--gun to the man's head, strong-armed a woman's purse. You can believe that we called the police.
Yes, for government to confiscate private property without due process is a bummer, an outrageous violation of our Constitutional rights. No doubt about that. In particular, that the police believe that someone is acting suspiciously is nothing like justification for such confiscation.
Yes, there have long been news articles on this civil forfeiture scam. No doubt it happens. But have to suspect that it doesn't happen very often to innocent people. Why so suspect? Because there would be more screaming, political debates, SCOTUS cases, etc.
In a sense, that there can be such a scam is not too surprising: That is, as we know well, generally, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance". So, we can expect attacks on our Constitutional rights, and, to get our rights back or just maintain them, we have to fight, continually. That is, there are plenty of people who will take our rights unless we do fight back. So, right along, there needs to be fighting back.
Where is the ACLU in all of this? What about other groups interested in keeping government under control?
We can fight back by bringing law suits and by voting.
But, in particular, and in practical terms, in a local community, likely it can be enough to be known and respected in the community, active in politics, well known to the local politicians, and to have a little chat with them. A respected local citizen will likely not get pushed around by the police. It's a little like high school -- it helps to fit in at least a little.
Broadly an immediate, expedient, practical solution is: In public, don't carry a lot of cash. If have a lot of cash in your house, then, in case your house gets searched, have that cash well hidden. If you have a business that gets paid in cash, say, some tens of thousands a month, maybe make a daily deposit to your business account. Then, get well known at your bank as a successful, local business person who does get revenue in cash -- hopefully then your bank won't file papers saying that you are suspicious. E.g., generally in business, a banker wants good business customers, and business person wants good respect from their banker.
Commonly in a small community, the police know a lot of the people. That can help, say, if at 3 AM drive to the post office to deposit a letter -- the local police will just remember who you are and relax.
It might help to make a donation to some local police charity drive and, there, shake hands with the local chief of police. Maybe can get a window sticker for your car indicating that you are such a supporter.
Likely if there are enough legal cases where citizens bring suit against civil forfeiture, the practice will reach the SCOTUS and get struck down. Of course, legal cases are very expensive, but there are a lot of law school graduates without much to do; with enough forfeiture cases, some of those lawyers would take such cases and change the situation.
For long distance travel, there is an old saying, "A stranger in a strange land". So, it has long been recognized that being such a stranger is not the usual but has some dangers. E.g., don't carry much cash or anything very valuable. E.g., if want to carry $15,000 to buy a used car, just go to a bank and get a certified check for that amount and hide it somewhere, maybe in a book, fold it up and put it between two credit cards in your wallet, or just mail it to yourself at your destination. Some of the police might say that anyone who didn't use such a technique is suspicious.
The way civil forfeiture is being used in these examples is a violation of a citizen's constitutional right and the perpetrators, no matter their appearance, are criminals and must be dealt with as such.
I'm sure there are some lawyers out there who might say otherwise. They will tell you that "this" is how the constitution is interpreted. But the constitution, particularly the bill of rights, was written so that you could understand it, irregardless of what politicians and lawyers say.
From a statistical perspective, you are far more likely to shot or beaten up by a black man than you are through a crooked cop. Would you go around telling people you have the same fears towards black people and say this is a fair statement?
I think what's going on is availability bias. This is where dramatic or sensationalized dangers get overplayed in one's mind instead of paying attention to the actual probabilities. It's basically like shark bites, airplane crashes, or terrorist attacks. The media tends to sensationalize these risks because there is money in it and people tend to over-fear them despite their actual statistical probability. Don't get me wrong, there should be something done about crooked cops. But it's also important to distinguish real risk with the types of risks that sell newspapers.
Over a thousand people were killed by police in the US in 2015 according to http://killedbypolice.net/ which is more than fatalities from shark bites, airplane crashes and terrorist attacks in America combined in this recent calendar year, so comparing those with police shootings(some justified, many not) is dubious at best.
Maybe expecting to be murdered is a dramatic perspective to have, sure. Most people aren't murdered. But expecting the people who are hired and paid with tax dollars to "Protect and Serve" but instead kill, beat, or straight up steal from you(among other things) doesn't seem like something we should just accept because statistically it happens less than other things.
Yes, and how many of those shootings were justified? How many of those were in self defense? I'd wager the bulk.
I'm not saying unjustified shootings are absolutely ZERO. But it's relatively small in comparison to things like, say, black shootings. And I'm not saying "you should be afraid of black people" (because you shouldn't. . .), but what I AM saying is that iamleppert should put his fear of cops into perspective.
Raw probabilities are terrible for talking about this kind of thing. You are also probably less likely to be squished by a falling piano, but if you see one overhead, you're rational telling people to get out of the way.
How can you morally justify such a blatant lie? You have no idea which is more likely, since there is absolutely no obligation by the police in this country to record how many people they are murdering and beating. I have no idea where you're getting these "statistics" from since there are no statistics available for how many people the police murder every year.
When a black man robs me or beats me up, I have recourse. When a cop does so, I don't. I don't fear black men because, even if they are more likely to harm me, the power dynamic is very, very different. If any random black man had special power over me, I would be afraid of any that hadn't earned my trust. (Men typically do have special power over women, and as a result, we insist that women need to avoid walking alone at night, not dress provocatively, carefully watch their drinks in bars, not wear their hair in a ponytail when running, have their keys ready when they approach their car in a dark parking lot...always be ready for an attack.)
So, yes, black men may rob and beat up people at a higher rate than cops, but killing is another thing:
~1000 killed by police in 2015[0][1]
765,000 police with arresting powers[2] (I assume we can ignore the bureaucrats.)
= ~765 police per police killing.
