Civil Asset Forfeiture has nothing to do with Trump. This outright theft of money and other assets during traffic stops has been going on for years. It was originally enacted to help deal with gangs and drug dealers who tend not to use banks for obvious reasons. This would allow law enforcement to seize the cash, drugs, cars, etc. to help suppress their illegal operations by confiscating their capital and equipment/vehicles.
It has since been perverted into the kind of travesty this article details. Personally, I don't even support Civil Asset Forfeiture on any level because it seems to violate every notion of property rights as well as some basic human rights that we supposedly believe here in America.
EDIT: my reference to Trump was in regards to OP's reference, which has now been edited out.
Just another reminder that there is no rule of law in the USA; its judicial system is an arm of oppression, not service.
There's nothing we as individuals can do about it besides acknowledging the illegitimacy of laws and abiding by a basic empathetic moral code, but don't kid yourself about how that will be treated.
If you feel like a law is wrong, look at why it was passed. There might be reasoning you aren't thinking of, like environmental damages. If you still feel like it's wrong, look at how likely the action it forbids is to hurt someone else by intent or accident. If you feel like that's extremely unlikely, and don't think you'll get caught, break that law!
Part of civil disobedience is acknowledging that you may get caught and punished. But in doing so, you are riding on the fact that the punishment is arbitrary and offensive, which would rally people in support of you if it is carried out. At least, that's the idea. The real problem comes when your government is more than happy to simply arrest/beat/shoot people until they quiet down.
Fortunately you're wrong. In reality, the US is one of the 20 least corrupt nations on the planet, on par with Ireland and Japan and less corrupt than France. It has very strong property protection laws, which is both why the judge returned the money (naturally that would happen in a nation with no rule of law huh), and why the Obama Administration took important steps to neuter civil asset forfeiture abuse. Can more be done to fully end the abuse? Of course.
The US also has rare universal Congressional support for ending civil asset forfeiture abuses. Jeff Sessions undid some of the fixes the Obama Administration made; it turns out that might have been ideal, as Congress is now going to put it down for good by law.
Sept 2017:
"In Surprise Vote, House Passes Amendment to Restrict Asset Forfeiture"
"The amendment passed with a voice vote, meaning it had overwhelming support."
"A bipartisan group of senators wants to defund Attorney General Jeff Sessions' expansion of the Justice Department's civil asset forfeiture program, following similar efforts by libertarian-leaning and progressive members of the House earlier this year."
Your source doesn't quite say what you are implying. They define corruption thusly:
>Generally speaking as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. Corruption can be classified as grand, petty and political, depending on the amounts of money lost and the sector where it occurs.
>Grand corruption consists of acts committed at a high level of government that distort policies or the central functioning of the state, enabling leaders to benefit at the expense of the public good. Petty corruption refers to everyday abuse of entrusted power by low- and mid-level public officials in their interactions with ordinary citizens, who often are trying to access basic goods or services in places like hospitals, schools, police departments and other agencies.
>Political corruption is a manipulation of policies, institutions and rules of procedure in the allocation of resources and financing by political decision makers, who abuse their position to sustain their power, status and wealth. See animated definitions of many corruption terms in our Anti-corruption Glossary.
The link you provided measures the PERCEPTION of corruption. It is perfectly plausible for there to be a huge amount of corruption and very little perception of corruption depending on many factors. The source describes it thusly:
>No. The CPI is an indicator of perceptions of public sector corruption, i.e.
administrative and political corruption. It is not a verdict on the levels of corruption of
entire nations or societies, or of their policies, or the activities of their private sector.
Citizens of those countries/territories that score at the lower end of the CPI often
show the same concern about and condemnation of corruption as the public in
countries that perform strongly.
Their data sources primarily asks 'experts' which they define differently (additionally, one specifically asks business executives, one includes the general public, and one doesn't clearly specify) whether they perceive corruption to be an issue. While the exact questions vary, these two seem like representative examples:
>In your country, how common is it for firms to make undocumented extra payments or bribes connected with the following
and
>First, how do you grade the problem of corruption in the country in which you are working? Second, has corruption decreased, stayed the same or increased compared with one year ago? Third, what aspects or implications of corruption in your country stand out to you as being particularly important?
If the majority of the populace feels that seizure of drug profits is warranted, and the police generally label everything seized 'drug profits' than it is perfectly feasible that is an accepted narrative without any meaningful evidence being provided. They are the type of people who exist and are privileged by the normative power hierarchies in that society (hence the term 'expert' being applied to them by peers). These are the people least likely to experience that type of corruption/oppression...by design
All of this comes down to the data they select. Your source uses the exact type of data which would hide corruption by this definition. That effect comes both through the selection of questions and the selection of people who will answer those questions. Their implementation of their definition of corruption largely results in a study of whether those with social capital feel like society treats them and their businesses fairly. It seems a poor metric of the types of systematic (designed) corruption experienced by others on a regular basis.
Only because you don't define lobbying as corruption. In most (any?) other nation, individuals and corporations paying legislators to vote a certain way fits the definition of bribery and corruption perfectly.
Exactly. Historically, corruption has been carefully defined to exclude everything the running elite of a country is doing. Many of the behaviors observed in the US could easily be classified as corruption, but, surprise, there are very handy laws that allow them to continue unchallenged.
you are right! I had to look it up, and it became a law back in 1907 in the US. I wonder how much impact corporations involvements had before that time.
> Only because you don't define lobbying as corruption. In most (any?) other nation, individuals and corporations paying legislators to vote a certain way fits the definition of bribery and corruption perfectly.
What you're describing isn't lobbying, and is already illegal under US law.
>Fortunately you're wrong. In reality, the US is one of the 20 least corrupt nations on the planet,
As someone who's lived in several states I think there's a lot of variability. Corruption tends to follow population density and money.
If the brother of a cop or court official beat me to near death in a bar brawl I would not expect the court to sentence him to jail time. Fifty miles and one state border north of here I would expect jail time. Fifty miles and two counties west of here I'd give it 50-50.
>The US also has rare universal Congressional support for ending civil asset forfeiture abuses. Jeff Sessions undid some of the fixes the Obama Administration made; it turns out that might have been ideal, as Congress is now going to put it down for good by law.
I fully support legislation to obstruct or get rid of civil asset forfeiture (every bit helps) but I would fully expect that within a month my state would use it as an excuse to double all the fines for everything else to make up for it, not that we even make a lot of money off of it, just that it's an excuse to raise the fines.
>In reality, the US is one of the 20 least corrupt nations on the planet, on par with Ireland and Japan and less corrupt than France.
In reality do to the distributed nature of the various governments of the US, corruption in local government is both wide spread and very very under reported, Sure maybe the Federal Government is one of the 20 least national governments, but there are over 3,000 local government units that are very very much corruptible and often are.
Further I do not by the premise that just because you are less bad than others that makes you good... A murder that kills only 1 person is not "good" because he did not kill 20...
> It has very strong property protection laws, which is both why the judge returned the money (naturally that would happen in a nation with no rule of law huh),
You should really research this issue more if you think that is the common outcome. it is not
I just looking at the work the Institute for Justice is doing in this space. Specifically their Policing for Profit Series
>why the Obama Administration took important steps to neuter civil asset forfeiture abuse
Those changes were superficial at best, did not really do much as have all been rolled back at this point
Most Civil Asset Abuse some at the local level anyway not at the federal level, the Federal Programs are generally used as a end run around state that have enacted laws to eliminate civil asset forfeiture or severely limit its use
>The US also has rare universal Congressional support for ending civil asset forfeiture abuses.
No the US Congress play both sides of this issue, if there was universal support the law would already be changed
Police Unions are a power lobby, most Congress Reps will claim publicly to be for it, while never ever allowing the issue to come up for a vote
Surely this would require everyone to have perfect information at all times, otherwise how do we know if the law we conclude is wrong is based on something we didn't consider? We vote in elections, not with our actions. You're advocating anarchy.
Well that's why I think you should research the history behind the laws you're thinking of breaking, but I'd argue that it is more dangerous to blindly follow laws than to blindly ignore them, if you follow a simple "no theft" rule. Agency, life, property; if you take a broad definition, I'd argue that the only true crime is unilaterally taking from others. It's good to have due diligence on how your decisions affect others, and that's one possible function of a legal system, but it definitely is not the function of ours.
It's like how the concept of "The Market" relies upon everyone having perfect information on every economic issue and decision. They don't, but we still use it. And sure, we suffer for that pretty regularly when we relax regulations too much, but what was that quote? "It's the worst system in the world except for all the other ones?"
Well okay, fine, but I don't accept the premise of your argument; we don't have a democratic rule of law, we have appointed lawmakers writing laws. They themselves are elected, sure, but they dramatically and ostentatiously represent their own interests over those of their constituents. They also direct more attentions towards issues which affect them than issues which affect their constituents.
That is especially true of Republicans, who can do literally anything and still enjoy substantial support from the people they keep in penurious thrall. But Democrats are then able to do the same thing by simply pointing at that distressing alternative to stay in office, so in reality we just have a bunch of corrupt egoists.
And that's where our criminal justice system's laws come from as much as our financial and political ones. A system like that cannot hold moral authority.
There's no democracy without civil disobedience - which includes going to jail for breaking the law. Almost every change in society has been brought about by someone "breaking" a law - escaping slavery, sitting in the front section of a bus, loving someone of the same sex,...etc. I can go on. Law plays catch-up with attitude changes and what we consider acceptable as a society. We may sometimes have to break the law first to fix it.
Civil disobedience is only effective because we have checks and balances in place on the governments power. Without those all civil disobedience can be met with overwhelming oppressive force and all participants can be labelled as criminals and silenced. At that point no laws change nor does the status quo.