42 089 131 black/AA people in the US (2014)[3]
Assume 50% males: 21 044 566
2,695 murders committed by blacks in 2014.[4] 90% of homicides committed by males.[4] => 2426.
=> 8675 black men per murder by black men.
So police kill at ten times the rate of black men. (Major caveats: killed != murders; I didn't exclude black children, and it might be easier to avoid being killed by a police officer.)
Yes, and what percent of these killing are justified and/or in self defense? I'd wager the bulk. They have an inherently dangerous profession. Notice, I'm not saying it's ZERO either, but the risk is much lower than, say, black shootings.
According to some, they're all justified. But that's of course ridiculous.
* I'd wager that a good fraction of the justified ones ought not be. It's too difficult to prosecute bad actors here.
* I'd also say that a good fraction of the justified ones weren't strictly necessary. Better tactics and technology could make an impact on this.
>They have an inherently dangerous profession.
True, but the danger is often overstated, and there are a couple of ways to cut their risk of harm. ex: Requiring the wearing of seat belts would dramatically cut their risk.
>but the risk is much lower than, say, black shootings.
I also doubt whether that's the case. Got a source?
>> From a statistical perspective, you are far more likely to shot or beaten up by a black man than you are through a crooked cop.
No, statistically you're more likely to be attacked by a criminal, rather than a cop. That's just because there's more criminals attacking citizens than there are cops doing so. There's so many more of them that you can pick any minority you like, claim that "you're more likely to be attacked by X minority than a cop" - and show numbers apparently supporting your claim.
Except they won't be. Because there's always going to be more criminals committing crimes than cops doing so, any way you cut the criminals' class.
It's like measuring one stick in inches, another in centimeters, and then proclaiming the stick measured in centimeters longer, because you counted more centimeters than inches. The quantities are correct, the relation is correct- but the units are not aligned, and therefore your conclusion is completely wrong.
And now that we established that- can you please point out the data according to which you believe you can actually show that your claim is, in fact true?
There are legitimate concerns about police overreach, etc., but I can't get past the part where we start off talking about someone checking $11,000 in cash.
Was this guy just not familiar with air travel? Or is it less likely that money will be seized from a checked bag than from a carry-on? It's just absurd to me to put that much value into a checked bag, especially in the form of cash.
211 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 225 ms ] threadInstitutional responsibility does work. If the police department faces real consequences, they'll figure out a way to clamp down on it. Maybe it's firing officers that are out of line. Maybe it's simply better training and guidelines. No matter what, if the organization as a whole suffers from unreasonable seizures, they'll figure out a way to avoid those consequences in a robust way.
There has been a possibility of lawsuits against law enforcement officials for denial of civil rights under color of law for a long time. And, indeed, some of the worst practices of the past have been corrected by such lawsuits. The civil forfeiture cases that have become so commonplace in recent years are a new (and, in my opinion, aberrational) practice that does need to be rolled back a lot, and lawsuits will be one part of the toolkit for doing that.
http://ij.org/action-post/seize-first-ask-questions-later-ph...
https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-po...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/tim-walberg-an-end-t...
In the US, where the constitution expressly prohibits it: that your property is seized w/o due process is complete and utter garbage.
By no means am I a right-wing/vigilante militia supporter, but this type of behavior from the police makes me support having a heavily armed citizenry.
Do you mind elaborate how firearm would help with combating civil forfeiture?
EDIT: To the multitude of downvoters and angry replies: I didn't say I agreed! I'm just saying where these arguments usually logically end up.
Once again, I'm not proposing this. I'm answering a question with the honest logical conclusion that some peoples' worldviews take them to.
What other choice would the population have than to defend themselves against that kind of extreme assault on their liberty and property by what would be an obviously hostile, violent and radically unconstitutional force? The police would become little more than armed bandits at that point, modern pirates. It seems like an outlandish scenario to me, but it may not be if the police asset theft continues to soar as it has been. How about if it's ten times larger ten years from now? Latin America has had plenty of this going on, scenarios where the police have become bandits that plunder the population in numerous ways.
Maybe instead of buying guns we should invest more of our time and resources into the political process.
[EDIT:] In case I wasn't clear, I'm saying:
I'm not saying:That seems contrary to evidence, surely. Looking at stats for residential shootings:
"For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/9715182/
Don't even get me started on how suicide has been redefined as pathological, as if nothing in this shitty world could ever lead a rational person to take her own life.
If these researchers cared about public health they would have helped us end the damned drug war a decade ago. As if.
> I note that any incident that involves a gun is assumed to be caused by the gun, as though no unarmed person ever were assaulted or committed suicide. That tells me everything I need to know about how conscientious the research is.
Yes, they're looking at correlation rather than causation, but looking at real world data that's usually your only option. Dismissing the research on as not 'conscientious' on that basis seems a little weak, perhaps you'd care to support it some?
> If these researchers cared about public health they would have helped us end the damned drug war a decade ago. As if.
This is entirely fallacious... the world doesn't conform to your "if X really cared about Y they would have done Z" narrative. By that same argument no president, no congress, and nobody who approves of the war on drugs, cares about human life.
Edit:
If you prefer not to talk about suicide; how about self-defence... in 2014 (according to FBI data) there were 229 cases (total) where a criminal was justifiably killed by a civilian [1]. To put that in perspective there were 281 mass shootings in 2014... 1,759 people were killed by firearms during arguments [2]... and 1,601 injured in gun-related accidents.
Similarly this study [3] found that carrying a gun increased your chance of being shot by a factor of 4.5.
The whole "armed citizens don't need police" thing may actually be fair... but you're much more likely to need an ambulance.
[1] https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/...
[2] https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/...
[3] http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2008.1...
Gee, thanks!
Ah yes, we must look under the lamppost. Sure, that's a pressing concern for "professional" "researchers" who must write grants somehow, but that doesn't oblige the rest of us to believe their tenuous constructed bullshit. Correlation might make sense, ceteris paribus, but they're comparing USA to nations of vastly different sizes, locations, and histories. Rather than, say, nations of similar sizes, locations, and histories. We are a high-population colonized nation of the Americas. We're not the only one, but we are the only one that shows up in this "research".
By that same argument...
Indeed. Normal voters have ignorance as an excuse (although that's less tenable as time passes) but every single legislator and drug warrior and surely every social scientist eventually figures out what's going on. Cops still don't join LEAP until they get their pension. Researchers continue to write grants that get funded rather than ask questions that data can possibly answer.
Police don't exist to stop the lone burglar from sneaking into your house. They exist to stop the gang of armed men driving up to your house in a bus.[1] Even small groups of organized and armed criminals can terrorize a large population, armed or not. Police exist to make it unfeasible for such groups to operate in the open.
[1] This actually happened to me, in Bangladesh.
Were there any firearms in the house that was robbed? In that neighborhood, would criminals expect the average resident to be armed?
It becomes dangerous when that small group becomes tainted by religion, as was the case with characters like Dawood Ibrahim.
Why is violence an effective means of coercion by the common citizen, but an unacceptable means of coercion by the state? Surely, if fearing for their lives would keep the police honest, having the people fear for their lives would keep them honest and law abiding as well?
This sort of thing is why "I have nothing to hide" is not a legitimate justification for mass surveillance. Think of the abuse potential when dragnet surveillance is combined with machine learning and economic incentives for asset seizure. I can think of quite a few... umm... entrepreneurial things that might be done.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Crime_Control_...
This practice simply is breaking the civil pact that holds together our countries.
Civil forfeiture was a highly successful tool to combat organized crime and grew enormously in the 80s with Reagan's odious war on drugs. It basically solves the problem of illicitly used money being able to free people the government wanted wanted to stop.
As a tool for dismantling organized crime, it was effective, useful, and generally seemed basically fair and as such seemed to survive court review.
Then came the war on drugs and a dose of right-wing anti-tax thinking.
"It's now possible for a drug dealer to serve time in a forfeiture-financed prison after being arrested by agents driving a forfeiture-provided automobile while working in a forfeiture-funded sting operation." — Reagan attorney general Richard Thornburgh in 1989.
It was specifically designed to help fund agencies in a way that replaced tax revenue. Starting at roughly this same time period most government agencies at all levels became cash-strapped in various ways. This meant some agencies have turned to civil forfeiture to create revenue.
It's clearly a bad incentive and needs to be reined in and reformulated to ensure rights are being respected.
BTW, a heavily armed citizenry is precisely why local police departments advocate for more and more militarized equipment. They'll call them gang members and drug dealers, but they are heavily armed citizenry nonetheless. Armed citizens won't solve any part of this problem.
You can't simply drop an atomic bomb on NYC -- and justify it, by saying you killed at least 100,000 criminals ...
Guns have obviously led to killing innocents by police, and I'd like that number to go down. Heck, I'd like most police officers to not carry guns most of the time, leaving guns to SWAT teams that can be called in when needed. In other words, I want the dangerous tool used effectively in a manner that respects everyone's rights.
Same with civil forfeiture. It's clearly being used in an abusive fashion. Innocents are losing money and property to help pay for police. It blows my mind that it's being used this way and needs to be reformed. To me it would make sense to hold the property in some form of escrow until the finding of guilt or innocence, essentially freezing assets.
I don't know, if cf can be reformed, so that it stays useful and has not such by-effects. The usefulness of cf is largely drawn from the aspect of being arbitrary.
The side effect of a constitutional state is, that some times the bad guys can use it to protect their bad ways. But the alternative would be bad for all.
cf does not only make innocent people to victims, but does change those to crooks, that should protect the innocent -- and thus an even bigger harm is done to the whole society -- with very bad consequences in the long run!
"While the 1993 Supreme Court case Austin v. United States ruled that a forfeiture could be considered as an excessive fine, the court upheld the principle of civil forfeiture generally. A 1996 Supreme Court decision ruled that prosecuting a person for a crime and seizing his or her property via civil forfeiture did not constitute double jeopardy, and therefore did not violate the Constitution. However, in 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that civil forfeiture was not permitted if the amount seized was "grossly disproportional" to the gravity of the offense."
It seems the current legal interpretations do not support considering double-dipping like this to be unconstitutional. However, it's also clear that it should be able to be argued that due process is not being followed, and the dollar value of punishment is excessive, which seems to be ACLU's stance on the matter. I hope the unconstitutional elements are removed from this tool sooner rather than later.
Seems pretty mindbogglingly clear to me. Regardless of what the present Justice Department refuses to go after, or what the present Supreme Courts choose to go after, the people practicing these policies are corrupt traitors committing literal armed robbery in defiance of their compact with the People. That sounds like a hyperbolic statement, but it's not.
I'm going to borrow xkcd's analogy at https://xkcd.com/463/
Imagine you're at a parent-teacher conference, and the teacher, out of the blue, assures you that while he doesn't wear a condom while teaching, all his STD testing is up to date and meets the state code as presently written; He has been inspected by the principal for venereal diseases on a weekly basis. He's clean, and your children are safe, no matter what their marks on the upcoming math test happen to be.
If you're going to say something is successful, be clear about it. Yes, it has been successful at locking up more people than any country in the world. Yes, it has been successful at seizing tons of property. No it hasn't been successful at putting any sort of dent into organized crime, which is fueled by the gigantic black market of drugs.