While you are correct that civil disobedience has been a force for great change it does not work on its own. Laws were still changed within the system and that is because we have democratic representation in our lawmaking process. Civil disobedience made the case clear that we needed to employ these democratic mechanisms to change the law.
so we appoint a free citizen, not a woman or slave, randomly out of a few thousand in an independent city state to serve for a short term like greeks did (read: not all, but it happened). or do we vote directly on issues. or do we not run for candidate at all and play "i was (not) in favour of who was going to play entertainer for the next four years whether I went to the ballot or not?"
edit: to the point: what does my vote help if the chance is small that my educated opinion isn't honoured?
Not only this, but police forces are one of the few categories of workers where their union is praised and respected. This seems strange until you realize that the police is mostly structured to maintain the current status quo and oppress lower income people.
Correct. Police, firefighters and prison guard unions are good unions protecting us. Teachers unions are bad unions indoctrinating our youth with leftist ideology.
That may explain why in the city I live in, the minimum educational requirements for the police 'academy' is a GED.
Knowledge of the law would certainly help. Maybe a Bachelor's of Criminal Justice. Perhaps we can loosen that to related fields, and also allow Social Work or Civics or Pre-law. Maybe even just a general aptitude qualification, like flight attendants, and require an Associate's degree in literally anything.
Education does make you a better person. Better people make better police officers.
Generally speaking education does not make you a better person. It can even make you a worse person than alternatives such as manual labor, working in a kitchen, or a job at a summer camp. Cops apparently don't need a two year course of study to understand the law well enough to do their jobs. Instead of spending years up front, an alternative is to spread that time throughout their career on basic stuff like fitness or gun training.
It makes you better at the job of being a police officer. Often police can't shoot straight because they're out of practice. (Officers very rarely fire their weapons in the line of duty.)
So you're saying that police officers should be trained in something they rarely do rather than educated in something they always do.
In other countries, it's common to require a bachelors degree to become a police officer. In the city where I live, you can get into the police academy with a GED. I should also point out that the Oakland Police Department has been under Federal Court oversight for the last 14 years.
Oakland isn't under court oversight because of their lack of bachelor's degrees. A degree doesn't make you more moral or less corrupt.
A police officer with a high school degree that has worked for a few years isn't going to become better at their job if they get a bachelor's. It only takes 12 years of education to learn how to de-escalate situations, make arrests, and issue citations.
The reason for gun training is that when guns do get used, it's a life and death situation.
A GED is not a high school degree. But if you are recommending that police officers should not carry guns until they learn how to de-escalate situations, you might be onto something.
However right now, a GED and 26 weeks at the OPD academy gets you a gun, a license to kill and a starting salary of $69,912. And that license is valid on day one, not 12 years later.
BTW, I live here. We went through three police chiefs in a week due to the coverup of officers sleeping with prostitutes. They should fire the department and start over.
Except that there's a union. You know, the good sort of union.
> If you feel like a law is wrong, look at why it was passed. There might be reasoning you aren't thinking of, like environmental damages. If you still feel like it's wrong, look at how likely the action it forbids is to hurt someone else by intent or accident. If you feel like that's extremely unlikely, and don't think you'll get caught, break that law!
I feel like vaccine schedules are wrong, so I asked my pediatrician about them.
I feel like global warming is a hoax, so I asked a scientist about it.
I feel like a law is wrong, so I asked a legal expert about it.
The next step to take is up to me, but in each case I'm confident I'd be starting with stronger footing that you would be with your process.
Furthermore, I can pass that process on to others in a way that is less fragile and more efficient than your process. Ask your pediatrician. Ask your scientist colleague. Ask your law professor. In a world of good faith actors you'd still be reading primary research papers on epidemiology for years before moving to the second topic. In the real world you'd likely skip the necessary steps, risk making misguided decisions, and spreading that misguided decision-making process to others.
This is classic old school Republicanism. The default state is to not care what the public thinks and to have no laws making such things illegal, and to have instead aggressive prosecutors and police who act like highwaymen. If you're rich you can afford a lawyer and buy your rights. If you're not, you get the default state which is fewer rights. This is how you build a two class society rather than a John Rawlsian "veil of ignorance" based society.
In Conservativism, the very idea that a person's family name, bloodline, wealth, title, are irrelevant before the law is itself unfair: people aren't equal, certain family's are better, even some of them divinely superior, and the law should not force police, prosecutors, or judges to treat people equally. No one really says this outloud but it is the base ideology of conservatism and aristocracy. Not equality. And this predates the United State's version of it.
As a conservative I disagree with you entirely. In the eyes of the state all should be equal, any situation that exposes they're not treated as equal should be addressed.
It is true that most on the right don't desire equal outcomes for all but equal opportunities. That doesn't mean some have a divine right to a better life. It simply means we want to reward the most talented, hard working and advantaged because doing so results in a more productive society. But there is a balance to make sure all the wealth doesn't end up in their hands.
Your definition of conservatism is at odds with reality. Rich people are actively trying to live their lives with minimum effort, so it is hard to argue that they are the most talented. Poor people have a hard time making their freedoms worth anything, and they're not been helped by any conservative. The main problem here is that conservative reasoning is circular: if you're rich you must in some way deserve it (explanations will be made for sure), and if you deserve you need to keep the wealth.
You're not a conservative. You're either a classical liberal or a libertarian. Conservative means preserving the status quo at all costs. The rich in America do not desire equal opportunity, if they did, they wouldn't support anything short of a 100% tax on inheritance (I know that's unreasonable) and an inability to start life in debt. It's not reasonable to think that the rich should give up all their money, nor is it reasonable to think that our current system is in any way fair. Capitalism is highly biased towards those with wealth staying in wealth. It's why even though there are a lot of very well paid coders, there aren't that many people who are making it from coding to the top 10% of the income pool. It's hard for even the best and brightest to break through.
No, he's describing conservatism (at least the U.S. variation) which is largely classical liberalism. It does not mean "preserving the status quo at all costs".
> No, he's describing conservatism (at least the U.S. variation) which is largely classical liberalism.
US conservatism is not classical liberalism. It's classical conservatism in the context where the the established elites are the products of capitalist politico-economic systems rather than pre-capitalist ones.
Like classical conservatism, and unlike classical liberalism, it rejects secular rationality and empiricism and relies on appeals to nationalism, ancient religious tradition, and authority figures to protect the interests of the established elites.
Conservative != Conservatism. Conservatism is the dominate ideology the U.S. was founded on: you get no representation or political participation unless you're a man + white + own land. That is landed elite aristocracy, straight from old Europe. Not news.
A more recent example of Conservatism is Nixon's southern strategy as told by Lee Atwater in 1981. Today's Republican party is the same as that. No matter how you cut it, the Republican party is the political branch of neofeudalism. That is it's entire history: conserve the fact that classism is good and should be preserved, we do not serve the broader public.
Senator Grassley: Ending Estate Tax Recognizes Investors Over Spenders.
Republicans want to preserve the aristocracy they represent. That's the sole charge of the party. Liberalism fears aristocracy, it breeds contempt and unfairness in civil society, and its prevention with a simple and unavoidable tax is how a civil society is preserved.
The very fact you think there is a balance to make sure aristocrats don't end up with all the marbles suggests a distinctly Liberal perspective. That would never fly in Conservatism. You're simply confused about the meaning of these words - this is basic political science so if you haven't had that, you wouldn't know it, but if you've had even a year of undergraduate study you'd know it. It's pathetic we don't teach this stuff in grade school but it's too "political" hilariously enough, so most elected school boards in the country end up requiring the teaching of selective patriotic propaganda bullshit, rather than basic political philosophy and history.
I'm not confused about the meaning of these words, I am a conservative but peoples political leanings don't exactly fit within those definitions. But my views are representative of many conservatives.
If you keep posting inflammatory political comments we're going to end up banning you, which I'd rather not do. By now we've warned you like half a dozen times. That's more than most people get.
If you want to use the site as intended, please begin doing so. If not, please refrain from posting here.
The problem is this needs to be challenged in court. Until the Supremes rule on this, it's all speculation. That said, I've never even heard a theory stated in support of why it might be lawful.
The theory behind it's lawfulness is that property doesn't have rights. That's why when the property is taken, the cases are named things like "United States v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency" or "State of Texas vs. One Gold Crucifix". Those are real case names, BTW. They basically separate property from the person owning it with the argument that the property itself is guilty because it was used in commission of a crime, with or without the owner's knowledge.
I didn't say it was a good theory. But that's basically what is boils down to. Personally, I find it repugnant and I do believe it is an egregious violation of our constitutional rights related to search and seizure.
Also, the USSC has already ruled in part on this issue and the opinion was not great:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-122_1b7d.pdf
Not only did they generally uphold the practice, but they weaseled out of ruling on other parts of it (not unusual for the USSC), this time because part of the argument presented was only first presented to the USSC and no lower court. So they basically said that since that other stuff hadn't seen a lower court, they weren't commenting on it.
Yeah, really hard to believe we simply modernized the idea of the Highwayman. Even harder to believe that the police force is so corrupt in so many parts of this country that they were able to rebrand the tactic and get it written into laws as legal.
Wait, this is 2017 right? None of that's hard to believe.
You know it's bad when a rural town attains national infamy in the pre-internet days.
Besides gaming the stoplights, the police would hide behind billboards and trees with their radar guns and target out-of-state motorists with tickets for +1 mph over the limit. Since most were just passing through the town, nobody had the inclination to wait around for a court date to fight the tickets, and all were essentially forced to pay without a chance to contest it.
He eventually succeeded in passing some legislation to curb the abuse. To this day local police have to sit in plain sight on flat ground (within a certain tolerance of grade) when running radar/lidar, can't write speeding tickets for less than 10 mph over the posted limit (does not apply to state troopers or school zones) and a slew of other technical nitpicks that make it easier to get "sane" speeding tickets dismissed.
That's the important distinction between criminal and civil forfeiture as I understand it. Criminal forfeiture is when property is seized as proceeds from an unlawful act following a guilty verdict.
Yes, it's highly unusual. Doesn't mean that every time someone does something that others don't understand the cops should step in and take their property in what is essentially legalized armed robbery.
What if you were going to a casino and brought a few thousand dollars with you and got pulled over. People do that all the time. The cop notices a wad of cash in an envelope. Tells you you must be a drug dealer with all that cash and then just takes it. Any resistance to this results in you in cuffs and under arrest (or worse).
>What if you were going to a casino and brought a few thousand dollars with you and got pulled over. People do that all the time. The cop notices a wad of cash in an envelope. Tells you you must be a drug dealer with all that cash and then just takes it. Any resistance to this results in you in cuffs and under arrest (or worse).
I sometimes take money out of my savings to put into my checking account to pay unexpected bills. Because my credit union (where my savings is) doesn't allow for online transfers I have to go in. I have a fear driving the 5 minutes from the credit union to a branch of my normal bank that I'll get pulled over and have the money taken. I end up hiding the envelop under seats so it isn't visible.
Totally understandable. And it's a sad state of affairs when that's something an average citizen has to worry about when you're talking about legally obtained and owned money.
Have you thought about a bank check? Pretty much every bank charges a fee for this. It's possible a credit union doesn't, but I suspect they probably still do. If this is a recurring transaction you do, then the fees will add up. But if it's not that frequent, this might be a good option for you. To protect yourself even further, I would fill out the To: on the check to yourself. In the past I have used "cash" to make it payable to whomever wishes to cash the bank check for convenience, but if you are just transferring between your own accounts, just put your name on it. I can't see any way an officer would be able to deposit that check on behalf of their department, even if they were crazy enough to confiscate it, which seems highly unlikely given that it's very hard to argue that such money which is going through the banking system is being used for illegal purposes. Even if it was, it's damn near impossible to prove they had any reasonable belief of that based on the information available to them at the time of the stop.
The problem with a check is that all the funds are not available right away. Typically I need to refresh my checking account in order to pay an upcoming bill (such as mortgage) because other expenses popped up and drained my account. Though a bank check would be better for times that aren't time sensitive.
Have you ever asked your banker if they would make the funds immediately available? Mine will do that for me because I have more than a decade of history with them.
I could be wrong, but I believe bank checks are treated as cash because they are certified by the originating bank. They aren't like a regular check. They are considered to be a cash equivalent because it was issued by a licensed banking entity with a charter. I am pretty sure the funds clear immediately, or could be made available immediately with a request to the depositing bank.
UPDATE - It seems this used to be true (or they would clear next day) but this has changed after an increase in fraudulent checks so many banks now wait until the check actually clears the originating institution.
What is the receipt really going to do? They could assume you're using that money to buy drugs, or you laundered it or some other outlandish charge. The receipt just shows that you probably didn't steal the money from somewhere.
Most of the time I need the money right then, which means I would need cash. Though you are the second to mention a check so I'll do that next time it isn't urgent.
The ability for their users to discuss it - the exact same thing that HN adds to articles - plus an opinion piece to start the conversation. Although the direct link to the article is better for the HN discussion.
This is a prime example of why you never answer questions like this from police. Give them nothing and they have nothing to twist against you. In a rigged system, the best option is to not play whenever possible.
He didn't answer their questions though. He did not give them permission to search the car. He refused, so they brought in a dog, (supposedly) made it act like it found drugs, and used that as probable cause to conduct a search.
I think the link was updated. There is more information than was previously available. It includes more details now. Either way, my statement still stands. Whether or not it would have made a difference in this particular instance isn't important. What's important is that you should never offer up any information to uniformed officers without a very good reason to do so. Playing nice may or may not get you a break on some minor traffic violation if the officer is in a good mood, but I'd much rather be viewed an a polite but uncooperative, rights-loving hard-ass...because it just might save me one day.
As a matter of fact, it already has. I had a major police event earlier this year that came to be because I pulled my own car off the main road late at night because I have an old car and it was making a strange noise (and the main road had no shoulder). There was a cop hiding down this road and immediately approached me and then called for backup (for no reason) and 4 cars and 6 officers in total were there harassing me for almost an hour. Telling me first that I was drunk. Then telling me that I am a drug dealer there to meet someone. Then telling me that I was a drug user there instead to buy drugs. None of which was true. I even played nice and explained why I actually pulled off the main road in an attempt to expedite the stop. They didn't believe and once it became clear they were out to screw me over any way they could, I stopped talking. Then they asked me to perform sobriety tests, which I refused. They eventually let me go free and with no tickets (because it wasn't a traffic stop to begin with). If you're wondering why I refused the sobriety test - it's because I know those tests are used to justify the breathalyzer and other things like searches (which can lead to confiscation of property). I know this because I had a friend years ago who drank nothing, blew a .00 and was arrested because "if it's not alcohol, you must be on something else so we're taking you in to take your blood and have it tested". My friend got arrested, spent the night in jail, and then had to pay a lawyer to show up to court to have his case dismissed even though everything came back squeaky clean. They would have done the same with me.
Never give them an inch to work with. I'll take the $25 tickets in the meantime if that's the price of possibly avoiding major litigation at some point.
Anything signed would have been arguably under duress. If someone is actively threatening you and coercing you to sign something the signature is irrelevant.
One more reason we need cryptocurrency. Asset forfeiture is incentive for the police to steal. Given the wrong incentives, even to the best of people, you will get the wrong outcome.
You're getting downvoted but you have a good point. You can seize cryptocurrencies as well but it will be harder to force someone to give up their password/pin. If they even manage to find your wallet which is much easier to hide than a stack of 92k cash.
Even without a story to go along with it, engaging in "suspicious" activity is no cause for having your property stripped from you without due process.
There is nothing suspicious about it. You might say it's abnormal given that the majority of people choose to keep their money in a bank, but it's not suspicious to merely keep money in an unusual place.
with regards to asset forfeiture the police routinely take property that does not belong to the criminal but from relatives and friends who can rightfully claim innocence and lack of knowledge. Simple reason is they prey on the poor
In other places that's called entrapment, the article makes the distinction that only the first party directly in contact with LEOs can make that claim and everybody else can't. Pretty cheap, but they have to keep those prisons filled somehow. Interesting detail how the invented amount changes the sentencing. Very creative. /s
Where are the criminal charges against the officers? When the worst that can happen as the result of a theft is there's an outside chance that you might have to give the money back and there'll be no negative repercussions why wouldn't you keep on stealing?
> If this is their job then the entire institution of policing is irredeemably flawed and we ought to scrap it.
Our main problem as a society is that half the country believes the above, and the other half believes that the half that isn't them are all lawless savages who need order imposed by a heavy hand.
> Our main problem as a society is that half the country believes the above, and the other half believes that the half that isn't them are all lawless savages who need order imposed by a heavy hand.
I have just completed an 18-month tour of the country by land (thisisthebus.com). I've met people from every corner of the land and talked politics, technology, religion, and all sorts of other things with literally hundreds, probably a couple thousand, at urban watering holes, suburban campfires, and rural churches.
Please point me to the place where I might find the latter half of the population you've described.
From the Everglades to the Oregon Coast, from the desert to the Hudson Valley, I've searched long and hard and haven't found them.
Everybody in this country wants peace. And a chance for their families to live in harmony in their communities. Nobody - (excuse my language) fucking nobody - wants two million people in prison. Nobody.
No offense, but you as an outsider are not going to see that. It's selection bias; the people willing to talk to you are going to be more open to outsiders. The people who fear the invasion of the lawless savages are holed up at home. Reagan called it the "silent majority"; and I wouldn't say it's an actual majority, but it's at least 30% of the country judging by Trump's poll numbers.
With all due respect and not to have a pissing contest, but I've been traveling, first in a motorhome and now with an old Avion travel trailer, for about 7 of the past 9 years (sort of hard to pin down exactly what "traveling" means in this context since sometimes I park in one place for a few months, but it includes multiple drives from coast to coast and from Alaska to southern Mexico), and I've met quite a few law-and-order Republicans who absolutely believe that the vast majority of people in prison deserve to be there, that if people just do what police say there won't be any more police brutality, and that maybe we should spend more money on law enforcement and give police more power. It's certainly not half, but it's a sizable portion of the US population, and clearly a sizeable portion of the voting population, since our government has been dramatically reshaped in the past year by them.
It's sometimes surprising, too. I've met sweet old ladies that as long as topics were of the travel and weather variety seemed perfectly normal. The moment politics came up, they'd show a mean side that would really throw me for a loop. Racism with a shocking lack of self-awareness about their racism is one of the biggest surprises.
That said, rather than arguing that you're wrong about the people you've met, I suspect you've experienced bias in the people you meet in traveling the way you do. I've noticed there is a bias in the people I interact with most, for sure; lots of hippies, train kids, as well as people who love the outdoors (in a hiking and biking in national and state parks sort of way, rather than a hunting and fishing sort of way), etc. frequent some of my favorite places to go. But I still meet enough middle-class white folks who have alarming (to me) ideas about police and race and justice in America.
If nobody wanted 2.2 million people in prison, we wouldn't have 2.2 million people in prison. Somebody sure as hell wants it because they vote over and over for the people that perpetuate it. We can't pretend no one is responsible. There are people who made decisions that led us inexorably to this outcome, and people making decisions daily to maintain and even expand the prison industrial complex.
They are certainly interesting and most have nothing but kind intentions. They lead interesting but dangerous lives. I like chatting with them in measured doses but wouldn't want to hang out with them for long. There's a lot of fighting, a lot of yelling, a lot of drugs of questionable formulation, a lot of untreated mental illness, etc. But, they often know a lot about the areas where they roam and have fun stories.