Second, the statement above didn't say much about requiring a warrant to take people's property - how do you get to USA v2, where that law is in place? Do you shoot enough cops, so they would change the law? What kind of wild-west mentality dwells around there, anyway? How about writing a petition? How about sending (e)mails to your congressmen, or whatever people with that kind of authority you have in US?
Sure, why not? Most cops don't train that much with their weapons, and there's a bunch of crazy rednecks out there who train constantly with various firearms. I'll put my money on the gun nuts against the cops. Check out some YouTube videos by guys at pistol ranges. Also, cops only train at standard ranges, where you stand still and shoot at a non-moving target, and don't generally do combat training. Face it, cops aren't soldiers; they're just thugs with guns, and most are about as skilled with guns as your average ghetto thug.
As for your bet - the paradigm would shift from bullying all people to bullying frail people and avoid rednecks, as far as the violent cops go. This would hardly solve the problem.
Most cops only train with their pistols once or twice a year.
No, they're not breaking the law. They're just taking advantage of laws your elected officials wrote.
So if you want to stop the cops from stealing from you, get your elected official to change the law, or threaten to _vote_ him/her out of office.
That's how it's supposed to be, but citizens keep voting the same politicians into office that vote against their interests.
Clinton caused some of these tough on crime and drugs laws. So if you voted for his party (Obama), then you voted for this.
All the politicians do is stir up emotional issues like "they're trying to take away your guns", or abortion, to distract the sheep. It works all the time.
In this case, we have the big media, big industry, and big government in a huge orgy of bribery and self-interest, that all benefit from people accepting authoritarianism. There’s a relief valve, a small minority of people getting their political analysis from Comedy Central or their security analysis from Bruce Schneier, but the vast majority get their talking points from people who are funded to act like there is still a debate about climate change.
It’s not technically against our will, but our will has been manipulated.
The smartphone example does not fit.
Very few needed to be manipulated into buying one. You've got to have a phone, whether it's a smartphone, a feature phone, or even a land line phone. Unless extraneous circumstances dictate otherwise, a phone is a necessity.
In a sense it was forced upon us. You see, we were whipped into a frenzy where the most likely thing to do, given our emotional states, was support whatever the perpetrators wanted in the first place.
It's a trick that works all the time.
It's almost as if the voting process itself is part of the system, rather than being separate somehow? If we examined that process as a part of that system, we might conclude that it always produces the same results for durable structural reasons rather than because voters always fuck up in special contingent ways.
Sadly, the supreme court is stacked with nutjobs from both sides so issues like this are ignored.
No, there isn't. The Constitution is a part of the law (and a part that constrains whether other things that purport to be law actually are.) Violating the Constitution is violating the law.
Yes, hopefully (though hopefully not at the scale you may be imagining). Cops have turned into thugs in this country and something needs to be done about it. Maybe legalizing drugs would fix everything. I don't know. But cops in this country aren't even accountable for the people that they kill. There are no logs on how many murders are carried out by police.
Yes, they can take our property, including cash, for no reason (something like 90% of dollar bills test positive for traces of cocaine). And in this case all the officers had to do was say they smelled weed. I have been a victim of this "smell like weed" abuse myself, in which everyone in my vehicle was pulled out and searched. My vehicle was then searched without my permission. They found nothing and gave me a speeding ticket for going 5 miles over the speed limit.
But seizing our property means nothing when they can take our lives without the public knowing about it.
That's not very helpful if the people enforcing (and writing) the law are the ones who are breaking it.
>Won't that lead to civil war, eventually?
That's the idea! Or hopefully not even that, since many servicemen will revolt as well.
There would likely also be a presumption, as a heavily armed white person, that you're extremely confident in your ability to recite the constitution, quite possibly spoiling for a fight to defend particular rights that you see enshrined in the constitution, that you will not submit to a warrantless search, and are even less likely to allow the police to steal your money.
You don't need to put holes in the police officers, they would profile you from a mile off and assume you're a red-neck nutbag who is potentially going to put holes in them, move along citizen there's nothing to see here.
The situation in Oregon is larger than just this single incident. I recommend reading the report[1] put together by the SPLC on the previous incidents.
Page 9 of the report has photos of these militia scofflaws pointing rifles at federal and local law enforcement[2]. That show of force did get law enforcement to back off at the time. As for why the people involved still haven't been charged with - at a minimum - assault with a deadly weapon is another matter entirely that really needs to be remedied before those militia nutjobs escalate their tactics into a a reenactment of the Whiskey Rebellion..
When you strip away the usual political rhetoric an other distractions, the primary reason the Oregon stand-off didn't turn into a (possibly Waco-style) raid immediately is because the militia members are both white and conservative. We saw what happened to unarmed non-conservatives when the police started using CS gas on various Occupy Wall Street groups (e.g. the battles in Oakland). If the militia members were black or Muslim, the media would be calling them "terrorists" and the swat teams would have gone in shooting within the first day or two.
[1] https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/d6_legacy_file...
[2] http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2014/04/RTR3L...
I don't believe that for a second. The government certainly didn't hold back at Waco or Ruby Ridge.
I should have included "mainstream xian" in that list.
> didn't hold back
I don't mean to imply that it's a perfect shield. There are numerous cases where the government has gone after more or less every subgroup. The point is that framing affects how people perceive a situation, which in turn affects how they respond.
What framing? Just look at the media. An example from today:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-oregon-mil...
Do you really the same framing would be used if the people involved were black? If liberals took over a similar federal building as with firearms, do you really think they would still be called "activists" by the media? If they were Muslim, do you really think they would be getting the same low-key treatment by the FBI?Yes, I do. Are you seriously going to pretend the press is more sympathetic to Christians?
I am as much intolerant of Muslims as anyone (PC be damned) but I don't think we have a leg to stand on here.
Remember Obama's remark about people "clinging to their guns and religion"? That's pretty insulting if you're a Christian (or a gun owner). He was still elected president. Twice.