They're the people making dumb comments like "give 'em the chair" and other right leaning authoritarian junk on the comments of local news stories about minor crimes and "speeding fines should scale with income" and other socialist authoritarian junk on platforms like HN.
Out of curiosity, why do you think speeding fines shouldn't scale with income? The pain that's intended to dissuade behavior is that you can do X amount less this month, but if your income is enormous you don't feel X at all, it's not really a punishment is it? If I were a billionaire and I could drive around with impunity with my checkbook open is that achieving the desired outcome? Scaling with income scales the pain and therefore the dissuasion. Legitimately curious to the counterargument.
Crime is dissuaded in percentage of your life behind bars, shouldn't infractions be dissuaded in percentage of your income or net worth?
Basically because 99.9% of speeding isn't a serious crime that merits harsh punishment
1)
Harsh punishment for something trivial that everyone does but is of negligible harm to society is worse for society than handing out slap on the wrist type fines. Speeding infractions, especially on limited access highways, are only slightly worse for society than parking infractions.
For example, the speed limit on the highway I take to work is 55mph. 55 is pre/post rush our speed. Typical traffic flow when traffic is light is up to 80-85 as permitted by weather conditions. Writing people tickets for 30-over when 30-over is a reasonable speed does nothing good for society.
2)
Why should I work hard to be a six figure software engineer if "winning" that reverse lottery gets me just as screwed as someone who's barely living paycheck to paycheck?
3)
Most states have appropriate fines and penalties attached to sufficiently broad criminal violations to cover actual bad behavior. I.e. write someone a summons for reckless driving if they're actually being reckless and then fine them $500 in court rather than fine them $500 for "speeding" according to some table and formula.
4)
Then there's the whole problem of misaligned incentives that comes with aggressively policing minor infractions for revenue (traffic or some other group). I'd rather have a police department of x officers all doing real work than a police department of 2x where on any given day x of the officers are always on traffic detail to pay for the costs of running the department.
5)
If people want to drive "too fast" on the road then the road either needs to be redesigned (there's visual tricks the engineers can play to make the road feel smaller and make people want to go slower) so people want to go the desired speed or the desired speed needs to increase to reflect reality. If I'm being a normal person going 80 in a 55 that should be an 80 on a normal night I don't want to get a $500 ticket because my tail-light was out but it just so happened that my otherwise unremarkable speed of 80 was 25 over for that location.
Points systems mean there's a speed quota, an amount of speeding you can do that's monetary-penalties-only. There's a reason the vehicle you see going 95 is a Maserati and not a Golf.
Please point me to the place where I might find the latter half of the population you've described.
They’re in places where they are unlikely to run into travellers from far away lands. Duh, if they were in a position to meet a more diverse set of folks, perhaps their views might be different. The extreme stereotype of this is the “hillbilly” living a holler no one visits, and which they’ve never wandered far from.
Nobody - (excuse my language) fucking nobody - wants two million people in prison.
The fact that there are two million people in prison belies your statement.
That's encouraging. But since you asked, I found a couple thousand at NC GOP state conventions. That's not half the population but somehow a lot of politicians they like keep getting elected.
America’s 2.3m+ prisoners were put in prison by the US’s criminal justice system.
In a 2017 Gallup poll, 27% of Americans indicated “a great deal” or “quite a lot of confidence” in the criminal justice system. Another 37% indicated “some” confidence. And 34% rated their confidence “very little” or “none.”
The law enforcement half of the criminal justice system (the topic of the article) is viewed more favorably, with 57% of anericans rating their confidence in the police as “quite a lot” or “a great deal.”
Of course having a great deal of confidence in the criminal justice system is not synonymous with wanting 2m+ prisoners, but it does seem to indicate those respondents are not overly concerned with the high number of prisoners.
As should be obvious, I think “nobody” is overstating things a great deal.
The trouble is not so much with the police and more with the law that allows confiscation of assets without evidence of wrongdoing. That's always seemed nuts to me. They should need to show that at least on balance of probabilities it was being used for criminal purposes before they can take it. And confiscated money should go to the nation, not to the police department.
Upholding —not breaking— the law is their job. But either way, "my boss told me to" isn't a get out of jail free card.
The reason officers are rarely prosecuted is because lazy lawmakers are scared the police won't be able to do their jobs if their abilities are prescribed in law. It's open to interpretation.
While I agree that this seizure of money wasn't right, and shouldn't have happened, one does have to wonder about the guy...
...has he never heard of safe deposit boxes?
It sounds like he works strictly on cash. Usually, to get a safe deposit box, you have to have an account with the bank you are getting one at (and there might be other restrictions as well). If he didn't have a checking account and couldn't meet any other restrictions, then he couldn't get the box.
But once you had the box, you could put the money in it, and not really worry about it. I just don't know why he didn't do this. It certainly couldn't have been lack of funds. He had more than enough to open an account, and pay for one year on a box big enough to hold the rest of the money.
So if he didn't do this - why? One good reason I can think of might be - operating with cash only - not paying income taxes. Sadly, his efforts at getting his cash back will likely cause him more problems with the IRS down the road.
He really didn't think this whole thing through, and it ultimately caught up with him. Of course, the fact that he wasn't wearing his seatbelt, against a law which makes it a crime of some manner in just about every state (save one), and it's also a federal law - all says something about his being ill prepared.
FWIW, cash is not FDIC insured while in a safe deposit box. And it doesn't solve his "problem" of how to safely move it around without getting it seized.
These stories make my blood boil, as they should all other people. The worst part of it is that people like to think that most police officers are good people just doing their jobs. However, their job is NOT supposed to involve stealing people’s life savings. I can’t see how any cop doing civil forfeitures, except in cases with extreme proof, (known drug dealer, drugs in the car, etc.) has any redeeming qualities as a human being. The officers involved in this and thousands of other cases are worse than the criminals they are paid to pursue - they are nothing more than armed members of a gang that conducts highway robberies.
I find a lot of it is selection bias -- because the police generally interact with criminals, they come to view the whole population as criminal. Do it long enough, you start to get jaded and ask yourself "why do I follow the law when all these people break it with few consequences?"
Also see the effects of the "thin blue line" eroding institutional morality... it's easy to get to a place where we are -- even white people in America no longer trust the police.
I've know more than a few cops, and they all broke laws.
I've been in a passenger car, where the driver(off duty Cop) is way over .08, and all all it takes is a flash of the badge.
If you become a cop in America--you can break laws. Only the really stupid ones get caught.
I don't belive it's the job, it's the system, and training. It should be federally licensed, and require more than a high school diploma, and a bad attitude.
And let's be honest. Most areas in the USA do not need badily trained paramilitary cops. They are essentially Revenue Collectors in most municipalities.
As much as I agree with you regarding this story and many other stories that bubble up into the media spotlight about police abuse, I think it is a mistake to conclude anything about "most police" simply from your own (or my own) personal exposure to these media stories.
There are over 900,000 law enforcement officials in the US. If even a small percentage of them are exposed as corrupt or abusive, the headlines would be full of these stories, and yet most police officers would be unfairly implicated if you concluded that "most" police were abusing their powers.
We do need to find better ways to prosecute and deter abuse of power by law enforcement officials and prosecutors, but that should be done without undermining or implicating the officers who are doing their job lawfully.
Well, my comment specifically said that I basically felt that any cop doing civil forfeitures except in extremely limited circumstances is a dirtbag. Apparently these happen (at least) several thousand times per year. I’d argue that anyone who participates in these forfeitures after the fact or must approve them as they come in (DA’s, police captains, etc.), along with anyone that trains, orders, or encourages these officers to do them (again, except in all but the most obvious cases), is also a dirtbag. So for thousands of these to happen each year, a not-insignificant percentage of the 900,000 number you quoted are actively involved or at least complicit in the state-sponsored armed robbery of US citizens. That is unacceptable.
At the very least, we should try to control the vocabulary here. Instead of using their terms (like "seize" or "asset forfeiture"), we should call this theft, robbery, and so forth, to reflect what's happening. Those would make for very different headlines.
Indeed, a seizure is a justified theft of personal or corporate property by an agent of the state. If it's not justified, then it's theft pure and simple.
If you are acquitted after being arrested, does that make your arrest a kidnapping?
The government ultimately has to prove its case in court, but they can’t predict with certainty how a judge and jury will rule. If they lose, they give the money back.
You can be detained on reasonable suspicion (a nebulous legal term), but you cannot be arrested without probable cause. If you are arrested without probable cause, you can sue and win.
If an officer had probable cause that someone was smuggling money, they would never have a civil asset forfeiture -- it would be a criminal case from start to finish.
The fact that the law was designed to end run around constitutional protections speaks volumes about it and its authors.
Technically, yes, actually, it is a kidnapping by the state - a deprivation of freedom. But is it justified? I would hope that in most cases it is. However, if it is not, that doesn't make the individuals doing the arresting culpable for the offence they were acting in good faith, but the state doesn't escape, or should not escape, culpability. If it can be shown that the state did not act justifiably (i.e. within its social contract with its citizens) then the individual is entitled to recompense for that crime. This is why, in some states (and, I would like to say all) if there is a gross miscarriage of justice the individual is granted monetary relief.
The farce of "asset forfeiture" is in treating the asset, and not the holder of the asset, as an entity which may have civil claims brought against it. In effect, forcing the owner to act as its defender. This is a exploitation of the legal system. If they truly believed the assets were the result of a crime they should have to prove probable cause, and hence justify, their right to steal (i.e. seize/freeze) that property in preparation for a criminal/civil trial.
If they lose that trial, then even so, the seizure was justified and everything is fine. The question now is, are we as a society comfortable granting the ability for a single individual, i.e. a peace officer, the ability to justify in its entirety, their actions, even with massive conflicts of interest?