Sure, numerically speaking there are a lot of Christians in the US. But they're not a majority and they don't control any part of the press, academia, or the government. The people running the executive branch (including Obama) are downright hostile to both whites and Christians.
Come springtime if those guys are still there ATF or the FBI will take the gloves off.
I hate this fear you've succumbed to because I'm afraid it will be a self-fulfilling prophesy. We are destroying ourselves. Fear hurts us because it makes us follow lunatics and insincere people like Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush.
We need to take a step back and stop listening to fear mongerers. Of course, our work never ends. Of course, we need to push back to defend our rights. However, I don't see us pushing back. When we support antics like occupying a park office, we are not reaching out. We are withdrawing further. We are showing that we are afraid. Some dude not getting to graze his cattle in federal land is not a constitutional crisis much less a moral or religious one.
I equate it to me going to the NSA and demanding them that I be given a free vps on their servers. I mean clearly my taxes paid for the data centers...
I guess my point is if we stopped fearing and withdrawing into ourselves but rather tries to reach out then we will find a lot of the others will see what we really want isn't bad. However, we must discard the craziness and the insincerity. I think it will be a little easier to do that if we stop being afraid.
You're reading something into my post that isn't there. What in the world are you talking about?
Some officers are starting to embrace drug legalization too. This apparent upsurge in libertarian views among cops is almost enough to make me consider becoming a libertarian again. Cops adopt these stances because they think it makes their lives easier and safer. A stressed fearful cop is like a cornered animal: far more likely to lash out. So, more relaxed police = less police violence, better relations between the police and the citizenry.
For instance, people here in the US say particular generalizations about "the Europeans" all the time, but there's a world of difference between the cultures of Spain, England, Sweden, Latvia, Greece, and Moldova (and Russia, which is part of Europe geographically).
So when you say some police chiefs like armed citizens, I really wonder where those chiefs are. I'm willing to bet good money the chiefs of NYPD, Chicago PD, LAPD, etc. are not among those chiefs. However, I can certainly see some police chief in some pop. 30k city being like that; I can also see the police in a random small city like that not having any real problems with police misbehavior; we're likely judging ALL police nationwide for actions of a lot of police who seem to mostly be in cities. Are the cops in rural North Dakota known by the people there to shoot unarmed people or beat people or steal from them?
Note also that I'm not claiming that it's only a small number of police that are bad cops; I think it varies by jurisdiction, and I think they stick up for each other and that a few obviously bad ones in a department probably indicate the entire department is bad (much like the old saying, "one bad apple spoils the entire bunch"). But not all police departments are the same, and again it seems we usually hear about problems in cities.
Another is a former Cincinnati chief.
I dunno, make up your own mind.
And I was certainly not blaming all cops for police violence committed in the inner cities. The evidence we have to date suggests a pattern consistent with my statements that stressed out police officers who expect shit to go down at any minute are more likely to react with excessive violence. That's far more likely to be the situation in a major city. Police in rural and low-density areas are less likely to react this way.
I would say based on the declaration of independence, if it comes to that the answer is yes.
As for leading to anarchy (let's save discussing whether that would be a good thing for another time) or civil war, I don't see why it would.
> It's because the cops would be afraid that if they rob someone they will be met with a violent response, as they well should.
The cops already are afraid that if they exercise seizure or arrest powers they will be met with a violent response, and conduct such operations based on the assumption of a violent response (often with tragic results.)
This manifestly does not prevent them from executing these powers.
Well that's good for the police because now they have good reason to roll in with their SWAT wagon and get the "tactical" gear out and play GI Joe.
But, the counterexample to your narrative are the various militias that are slightly racist and espouse right-wing rhetoric.
Sometimes adults like to dress up in black shirts and carry weapons around, regardless of what political affiliation they have.
That people seriously consider more guns to be a solution to anything let alone this problem shows the profound level of insane indoctrination and delusion in the country more than anything else.
I'm going to jot that sentence down in my "how to make friends and influence people" notebook.
Is there some possibility of convincing a gun rights advocate that he is wrong? Only as much as there is to convince a climate change denier or creationist they are wrong. So for all three I'm afraid the above adjectives are accurate.
I am only guilty of the sin of posting ridicule rather than psychotherapy.
When you use that kind of rhetoric there's no possibility of common ground. People who believe in gun rights, as I do, used to be much more open to restrictions on the margins - things like magazine size restrictions, say, or background checks.
But there's no better way to engender intransigence than to ridicule someone without even attempting state your own position. Given the shift in public opinion toward gun rights, you're really just marginalizing yourself and your co-restrictionists.
If two generations of discourse has had no effect then certainly nothing I could ever post will change even one member of that 1% any more than I could change a creationist's view which has been demonstrably invalid 150 years now.
But I might challenge a gun advocate's consistency this way though: why not establish a charity to hand out guns to poor inner city kids so as to reduce crime in those areas or at least give them too the opportunity to exercise that alleged fundamental human right; gun ownership?
Conversely, the decreased availability of firearms doesn't reduce violence either.
Turns out there are no hard links one-way or the other. Crime rates correlate strongly with poverty rates.
However, it did happen to be money he had made selling drugs several years prior. They had identified him as a convicted felon with a drug related offense and connected the money to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._$124,700_in_U...
>Charles was carrying his cash because his bank has few physical branches and he and his mother were in the process of moving and he didn’t want to lose his life savings in the move while he was in Cincinnati.
So open up a Chase, or Bank of America, or <insert bank here> account instead of risking someone just stealing your cash in a checked bag that you won't be watching for a few hours, much less airport security?. I've lost bags at the airlines before and had them sent to the wrong cities and such.
"I don't understand how he saved that money, so it's probably via some nefarious means".
No, a thousand times no. The government has billions of dollars to spend on prosecuting me. I have much less to spend defending myself.
The standards should be set such that it is very hard for the government to convict me, by requiring things like "evidence", and "probably cause". The standards should be that it is very easy to defend myself "prove your conjecture beyond a reasonable doubt, or I walk".
The alternative is totalitarian dictatorships. The guy in charge thinks you're bad? Yup. You're bad. No trial, no defence, no conviction. Just secret police knocking down your door at 2am, and your neighbors waking up the next day with you gone.
Everyone is too afraid to defend themselves, so the dictatorship continues.
History shows that's the result of opinions like yours. It's why you're getting downvoted.
Second, I'm much more concerned with the foolishness of putting one's life savings ($11,000) in a bag, and handing that bag off to someone, who will hand it off to someone else, who will hopefully put it in the right plane, and then someone else will hopefully pick it up, and that person will put it on the right conveyor belt, and nobody else will just take the bag anyway off the conveyor belt and walk off with it.
There's no doubt about this being an insecure method of transferring money. A criminal could steal it. All the more reason to be disgusted when the thief turns out to be the police.
Yea, does seem pretty foolish that he checked it. But how is that related to anything about the police seizing it?
In short, you don't seem to understand or care that your attitude leads to dictatorship and oppression. I have ethical problems with this attitude.
For me, I don't care where he got the money from. If the government can't prove it's the result of criminal behavior, it should have no right to seize the money. It's that simple.
I commented on the stupidity of transporting the money in such a fashion, and the skepticism of what the article was telling me about how he got the money. And, no, even though you would like to misrepresent that statement, it does not imply he did something nefarious to get it.
So if I understand what you're saying here: "You don't believe that the Government had a right to seize this guy's money, but since you question the story you're given in any way, your attitude leads to dictatorship and oppression."
You're acting like this is affecting every American and is very common. It's not. Eritrea? That's laughable, you're intentionally dramatizing to try to insult the US. It is in fact a very, very small problem, that is very serious and needs to be put down before it gets any larger. Steps have already begun to put an end to it. Why pretend it's not an understood problem that almost everyone agrees needs to be dealt with? The only reason to pretend that, is to levy a cheap shot at the US.
People in the United States are less free than most advanced European countries. In those countries, governments tend to respect people AND limit the power of corporations so people can be free from coercive economic activity.
The US has been pretty bad off when it comes to civil liberties compared to many other other countries for quite a while now.
Next to civil forfeiture the US unlike most other countries still has death penalty, still has a rather big amount of the population rotting in one of the worst prison systems of the western world, still doesn't legalize things like most drugs or prostitution, still doesn't do anything against the decline of education, making it only possible for wealthy to get one, has even when compared with development countries a pretty bad health care system, many archaic laws, has things like the DMCA killing off freedom of speech, has that NSA scandal going on that made KGB and Stasi look like nothing, presidents that are dynasties of families, barely any protection against discrimination of minorities, etc.
I really don't want to talk bad about the US, but your statement of "America remains among the freest nations on earth in nearly every measure" really doesn't seem anywhere close to true. What are you basing that statement on? Or are you purely talking about so called "economical freedoms"?
Oh and not saying country X is better. I just think that statement you made is wrong.
> has that NSA scandal going on that made KGB and Stasi look like nothing
Yeah, I'm going to say you only want to talk bad about the US.
Civil Liberties are not big in the US anymore. I think that's also kind of established. Or do you have something that disproves that?
Also hint hint, I've got no reason to talk bad about the US. I actually often talk good about the US. There is a bunch of stuff that everyone should copy. Like the Freedom of Information Act that still seems to be pretty much unique to the US. Have I confused you now? ;)
And yeah, I am sorry. I didn't write that sentence in the nicest way. I am however not even denying the fact that there is many countries doing worse and fewer and fewer that could be doing better.
But if you think I only wanna talk bad about the US it's your right to do so. Just saying it's not true as I actually think that a change in US politics regarding these things is one of the few chances for pretty much the whole world to stop being in a downward spiral when it comes to civil liberties. Right now everyone is pointing at each other being like "It's okay that we take those liberties away, because country X is doing it too".
It's like history and long thought for rights are getting reversed. And the intention is not to talk bad about the US, but to talk bad about all those things, kind of hoping that the US starts a trend for civil liberties (again), because I think that's maybe the most likely country others will copycat from.
Sorry, having no national pride, so I'm usually a bit blunt about those things and how I word them. Will try to find a better wording next time. :)
I just thought you were making a knee jerk, America is worse than Nazi Germany, comment. I didn't realize you were talking about data collection alone. My bad.
First off even though I know about the loans I also know that for many people (people I know) it means decades of debt. I also know that this still doesn't mean you will have good access to good education (Ivory League colleges).
The thing that I wanted to point out is that it's still a decision that one cannot just make or if you do it might be one that one might really regret.
The problem with that is that it's not efficient in many ways. The US compared to other countries appears to end high school education at a slightly lower level. Therefor college becomes way more important. At the end of college the difference is evened out (sometimes/often better, sometimes worse than other countries, also depends on many factors). So that's good.
However the problem is that it's a loan. Yeah, it's better than not federally-guaranteed, but then for a country that claims to be the best in this sector it's kind of bad. The amount of money one needs for college, both for paying back and for just "living" are on the rise.
I'd consider the US democracy being designed in a really good way, but like founding fathers, various presidents and thinkers pointed out education is very important for a democracy.
The state with the loans is sadly kind of ridiculous. It's actually bizarre when one has to start out their live with ten thousands of USD of debt for going to college and that even after a successful college time there is still a big chance for the debt growing because of the interest.