I would hope the answer is no. We have the judiciary to justify these crimes of the state and in so doing limit their effect on the innocent by preventing abuses of power due to conflict of interest.
Universal accountability and review of justification is the key to preventing the tyranny of the few bad peace officers in positions of extreme situational power from destroying countless lives and reaping massive personal benefit while doing so.
An effective way to do this is to take the position that hypocrisy is unacceptable. If it's an act which is unlawful for a person to commit, the state must actively justify itself (before the fact) in order to commit that same act, according to the social contract. If it doesn't, there may as well be no law - for what is the purpose of the law but to protect those without power from those with it.
>Parhamovich told The Associated Press that he was traveling to several performances in Western states and decided to bring his “life savings” because maintenance staff often came into his rented apartment in Madison, Wisconsin. The 50-year-old hid the money inside a speaker he was bringing along on the trip. [...]
Parhamovich said the officers implied that carrying that much cash was illegal. He lied and said it was a friend’s.
He brought his “life savings” with him on a road trip, hidden in a speaker, and then lied to the police about it. It doesn’t take a cynic to see how ridiculously suspicious that is. There’s plenty of material to start a civil forfeiture case, where the government has to ultimately prove by a preponderance of the evidence (ie “more likely than not”) that the money was the proceeds of illegal activity, the same standard as lawsuits between private citizens.
This is not a theft or robbery. It’s the police failing to convince a court in the end.
Why seize things upfront in cases like this? If they let the money go, the government would likely never see it again. The goal is to stop organized crime from successfully moving money around and laundering it. It was only a few decades ago that organized crime operated with near impunity in this country. Laws such as RICO and those strengthening civil asset forfeiture are no small part of our success in turning the tide against criminal organizations.
It’s easy to forget how we got here, but if we let uninformed outrage rule the day, then we risk returning to the time when these criminal enterprises spread fear and violence without consequence.
It is always worth investigating reform, but you should think twice about demonizing those who are carrying out the instructions we gave them.
==========================
Edit: HN is rate-limiting me, so I’m responding to erpellan’s very good point here:
You’re right that it’s not sufficient reason for seizure by itself, it’s actually been litigated to that effect before iirc. But combined with other factors, like lying to the police (a crime itself in many jurisdictions as Michael Flynn has just learned), it can help establish the burden of proof necessary for seizure pending litigation.
(Further, he consented to the seizure in this case.)
>Sorry, got lost about the second paragraph: are we talking about cops like the ones in the article, or the Mafia?
You’ve ignored the entire substance of the argument and produced a retort that people who agree with you will like. I think that accomplishes nothing but lower the standard of discourse and miss an opportunity for mutual understanding.
I ignored nothing. On the contrary, I thought it was a clever way to say, “you’re not making a strong argument that the current situation is an improvement”. Because I’ve run across crooked cops, but to my knowledge have never had an interaction with a member of the mob.
I don't care how suspicious it is. Unless they have seen him or have evidence he committed a crime, then they don't take his money. If that makes the life of the police more difficult, so what?
The entire global anti money laundering system disagrees with you. The digital equivalent of physical seizure, freezing bank accounts, happens on the basis of well-premised suspicion all the time. We would have no chance of denying money to organized crime otherwise.
>It should work this way because it does work this way? What?
You’re just willfully ignoring my argument at this point. It should broadly work this way because it’s proven effective in combating organized crime. Disagree if you’d like, but don’t pretend that I’m not giving a reason.
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Edit: I’m rate limited, but in response to ng12:
I agree that it’s important to keep in mind the balance between civil liberties and effective law enforcement. They are competing and worthy interests necessarily in tension. I think the unique problems of money laundering and illegal money-in-transit justify a system that allows the police, acting on an appropriate level of suspicion (e.g. probable cause), to seize pending further due process.
There is definitely room for reform, especially in how that further due process works, and in creating disincentives for overzealous seizures.
itrontron, law enforcement powers certainly protect civil liberties too, but also necessarily define their limits. Your right to liberty ends where the state’s right to detain you starts. Your right to property extends to where the state’s right to seize it begins. And so forth.
How can you call that "due process"? In these cases the money is never proven to be of illegal origin, the owner never convicted of a crime. I agree with you that there's a balancing act but civil forfeiture has fallen off the tightrope long ago.
The money is proven to be of illegal evidence, in a civil lawsuit. It is the same standard by which I can sue you for everything that you’re worth: preponderance of the evidence. It’s a lower standard than criminal court.
I don't think that's true. There was no lawsuit for the civil seizure incidents I've read about, including the one described in the article.
Hypothetically, even if that were true, does that not sound crazy to you? That the government would launch a civil suit against you for the crime of possessing money?
Edit: Just read that you're in law school. You truly terrify me.
Personal attacks will get your account banned. Please don't do this again.
Edit: It looks, unfortunately, like you have made a habit of skimping on civility in your comments on HN. That is not the kind of site we want, so please up your game if you want to keep posting here.
Civil liberties and effective law enforcement are not competing interests. Many laws exist to protect civil liberties and therefore an essential aspect of law enforcement is to protect civil liberties.
> I agree that it’s important to keep in mind the balance between civil liberties and effective law enforcement.
Civil liberties are not opposed to effective law enforcement; enforced guarantees of civil liberties are a key means by which law enforcement is made to actually enforce the law effectively by doing the work to identify actual wrongdoers and hold them accountable rather than presenting the illusion of effectiveness by setting up easy scapegoats and/or using “law enforcement” as a pretext for implementing the personal interests of the law enforcers.
If the police didn't blatantly seize assets , you wouldn't need to hide & fail to mention a sizeable amount of cash. Taking advantage those who, post-seizure, cannot afford to make a case for themselves is the opposite of "to protect & serve". Isn't it?
I agree it looks odd but you know what? It's NOT illegal to travel with ANY quantity of cash. No matter how suspicious it looks. The burden of proof of a crime still lies (or should lie but clearly doesn't) with law enforcement.
I agree with you with regards to how we got here, but the problem is that where the government fails to prove you're a mule for the cartel or that you're moving Mafia blood money, they ought to give it back.
You lose everything based on accusation alone. In keeping the money without cause, civil forfeiture becomes just another shakedown.
Civil asset forfeiture is never justified. If you don't have a case, you don't have a case.
'Acting suspicious" warrants asking questions, NOT taking things when those questions don't turn up anything. The idea that it stops organized crime is also rediculous. No crime Lord was ever brought down by civil asset forfeiture. They work that statistic into their prices like any other for-profit Enterprise would and go on with business as usual.
I'd also clear up the "given orders" bit. You cannot really make a good case for police departments ordering their officers to simply take any and all money they see. That is left to the officers discretion. In this case, the officer decided to abuse his power over the general population. To take your orders idea to the end; Let's assume that the police department as a whole requires such theft. We aren't in a country without freedom of the press. Any one of those officers could (and indeed had a duty to) record and publish the illegal order. If such an order exists, then EVERY officer is willingly complicit.
Finally, let's say that we do need limited ability to lock up people's things. That should most definitely involve a case against the individual rather than against the possession itself. It should involve the rights to an expidited trial. Most importantly, it should involve a large burden of proof like any criminal case rather than simple majority.
I’m not claiming that police have a moral carte blanche for overzealous seizures. I’m saying that when they do their duty in good faith and then lose in court, we shouldn’t jump to calling them robbers.
To your last point, the standard in civil court is preponderance/more-likely-than-not/“majority”. Civil asset forfeiture is not a criminal conviction, carries no risk of prison time, and involves solely the transfer of property from one (who is not entitled to it) to another (who is at least more entitled to it). If I sue you for everything you’re worth, or claim rightful ownership of your land in an action directly on the property, I only need to prove my case by a preponderance. Why should it be any different here?
A lot is made over the fact that the civil action is against the property instead of the person it’s being seized from. This isn’t as relevant as it sounds and it has nothing to do with the standard of proof being lower: the standard in all civil cases is preponderance of the evidence.
The suit is against the property because it’s an in rem lawsuit where the only thing being litigated is the disposition of the property. They are not trying to prove that the person it was seized from did anything illegal, just that the asset itself is the proceeds of a crime, whoever may have committed that crime.
Is there a lower bound on how much cash is "suspicious" under these laws? I feel like it's only a matter of time until some enterprising department sets up along one of the routes leading into Las Vegas and makes a killing.
"Who carries around a thousand dollars in their wallet? Obvious drug money!"
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 82.9 ms ] threadIt has since been perverted into the kind of travesty this article details. Personally, I don't even support Civil Asset Forfeiture on any level because it seems to violate every notion of property rights as well as some basic human rights that we supposedly believe here in America.
EDIT: my reference to Trump was in regards to OP's reference, which has now been edited out.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
There's nothing we as individuals can do about it besides acknowledging the illegitimacy of laws and abiding by a basic empathetic moral code, but don't kid yourself about how that will be treated.
If you feel like a law is wrong, look at why it was passed. There might be reasoning you aren't thinking of, like environmental damages. If you still feel like it's wrong, look at how likely the action it forbids is to hurt someone else by intent or accident. If you feel like that's extremely unlikely, and don't think you'll get caught, break that law!
Part of civil disobedience is acknowledging that you may get caught and punished. But in doing so, you are riding on the fact that the punishment is arbitrary and offensive, which would rally people in support of you if it is carried out. At least, that's the idea. The real problem comes when your government is more than happy to simply arrest/beat/shoot people until they quiet down.
https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_percept...
The US also has rare universal Congressional support for ending civil asset forfeiture abuses. Jeff Sessions undid some of the fixes the Obama Administration made; it turns out that might have been ideal, as Congress is now going to put it down for good by law.