And yeah, in many cases one can say "your own fault" and I even agree on that one, but as a CS person one is on the extremely "lucky" end of the spectrum.
I am not saying that it is realistic to just be perfect or just be like Scandinavia, but education is important and might to a degree even influence the other topics when it comes to civil liberties.
I hope I won't be called a communist, but I once knew a person from East Germany and at least he said something like "the Berlin Wall and Communism fell because they educated their people too well" and hey I think that should be a reason for the US to invest into good education.
I know that's just a random anecdote, but hope it gets my point across. The US could really benefit from some reform in certain areas and probably with that even reduce the costs of inefficient systems. Someone (not sure if that's true, don't know the exactly details) once told me that if the US would copy the welfare system of - I think - Sweden regarding healthcare and education they'd have way more money, better education and better healthcare and they could lower the taxes. Also said something about the system being largely based upon "making it not look socialist, even though it means more tax money and government control".
Not sure about my last statement. All I know about the US regarding education I know from a bunch of US citizens I am close to and a documentary called Ivory Tower. The documentary being a bit scary, but it also shows some really cool stuff that should be used more.
Like I sometimes don't get what's hindering to make the US way closer to how "the US" likes to depict itself. Is it just that nobody picks up those topics? Or is it that the parties just can't agree? Maybe someone knows more? What's the reason that the US seems a bit stuck with status quo on some issues.
I'd say the vast majority of US citizens have no idea what asset forfeiture is, how it's used, what it's legality is or isn't... and what they do know, if anything, is that it's a tool used by the police/govt to keep those pesky drug cartels in line... because that's what the media tells them.
It also raises the age-old question of "who polices the police?" The (federal) DOJ can only do so much, it seems. But maybe ordinary citizens can demand reform if injustice stares them in the face?
From what I've read in the press (especially NyTimes), the USA justice system seems to fundamentally disadvantage poor people [1]. The saddest part about the civil forfeiture business is that it probably affects the poorest people, who then have the least resources to challenge it.
On a separate note, I know the press is more likely to publish instances of injustice vs run-of-the-mill "just" justice. I honestly have no concept of if we live in a society with a tiny bit of corruption, or a lot more than I ever realized.
[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/magazine/the-bail-trap.htm...
DoJ wishes they didn't do the little they already do. They are not opposed to cops. They are cops. We need something like NTSB, which is specifically set up not to be friends with FAA.
Your comment about the poor is spot-on. If you're curious and you have some free time, hang around a courthouse or other judicial building for a day on which traffic and other minor violations are being adjudicated. You will be disgusted by the number of people sent to jail because they're not able to pay the fine for not being able to pay the fine for not being able to pay to fix their cars. Then note how many people are begging the clerk for more lenient payment plans on the bill they have for their room and board when they were sent to jail, because if they can't keep up, guess what? More jail! Ferguson wasn't really about Michael Brown.
I was think of interstate travel.
http://www.snopes.com/business/money/10000.asp
The law is an ass. Especially when it has anything to do with the 'war on drugs'.
However, in many (most?) parts of the USA, you are vulnerable to having the cash seized by police any time you are carrying cash. (Typically this only happens with a large amount.) This is insane, but it is the reality today. Theoretically, you may recover the money via the legal process, but this may not actually work, and in any event will very often cost more in legal fees than was seized.
[1]: http://www.snopes.com/business/money/10000.asp
Whenever I see police, I have the same fight or flight response as if I'd see someone in a dark alley. The police have become dangerous, and none of my friends trust them. They would be the last people I'd call if there was something happening. Too much of a risk they would beat you, kill you, or rob you.
Who does that sound like?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
Yap pretty much.
I came from a country where cops would torture people to get confessions out of them. Basically chances were, if they caught you, and they were bored / were bribed by someone, or just had a bad day, they could make you "confess" to crimes easily.
One time my friend and I caught a pickpocketer. Pickpocketer's associate swiped my friend's wallet. There was a group of them, all scattered except one. We caught him and eventaully ended up with him at a police station. It was a quiet evening there. One cop even had his 1st or 2nd grader son there playing around in the hallway. So being bored, the cops decided to get this pickpocketer to tell them where his buddies are hanging out. They needed the wallet to officially to charge him so they could arrest him. So to get him to talk, they asked us to leave the room. Then proceeded to torture him. Holy crap! I can still hear his pleas for help. What started with us being happy we caught him and him getting some justice, turned into us feeling pretty sorry for him... at some point we signed some papers and just left.
Long story short, there is a good reason there to be afraid of cops. They are just like an organized criminal gang are are sanctioned to operate by the law. You never know what they'll do, they have guns, friends with guns, and could beat or torture you to death on a whim.
Now it is night and day to what is in this country, and I felt pretty safe in general around cops here. But in later years, the stories I hear, camera recordings of cops shooting people, the whole forfeture thing, I see things slowly start to nudge into a bad direction. I start feeling a little bit more like I felt there, in the old country.
Also, I can't decide if cops have started to do this more, or that they've always done but there weren't as many cameras around to record it, and only the poor people got to experience that side of the "law".
I don't know either, but Chicago had a police torture scandal that occurred in the 70s and 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Burge
I very much doubt that police treatment of black people is WORSE than before. Maybe we were briefly better in the 80s and 90s, but I don't see any reason to believe so.
The spirit of which appears to continue, in various guises, through the current day.
We might even say it's in their DNA:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-polic...
Yes, there have long been news articles on this civil forfeiture scam. No doubt it happens. But have to suspect that it doesn't happen very often to innocent people. Why so suspect? Because there would be more screaming, political debates, SCOTUS cases, etc.
In a sense, that there can be such a scam is not too surprising: That is, as we know well, generally, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance". So, we can expect attacks on our Constitutional rights, and, to get our rights back or just maintain them, we have to fight, continually. That is, there are plenty of people who will take our rights unless we do fight back. So, right along, there needs to be fighting back.
Where is the ACLU in all of this? What about other groups interested in keeping government under control?
We can fight back by bringing law suits and by voting.
But, in particular, and in practical terms, in a local community, likely it can be enough to be known and respected in the community, active in politics, well known to the local politicians, and to have a little chat with them. A respected local citizen will likely not get pushed around by the police. It's a little like high school -- it helps to fit in at least a little.
Broadly an immediate, expedient, practical solution is: In public, don't carry a lot of cash. If have a lot of cash in your house, then, in case your house gets searched, have that cash well hidden. If you have a business that gets paid in cash, say, some tens of thousands a month, maybe make a daily deposit to your business account. Then, get well known at your bank as a successful, local business person who does get revenue in cash -- hopefully then your bank won't file papers saying that you are suspicious. E.g., generally in business, a banker wants good business customers, and business person wants good respect from their banker.
Commonly in a small community, the police know a lot of the people. That can help, say, if at 3 AM drive to the post office to deposit a letter -- the local police will just remember who you are and relax.
It might help to make a donation to some local police charity drive and, there, shake hands with the local chief of police. Maybe can get a window sticker for your car indicating that you are such a supporter.
Likely if there are enough legal cases where citizens bring suit against civil forfeiture, the practice will reach the SCOTUS and get struck down. Of course, legal cases are very expensive, but there are a lot of law school graduates without much to do; with enough forfeiture cases, some of those lawyers would take such cases and change the situation.
For long distance travel, there is an old saying, "A stranger in a strange land". So, it has long been recognized that being such a stranger is not the usual but has some dangers. E.g., don't carry much cash or anything very valuable. E.g., if want to carry $15,000 to buy a used car, just go to a bank and get a certified check for that amount and hide it somewhere, maybe in a book, fold it up and put it between two credit cards in your wallet, or just mail it to yourself at your destination. Some of the police might say that anyone who didn't use such a technique is suspicious.
the whole system needs disruption, that's what we do.
I'm sure there are some lawyers out there who might say otherwise. They will tell you that "this" is how the constitution is interpreted. But the constitution, particularly the bill of rights, was written so that you could understand it, irregardless of what politicians and lawyers say.
Except municipalities explicitly write expected seizures into their annual budgets. They literally must seize property to make their planned budget.
I think what's going on is availability bias. This is where dramatic or sensationalized dangers get overplayed in one's mind instead of paying attention to the actual probabilities. It's basically like shark bites, airplane crashes, or terrorist attacks. The media tends to sensationalize these risks because there is money in it and people tend to over-fear them despite their actual statistical probability. Don't get me wrong, there should be something done about crooked cops. But it's also important to distinguish real risk with the types of risks that sell newspapers.
Maybe expecting to be murdered is a dramatic perspective to have, sure. Most people aren't murdered. But expecting the people who are hired and paid with tax dollars to "Protect and Serve" but instead kill, beat, or straight up steal from you(among other things) doesn't seem like something we should just accept because statistically it happens less than other things.
I'm not saying unjustified shootings are absolutely ZERO. But it's relatively small in comparison to things like, say, black shootings. And I'm not saying "you should be afraid of black people" (because you shouldn't. . .), but what I AM saying is that iamleppert should put his fear of cops into perspective.
True, but after being shot or beaten up by a black man, you are free to go.
If you are shot or beaten up by the cops, you will be arrested and charged with a felony. And then you will have to prove your innocence.
See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_scandal
That doesn't make me feel any better.
So, yes, black men may rob and beat up people at a higher rate than cops, but killing is another thing: ~1000 killed by police in 2015[0][1] 765,000 police with arresting powers[2] (I assume we can ignore the bureaucrats.) = ~765 police per police killing.
42 089 131 black/AA people in the US (2014)[3] Assume 50% males: 21 044 566 2,695 murders committed by blacks in 2014.[4] 90% of homicides committed by males.[4] => 2426. => 8675 black men per murder by black men.
So police kill at ten times the rate of black men. (Major caveats: killed != murders; I didn't exclude black children, and it might be easier to avoid being killed by a police officer.)
[0] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-new-estimate-of-killin... [1] http://killedbypolice.net/ [2] http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/csllea08.pdf [3] http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html [4] https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/...
* I'd wager that a good fraction of the justified ones ought not be. It's too difficult to prosecute bad actors here. * I'd also say that a good fraction of the justified ones weren't strictly necessary. Better tactics and technology could make an impact on this.
>They have an inherently dangerous profession.
True, but the danger is often overstated, and there are a couple of ways to cut their risk of harm. ex: Requiring the wearing of seat belts would dramatically cut their risk.
>but the risk is much lower than, say, black shootings.
I also doubt whether that's the case. Got a source?
No, statistically you're more likely to be attacked by a criminal, rather than a cop. That's just because there's more criminals attacking citizens than there are cops doing so. There's so many more of them that you can pick any minority you like, claim that "you're more likely to be attacked by X minority than a cop" - and show numbers apparently supporting your claim.
Except they won't be. Because there's always going to be more criminals committing crimes than cops doing so, any way you cut the criminals' class.
It's like measuring one stick in inches, another in centimeters, and then proclaiming the stick measured in centimeters longer, because you counted more centimeters than inches. The quantities are correct, the relation is correct- but the units are not aligned, and therefore your conclusion is completely wrong.
And now that we established that- can you please point out the data according to which you believe you can actually show that your claim is, in fact true?
Was this guy just not familiar with air travel? Or is it less likely that money will be seized from a checked bag than from a carry-on? It's just absurd to me to put that much value into a checked bag, especially in the form of cash.