Sept 2017:
"In Surprise Vote, House Passes Amendment to Restrict Asset Forfeiture"
"The amendment passed with a voice vote, meaning it had overwhelming support."
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/12/in-surprise-vote-house-p...
Nov 2017:
"A bipartisan group of senators wants to defund Attorney General Jeff Sessions' expansion of the Justice Department's civil asset forfeiture program, following similar efforts by libertarian-leaning and progressive members of the House earlier this year."
http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/08/senators-press-for-defundi...
Anyways, I'll believe it when I see it stop happening.
>Generally speaking as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. Corruption can be classified as grand, petty and political, depending on the amounts of money lost and the sector where it occurs.
>Grand corruption consists of acts committed at a high level of government that distort policies or the central functioning of the state, enabling leaders to benefit at the expense of the public good. Petty corruption refers to everyday abuse of entrusted power by low- and mid-level public officials in their interactions with ordinary citizens, who often are trying to access basic goods or services in places like hospitals, schools, police departments and other agencies.
>Political corruption is a manipulation of policies, institutions and rules of procedure in the allocation of resources and financing by political decision makers, who abuse their position to sustain their power, status and wealth. See animated definitions of many corruption terms in our Anti-corruption Glossary.
The link you provided measures the PERCEPTION of corruption. It is perfectly plausible for there to be a huge amount of corruption and very little perception of corruption depending on many factors. The source describes it thusly:
>No. The CPI is an indicator of perceptions of public sector corruption, i.e. administrative and political corruption. It is not a verdict on the levels of corruption of entire nations or societies, or of their policies, or the activities of their private sector. Citizens of those countries/territories that score at the lower end of the CPI often show the same concern about and condemnation of corruption as the public in countries that perform strongly.
Their data sources primarily asks 'experts' which they define differently (additionally, one specifically asks business executives, one includes the general public, and one doesn't clearly specify) whether they perceive corruption to be an issue. While the exact questions vary, these two seem like representative examples:
>In your country, how common is it for firms to make undocumented extra payments or bribes connected with the following
and
>First, how do you grade the problem of corruption in the country in which you are working? Second, has corruption decreased, stayed the same or increased compared with one year ago? Third, what aspects or implications of corruption in your country stand out to you as being particularly important?
If the majority of the populace feels that seizure of drug profits is warranted, and the police generally label everything seized 'drug profits' than it is perfectly feasible that is an accepted narrative without any meaningful evidence being provided. They are the type of people who exist and are privileged by the normative power hierarchies in that society (hence the term 'expert' being applied to them by peers). These are the people least likely to experience that type of corruption/oppression...by design
All of this comes down to the data they select. Your source uses the exact type of data which would hide corruption by this definition. That effect comes both through the selection of questions and the selection of people who will answer those questions. Their implementation of their definition of corruption largely results in a study of whether those with social capital feel like society treats them and their businesses fairly. It seems a poor metric of the types of systematic (designed) corruption experienced by others on a regular basis.
Only because you don't define lobbying as corruption. In most (any?) other nation, individuals and corporations paying legislators to vote a certain way fits the definition of bribery and corruption perfectly.
"Take this money for your campaign and pass this law" - bribery; and
"Take this money for your campaign. I'd really like to see this law pass." - lobbying.
Second, so-called “hard money” corporate donations to federal electoral campaigns have been and remain illegal.
Failing to make these distinctions and commenting as if corporate lobbyists are literally handing over suitcases full of cash is deceptive.
Good thing, then, that it's already illegal in the US for corporations to finance a political campaign!
What you're describing isn't lobbying, and is already illegal under US law.
As someone who's lived in several states I think there's a lot of variability. Corruption tends to follow population density and money.
If the brother of a cop or court official beat me to near death in a bar brawl I would not expect the court to sentence him to jail time. Fifty miles and one state border north of here I would expect jail time. Fifty miles and two counties west of here I'd give it 50-50.
>The US also has rare universal Congressional support for ending civil asset forfeiture abuses. Jeff Sessions undid some of the fixes the Obama Administration made; it turns out that might have been ideal, as Congress is now going to put it down for good by law.
I fully support legislation to obstruct or get rid of civil asset forfeiture (every bit helps) but I would fully expect that within a month my state would use it as an excuse to double all the fines for everything else to make up for it, not that we even make a lot of money off of it, just that it's an excuse to raise the fines.
Unfortunately you are wrong
>In reality, the US is one of the 20 least corrupt nations on the planet, on par with Ireland and Japan and less corrupt than France.
In reality do to the distributed nature of the various governments of the US, corruption in local government is both wide spread and very very under reported, Sure maybe the Federal Government is one of the 20 least national governments, but there are over 3,000 local government units that are very very much corruptible and often are.
Further I do not by the premise that just because you are less bad than others that makes you good... A murder that kills only 1 person is not "good" because he did not kill 20...
> It has very strong property protection laws, which is both why the judge returned the money (naturally that would happen in a nation with no rule of law huh),
You should really research this issue more if you think that is the common outcome. it is not
I just looking at the work the Institute for Justice is doing in this space. Specifically their Policing for Profit Series
>why the Obama Administration took important steps to neuter civil asset forfeiture abuse
Those changes were superficial at best, did not really do much as have all been rolled back at this point
Most Civil Asset Abuse some at the local level anyway not at the federal level, the Federal Programs are generally used as a end run around state that have enacted laws to eliminate civil asset forfeiture or severely limit its use
>The US also has rare universal Congressional support for ending civil asset forfeiture abuses.
No the US Congress play both sides of this issue, if there was universal support the law would already be changed
Police Unions are a power lobby, most Congress Reps will claim publicly to be for it, while never ever allowing the issue to come up for a vote
It's like how the concept of "The Market" relies upon everyone having perfect information on every economic issue and decision. They don't, but we still use it. And sure, we suffer for that pretty regularly when we relax regulations too much, but what was that quote? "It's the worst system in the world except for all the other ones?"
How can any authority be legitimate if the subordinates can't understand it?
That is especially true of Republicans, who can do literally anything and still enjoy substantial support from the people they keep in penurious thrall. But Democrats are then able to do the same thing by simply pointing at that distressing alternative to stay in office, so in reality we just have a bunch of corrupt egoists.
And that's where our criminal justice system's laws come from as much as our financial and political ones. A system like that cannot hold moral authority.
While you are correct that civil disobedience has been a force for great change it does not work on its own. Laws were still changed within the system and that is because we have democratic representation in our lawmaking process. Civil disobedience made the case clear that we needed to employ these democratic mechanisms to change the law.
edit: to the point: what does my vote help if the chance is small that my educated opinion isn't honoured?
That may explain why in the city I live in, the minimum educational requirements for the police 'academy' is a GED.
Education does make you a better person. Better people make better police officers.
In other countries, it's common to require a bachelors degree to become a police officer. In the city where I live, you can get into the police academy with a GED. I should also point out that the Oakland Police Department has been under Federal Court oversight for the last 14 years.
A police officer with a high school degree that has worked for a few years isn't going to become better at their job if they get a bachelor's. It only takes 12 years of education to learn how to de-escalate situations, make arrests, and issue citations.
The reason for gun training is that when guns do get used, it's a life and death situation.
However right now, a GED and 26 weeks at the OPD academy gets you a gun, a license to kill and a starting salary of $69,912. And that license is valid on day one, not 12 years later.
BTW, I live here. We went through three police chiefs in a week due to the coverup of officers sleeping with prostitutes. They should fire the department and start over.
Except that there's a union. You know, the good sort of union.
I feel like vaccine schedules are wrong, so I asked my pediatrician about them.
I feel like global warming is a hoax, so I asked a scientist about it.
I feel like a law is wrong, so I asked a legal expert about it.
The next step to take is up to me, but in each case I'm confident I'd be starting with stronger footing that you would be with your process.
Furthermore, I can pass that process on to others in a way that is less fragile and more efficient than your process. Ask your pediatrician. Ask your scientist colleague. Ask your law professor. In a world of good faith actors you'd still be reading primary research papers on epidemiology for years before moving to the second topic. In the real world you'd likely skip the necessary steps, risk making misguided decisions, and spreading that misguided decision-making process to others.
In Conservativism, the very idea that a person's family name, bloodline, wealth, title, are irrelevant before the law is itself unfair: people aren't equal, certain family's are better, even some of them divinely superior, and the law should not force police, prosecutors, or judges to treat people equally. No one really says this outloud but it is the base ideology of conservatism and aristocracy. Not equality. And this predates the United State's version of it.
It is true that most on the right don't desire equal outcomes for all but equal opportunities. That doesn't mean some have a divine right to a better life. It simply means we want to reward the most talented, hard working and advantaged because doing so results in a more productive society. But there is a balance to make sure all the wealth doesn't end up in their hands.
US conservatism is not classical liberalism. It's classical conservatism in the context where the the established elites are the products of capitalist politico-economic systems rather than pre-capitalist ones.
Like classical conservatism, and unlike classical liberalism, it rejects secular rationality and empiricism and relies on appeals to nationalism, ancient religious tradition, and authority figures to protect the interests of the established elites.
A more recent example of Conservatism is Nixon's southern strategy as told by Lee Atwater in 1981. Today's Republican party is the same as that. No matter how you cut it, the Republican party is the political branch of neofeudalism. That is it's entire history: conserve the fact that classism is good and should be preserved, we do not serve the broader public.
Senator Grassley: Ending Estate Tax Recognizes Investors Over Spenders.
Republicans want to preserve the aristocracy they represent. That's the sole charge of the party. Liberalism fears aristocracy, it breeds contempt and unfairness in civil society, and its prevention with a simple and unavoidable tax is how a civil society is preserved.
The very fact you think there is a balance to make sure aristocrats don't end up with all the marbles suggests a distinctly Liberal perspective. That would never fly in Conservatism. You're simply confused about the meaning of these words - this is basic political science so if you haven't had that, you wouldn't know it, but if you've had even a year of undergraduate study you'd know it. It's pathetic we don't teach this stuff in grade school but it's too "political" hilariously enough, so most elected school boards in the country end up requiring the teaching of selective patriotic propaganda bullshit, rather than basic political philosophy and history.
If you want to use the site as intended, please begin doing so. If not, please refrain from posting here.
The problem is this needs to be challenged in court. Until the Supremes rule on this, it's all speculation. That said, I've never even heard a theory stated in support of why it might be lawful.
I didn't say it was a good theory. But that's basically what is boils down to. Personally, I find it repugnant and I do believe it is an egregious violation of our constitutional rights related to search and seizure.
Also, the USSC has already ruled in part on this issue and the opinion was not great: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-122_1b7d.pdf Not only did they generally uphold the practice, but they weaseled out of ruling on other parts of it (not unusual for the USSC), this time because part of the argument presented was only first presented to the USSC and no lower court. So they basically said that since that other stuff hadn't seen a lower court, they weren't commenting on it.
Wait, this is 2017 right? None of that's hard to believe.
http://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/1023-the-ludowic... http://www.atlantatimemachine.com/misc/ludowici.htm
You know it's bad when a rural town attains national infamy in the pre-internet days.
Besides gaming the stoplights, the police would hide behind billboards and trees with their radar guns and target out-of-state motorists with tickets for +1 mph over the limit. Since most were just passing through the town, nobody had the inclination to wait around for a court date to fight the tickets, and all were essentially forced to pay without a chance to contest it.
He eventually succeeded in passing some legislation to curb the abuse. To this day local police have to sit in plain sight on flat ground (within a certain tolerance of grade) when running radar/lidar, can't write speeding tickets for less than 10 mph over the posted limit (does not apply to state troopers or school zones) and a slew of other technical nitpicks that make it easier to get "sane" speeding tickets dismissed.
What is important is that you must remain innocent until proven guilty.
What if you were going to a casino and brought a few thousand dollars with you and got pulled over. People do that all the time. The cop notices a wad of cash in an envelope. Tells you you must be a drug dealer with all that cash and then just takes it. Any resistance to this results in you in cuffs and under arrest (or worse).
I sometimes take money out of my savings to put into my checking account to pay unexpected bills. Because my credit union (where my savings is) doesn't allow for online transfers I have to go in. I have a fear driving the 5 minutes from the credit union to a branch of my normal bank that I'll get pulled over and have the money taken. I end up hiding the envelop under seats so it isn't visible.
Have you thought about a bank check? Pretty much every bank charges a fee for this. It's possible a credit union doesn't, but I suspect they probably still do. If this is a recurring transaction you do, then the fees will add up. But if it's not that frequent, this might be a good option for you. To protect yourself even further, I would fill out the To: on the check to yourself. In the past I have used "cash" to make it payable to whomever wishes to cash the bank check for convenience, but if you are just transferring between your own accounts, just put your name on it. I can't see any way an officer would be able to deposit that check on behalf of their department, even if they were crazy enough to confiscate it, which seems highly unlikely given that it's very hard to argue that such money which is going through the banking system is being used for illegal purposes. Even if it was, it's damn near impossible to prove they had any reasonable belief of that based on the information available to them at the time of the stop.
UPDATE - It seems this used to be true (or they would clear next day) but this has changed after an increase in fraudulent checks so many banks now wait until the check actually clears the originating institution.
They issue one when you do a withdrawal (I do this myself sometimes).
Being worried about that is ridiculous.
Then have them issue a check - my CU will issue it no charge over a certain value (I think it's $1k).
The bank might place a quasi-hold on the deposit for a business day, but it has cleared.
And when it comes from a bank, employer, insurance company, etc, they won't put a hold on it (or, at least, I've never seen a hold).
If you don't keep it, that's your problem, not theirs
As a matter of fact, it already has. I had a major police event earlier this year that came to be because I pulled my own car off the main road late at night because I have an old car and it was making a strange noise (and the main road had no shoulder). There was a cop hiding down this road and immediately approached me and then called for backup (for no reason) and 4 cars and 6 officers in total were there harassing me for almost an hour. Telling me first that I was drunk. Then telling me that I am a drug dealer there to meet someone. Then telling me that I was a drug user there instead to buy drugs. None of which was true. I even played nice and explained why I actually pulled off the main road in an attempt to expedite the stop. They didn't believe and once it became clear they were out to screw me over any way they could, I stopped talking. Then they asked me to perform sobriety tests, which I refused. They eventually let me go free and with no tickets (because it wasn't a traffic stop to begin with). If you're wondering why I refused the sobriety test - it's because I know those tests are used to justify the breathalyzer and other things like searches (which can lead to confiscation of property). I know this because I had a friend years ago who drank nothing, blew a .00 and was arrested because "if it's not alcohol, you must be on something else so we're taking you in to take your blood and have it tested". My friend got arrested, spent the night in jail, and then had to pay a lawyer to show up to court to have his case dismissed even though everything came back squeaky clean. They would have done the same with me.
Never give them an inch to work with. I'll take the $25 tickets in the meantime if that's the price of possibly avoiding major litigation at some point.
https://www.cato.org/blog/stash-house-stings-when-government...
with regards to asset forfeiture the police routinely take property that does not belong to the criminal but from relatives and friends who can rightfully claim innocence and lack of knowledge. Simple reason is they prey on the poor
If these officers were acting outside of the law then they should be fired and charged with a crime.
Our main problem as a society is that half the country believes the above, and the other half believes that the half that isn't them are all lawless savages who need order imposed by a heavy hand.
This can't end well.
I have just completed an 18-month tour of the country by land (thisisthebus.com). I've met people from every corner of the land and talked politics, technology, religion, and all sorts of other things with literally hundreds, probably a couple thousand, at urban watering holes, suburban campfires, and rural churches.
Please point me to the place where I might find the latter half of the population you've described.
From the Everglades to the Oregon Coast, from the desert to the Hudson Valley, I've searched long and hard and haven't found them.
Everybody in this country wants peace. And a chance for their families to live in harmony in their communities. Nobody - (excuse my language) fucking nobody - wants two million people in prison. Nobody.
It's sometimes surprising, too. I've met sweet old ladies that as long as topics were of the travel and weather variety seemed perfectly normal. The moment politics came up, they'd show a mean side that would really throw me for a loop. Racism with a shocking lack of self-awareness about their racism is one of the biggest surprises.
That said, rather than arguing that you're wrong about the people you've met, I suspect you've experienced bias in the people you meet in traveling the way you do. I've noticed there is a bias in the people I interact with most, for sure; lots of hippies, train kids, as well as people who love the outdoors (in a hiking and biking in national and state parks sort of way, rather than a hunting and fishing sort of way), etc. frequent some of my favorite places to go. But I still meet enough middle-class white folks who have alarming (to me) ideas about police and race and justice in America.
If nobody wanted 2.2 million people in prison, we wouldn't have 2.2 million people in prison. Somebody sure as hell wants it because they vote over and over for the people that perpetuate it. We can't pretend no one is responsible. There are people who made decisions that led us inexorably to this outcome, and people making decisions daily to maintain and even expand the prison industrial complex.
They walk among us.
Crime is dissuaded in percentage of your life behind bars, shouldn't infractions be dissuaded in percentage of your income or net worth?
1) Harsh punishment for something trivial that everyone does but is of negligible harm to society is worse for society than handing out slap on the wrist type fines. Speeding infractions, especially on limited access highways, are only slightly worse for society than parking infractions.
For example, the speed limit on the highway I take to work is 55mph. 55 is pre/post rush our speed. Typical traffic flow when traffic is light is up to 80-85 as permitted by weather conditions. Writing people tickets for 30-over when 30-over is a reasonable speed does nothing good for society.
2) Why should I work hard to be a six figure software engineer if "winning" that reverse lottery gets me just as screwed as someone who's barely living paycheck to paycheck?
3) Most states have appropriate fines and penalties attached to sufficiently broad criminal violations to cover actual bad behavior. I.e. write someone a summons for reckless driving if they're actually being reckless and then fine them $500 in court rather than fine them $500 for "speeding" according to some table and formula.
4) Then there's the whole problem of misaligned incentives that comes with aggressively policing minor infractions for revenue (traffic or some other group). I'd rather have a police department of x officers all doing real work than a police department of 2x where on any given day x of the officers are always on traffic detail to pay for the costs of running the department.
5) If people want to drive "too fast" on the road then the road either needs to be redesigned (there's visual tricks the engineers can play to make the road feel smaller and make people want to go slower) so people want to go the desired speed or the desired speed needs to increase to reflect reality. If I'm being a normal person going 80 in a 55 that should be an 80 on a normal night I don't want to get a $500 ticket because my tail-light was out but it just so happened that my otherwise unremarkable speed of 80 was 25 over for that location.
Want to make a prediction about whether the top 1% or the bottom 20% have more moving violations per capita?
They’re in places where they are unlikely to run into travellers from far away lands. Duh, if they were in a position to meet a more diverse set of folks, perhaps their views might be different. The extreme stereotype of this is the “hillbilly” living a holler no one visits, and which they’ve never wandered far from.
Nobody - (excuse my language) fucking nobody - wants two million people in prison.
The fact that there are two million people in prison belies your statement.
In a 2017 Gallup poll, 27% of Americans indicated “a great deal” or “quite a lot of confidence” in the criminal justice system. Another 37% indicated “some” confidence. And 34% rated their confidence “very little” or “none.”
The law enforcement half of the criminal justice system (the topic of the article) is viewed more favorably, with 57% of anericans rating their confidence in the police as “quite a lot” or “a great deal.”
Of course having a great deal of confidence in the criminal justice system is not synonymous with wanting 2m+ prisoners, but it does seem to indicate those respondents are not overly concerned with the high number of prisoners.
As should be obvious, I think “nobody” is overstating things a great deal.
http://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.asp...
on a related note: stob! its da bullies!
The reason officers are rarely prosecuted is because lazy lawmakers are scared the police won't be able to do their jobs if their abilities are prescribed in law. It's open to interpretation.
...has he never heard of safe deposit boxes?
It sounds like he works strictly on cash. Usually, to get a safe deposit box, you have to have an account with the bank you are getting one at (and there might be other restrictions as well). If he didn't have a checking account and couldn't meet any other restrictions, then he couldn't get the box.
But once you had the box, you could put the money in it, and not really worry about it. I just don't know why he didn't do this. It certainly couldn't have been lack of funds. He had more than enough to open an account, and pay for one year on a box big enough to hold the rest of the money.
So if he didn't do this - why? One good reason I can think of might be - operating with cash only - not paying income taxes. Sadly, his efforts at getting his cash back will likely cause him more problems with the IRS down the road.
He really didn't think this whole thing through, and it ultimately caught up with him. Of course, the fact that he wasn't wearing his seatbelt, against a law which makes it a crime of some manner in just about every state (save one), and it's also a federal law - all says something about his being ill prepared.
Also see the effects of the "thin blue line" eroding institutional morality... it's easy to get to a place where we are -- even white people in America no longer trust the police.
I've been in a passenger car, where the driver(off duty Cop) is way over .08, and all all it takes is a flash of the badge.
If you become a cop in America--you can break laws. Only the really stupid ones get caught.
I don't belive it's the job, it's the system, and training. It should be federally licensed, and require more than a high school diploma, and a bad attitude.
And let's be honest. Most areas in the USA do not need badily trained paramilitary cops. They are essentially Revenue Collectors in most municipalities.
There are over 900,000 law enforcement officials in the US. If even a small percentage of them are exposed as corrupt or abusive, the headlines would be full of these stories, and yet most police officers would be unfairly implicated if you concluded that "most" police were abusing their powers.
We do need to find better ways to prosecute and deter abuse of power by law enforcement officials and prosecutors, but that should be done without undermining or implicating the officers who are doing their job lawfully.
The government ultimately has to prove its case in court, but they can’t predict with certainty how a judge and jury will rule. If they lose, they give the money back.
If the officers have no reason to suspect that you actually committed a crime and arrest you solely for their own gain, then yes, it's a kidnapping.
The problem here is that there's no evidence showing that assets should be "forfeited", cops are stealing people's stuff because they can.
If an officer had probable cause that someone was smuggling money, they would never have a civil asset forfeiture -- it would be a criminal case from start to finish.
The fact that the law was designed to end run around constitutional protections speaks volumes about it and its authors.
The farce of "asset forfeiture" is in treating the asset, and not the holder of the asset, as an entity which may have civil claims brought against it. In effect, forcing the owner to act as its defender. This is a exploitation of the legal system. If they truly believed the assets were the result of a crime they should have to prove probable cause, and hence justify, their right to steal (i.e. seize/freeze) that property in preparation for a criminal/civil trial.
If they lose that trial, then even so, the seizure was justified and everything is fine. The question now is, are we as a society comfortable granting the ability for a single individual, i.e. a peace officer, the ability to justify in its entirety, their actions, even with massive conflicts of interest?
I would hope the answer is no. We have the judiciary to justify these crimes of the state and in so doing limit their effect on the innocent by preventing abuses of power due to conflict of interest.
Universal accountability and review of justification is the key to preventing the tyranny of the few bad peace officers in positions of extreme situational power from destroying countless lives and reaping massive personal benefit while doing so.
An effective way to do this is to take the position that hypocrisy is unacceptable. If it's an act which is unlawful for a person to commit, the state must actively justify itself (before the fact) in order to commit that same act, according to the social contract. If it doesn't, there may as well be no law - for what is the purpose of the law but to protect those without power from those with it.
Parhamovich said the officers implied that carrying that much cash was illegal. He lied and said it was a friend’s.
He brought his “life savings” with him on a road trip, hidden in a speaker, and then lied to the police about it. It doesn’t take a cynic to see how ridiculously suspicious that is. There’s plenty of material to start a civil forfeiture case, where the government has to ultimately prove by a preponderance of the evidence (ie “more likely than not”) that the money was the proceeds of illegal activity, the same standard as lawsuits between private citizens.
This is not a theft or robbery. It’s the police failing to convince a court in the end.
Why seize things upfront in cases like this? If they let the money go, the government would likely never see it again. The goal is to stop organized crime from successfully moving money around and laundering it. It was only a few decades ago that organized crime operated with near impunity in this country. Laws such as RICO and those strengthening civil asset forfeiture are no small part of our success in turning the tide against criminal organizations.
It’s easy to forget how we got here, but if we let uninformed outrage rule the day, then we risk returning to the time when these criminal enterprises spread fear and violence without consequence.
It is always worth investigating reform, but you should think twice about demonizing those who are carrying out the instructions we gave them.
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Edit: HN is rate-limiting me, so I’m responding to erpellan’s very good point here:
You’re right that it’s not sufficient reason for seizure by itself, it’s actually been litigated to that effect before iirc. But combined with other factors, like lying to the police (a crime itself in many jurisdictions as Michael Flynn has just learned), it can help establish the burden of proof necessary for seizure pending litigation.
(Further, he consented to the seizure in this case.)
Sorry, got lost about the second paragraph: are we talking about cops like the ones in the article, or the Mafia?
You’ve ignored the entire substance of the argument and produced a retort that people who agree with you will like. I think that accomplishes nothing but lower the standard of discourse and miss an opportunity for mutual understanding.
You’re just willfully ignoring my argument at this point. It should broadly work this way because it’s proven effective in combating organized crime. Disagree if you’d like, but don’t pretend that I’m not giving a reason.
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Edit: I’m rate limited, but in response to ng12:
I agree that it’s important to keep in mind the balance between civil liberties and effective law enforcement. They are competing and worthy interests necessarily in tension. I think the unique problems of money laundering and illegal money-in-transit justify a system that allows the police, acting on an appropriate level of suspicion (e.g. probable cause), to seize pending further due process.
There is definitely room for reform, especially in how that further due process works, and in creating disincentives for overzealous seizures.
itrontron, law enforcement powers certainly protect civil liberties too, but also necessarily define their limits. Your right to liberty ends where the state’s right to detain you starts. Your right to property extends to where the state’s right to seize it begins. And so forth.
How can you call that "due process"? In these cases the money is never proven to be of illegal origin, the owner never convicted of a crime. I agree with you that there's a balancing act but civil forfeiture has fallen off the tightrope long ago.
Hypothetically, even if that were true, does that not sound crazy to you? That the government would launch a civil suit against you for the crime of possessing money?
Edit: Just read that you're in law school. You truly terrify me.
Edit: It looks, unfortunately, like you have made a habit of skimping on civility in your comments on HN. That is not the kind of site we want, so please up your game if you want to keep posting here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
Civil liberties are not opposed to effective law enforcement; enforced guarantees of civil liberties are a key means by which law enforcement is made to actually enforce the law effectively by doing the work to identify actual wrongdoers and hold them accountable rather than presenting the illusion of effectiveness by setting up easy scapegoats and/or using “law enforcement” as a pretext for implementing the personal interests of the law enforcers.
You lose everything based on accusation alone. In keeping the money without cause, civil forfeiture becomes just another shakedown.
'Acting suspicious" warrants asking questions, NOT taking things when those questions don't turn up anything. The idea that it stops organized crime is also rediculous. No crime Lord was ever brought down by civil asset forfeiture. They work that statistic into their prices like any other for-profit Enterprise would and go on with business as usual.
I'd also clear up the "given orders" bit. You cannot really make a good case for police departments ordering their officers to simply take any and all money they see. That is left to the officers discretion. In this case, the officer decided to abuse his power over the general population. To take your orders idea to the end; Let's assume that the police department as a whole requires such theft. We aren't in a country without freedom of the press. Any one of those officers could (and indeed had a duty to) record and publish the illegal order. If such an order exists, then EVERY officer is willingly complicit.
Finally, let's say that we do need limited ability to lock up people's things. That should most definitely involve a case against the individual rather than against the possession itself. It should involve the rights to an expidited trial. Most importantly, it should involve a large burden of proof like any criminal case rather than simple majority.
I’m not claiming that police have a moral carte blanche for overzealous seizures. I’m saying that when they do their duty in good faith and then lose in court, we shouldn’t jump to calling them robbers.
To your last point, the standard in civil court is preponderance/more-likely-than-not/“majority”. Civil asset forfeiture is not a criminal conviction, carries no risk of prison time, and involves solely the transfer of property from one (who is not entitled to it) to another (who is at least more entitled to it). If I sue you for everything you’re worth, or claim rightful ownership of your land in an action directly on the property, I only need to prove my case by a preponderance. Why should it be any different here?
A lot is made over the fact that the civil action is against the property instead of the person it’s being seized from. This isn’t as relevant as it sounds and it has nothing to do with the standard of proof being lower: the standard in all civil cases is preponderance of the evidence.
The suit is against the property because it’s an in rem lawsuit where the only thing being litigated is the disposition of the property. They are not trying to prove that the person it was seized from did anything illegal, just that the asset itself is the proceeds of a crime, whoever may have committed that crime.
"Who carries around a thousand dollars in their wallet? Obvious drug money!"
$100. And even then it depends on your skin color and where this is being called into question.
It's more plausible to have $10000 in your pocket in Vegas than $1000 in the South Bronx.
I must have like a dozen civil asset forfeiture cases open in Mexico.