Civil Forfeiture And You

Shocker, the cops don't like not getting the money.


http://cnsnews.com/commentary/jason...owl-after-congress-seizes-money-controversial

The announcement sparked outrage from law enforcement groups, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National District Attorneys Association, and the National Sheriffs’ Association.

In letters to congressional leaders, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and President Barack Obama, these groups denounced the development as detrimental to public safety and demanded that “the decision to suspend the equitable sharing program be immediately reconsidered.”

Yet property transfers are not suspended. While Congress’ (somewhat ironic) seizure of funds from the AFF has prompted the Justice Department to stop processing payments to state and local agencies, such agencies can still seize property and transfer it to federal authorities. The only difference between last week and this week is that these agencies are no longer being financially encouraged to circumvent state law.

It has long been suspected that many law enforcement agencies treat forfeiture as more of a revenue-generator than a legitimate law enforcement tool. Since 2008, some 298 police and sheriffs’ departments and 210 task forces have generated the equivalent of 20 percent or more of their budgets via civil forfeiture.
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Thanks for keeping this thread alive CdS.
 
Seriously Cubo, you're scratching my back here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/u...list-when-deciding-which-assets-to-seize.html
Police Use Department Wish List When Deciding Which Assets to Seize

The seminars offered police officers some useful tips on seizing property from suspected criminals. Don’t bother with jewelry (too hard to dispose of) and computers (“everybody’s got one already”), the experts counseled. Do go after flat screen TVs, cash and cars. Especially nice cars.

In one seminar, captured on video in September, Harry S. Connelly Jr., the city attorney of Las Cruces, N.M., called them “little goodies.” And then Mr. Connelly described how officers in his jurisdiction could not wait to seize one man’s “exotic vehicle” outside a local bar.

“A guy drives up in a 2008 Mercedes, brand new,” he explained. “Just so beautiful, I mean, the cops were undercover and they were just like ‘Ahhhh.’ And he gets out and he’s just reeking of alcohol. And it’s like, ‘Oh, my goodness, we can hardly wait.’ ”
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/stop-and-seize/
Stop and seize
Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes

After the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the government called on police to become the eyes and ears of homeland security on America’s highways.

Local officers, county deputies and state troopers were encouraged to act more aggressively in searching for suspicious people, drugs and other contraband. The departments of Homeland Security and Justice spent millions on police training.

The effort succeeded, but it had an impact that has been largely hidden from public view: the spread of an aggressive brand of policing that has spurred the seizure of hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from motorists and others not charged with crimes, a Washington Post investigation found. Thousands of people have been forced to fight legal battles that can last more than a year to get their money back.

Behind the rise in seizures is a little-known cottage industry of private police-training firms that teach the techniques of “highway interdiction” to departments across the country.

One of those firms created a private intelligence network known as Black Asphalt Electronic Networking & Notification System that enabled police nationwide to share detailed reports about American motorists — criminals and the innocent alike — including their Social Security numbers, addresses and identifying tattoos, as well as hunches about which drivers to stop.
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http://www.texasobserver.org/preying-innocent-civil-forfeiture/
When it Comes to Civil Forfeiture in Texas, You Have No Property Rights

El-Ali found himself in the same preposterous situation as countless Texans every year—seriously, the record-keeping is so bad, we don’t know how many people are affected—ensnared in the state’s shamefully baroque civil-forfeiture laws. It’s beenamply documented that some local prosecutors and cops use the laws to run sophisticated shakedown operations, seizing cash, cars, jewelry and other property from innocent people, especially black and Latino folks, and funding their operations with the profits. Some law enforcement agencies derive almost 40 percent of their revenue from civil forfeiture, with virtually no checks or oversight.

In the East Texas town of Tenaha, the district attorney oversaw a particularly Dickensian operation: Local cops would stop out-of-town drivers on the flimsiest of pretexts to look for cash, DVD players, cell phones, anything of value. The DA would threaten drivers with criminal charges, even promising to have state authorities remove kids from parents unless they waived rights to the property.

A class-action lawsuit uncovered that the proceeds from this highway robbery—an estimated $3 million between 2006 and 2008—were paying for popcorn machines, donations to a local Baptist church and bonuses for law enforcement key to the operation. Meanwhile, the DA was handing out light sentences to those caught with drugs, or laundered money, in exchange for seizing their assets.
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Yeah....just fucking ridiculous.
 
I wonder how much was seized in these jurisdictions that have popped up in the news for not sending rape kits to the labs.
 
Incredible.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dea-tsa-agent-cash_us_569f9db5e4b0875553c266ea?

A Department of Justice watchdog officially condemned the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration this month, following a report that the agency had recruited a Transportation Security Administration security screener to search bags for cash that the DEA could confiscate.

The very existence of such a partnership highlights much broader concerns about the controversial legal practice known as civil asset forfeiture, which critics say contorts law enforcement priorities and props up a system of policing for profit.

In a summary of its investigation, the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General concluded that the agreement "violated DEA policy" on a number of levels. While the OIG determined that the TSA informant never provided any actionable information to the DEA, it concluded that the plans to pay the agent out of the cash he or she helped seize "could have violated individuals’ protection against unreasonable searches and seizures if it led to a subsequent DEA enforcement action."

In effect, the OIG was questioning the propriety of an arrangement in which a TSA agent would use his or her power to tip off the DEA to the presence of cash in travelers' luggage, and then receive compensation based on how profitable that information was to the agency.
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WTF this is worse than what Israel does to palestinians.
 
Cubo de Sangre said:
I get you. But SCOTUS rules on shit all the time. Sometimes they even strike down illegal laws. How does this crap stand?
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It's able to "stand" because while your person requires due process to be accused of a crime, your property does not. As a result your cash, house, car, or whatever they want can be seized and its up to you to prove that your property had nothing to do with a crime. Most of the time that's quite impossible. In fact this CAF is such a problem that in 2014 the government stole more money from people than thieves did, and I'm not talking about fines, taxes or inflation. I'm just talking about the money police departments across america decided they wanted for themselves.

IMO just one more example that we're descending into a society that is the antithesis of the intent we were founded on.
 
might be the shadiest thing the US government does, at least on a perpetual basis
 
Greoric said:
It's able to "stand" because while your person requires due process to be accused of a crime, your property does not. As a result your cash, house, car, or whatever they want can be seized and its up to you to prove that your property had nothing to do with a crime. Most of the time that's quite impossible. In fact this CAF is such a problem that in 2014 the government stole more money from people than thieves did, and I'm not talking about fines, taxes or inflation. I'm just talking about the money police departments across america decided they wanted for themselves.

IMO just one more example that we're descending into a society that is the antithesis of the intent we were founded on.
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Sure, that's the rationale. But how does any honest person buy into it?

I agree with your last statement.
 
Cubo de Sangre said:
It's the government that has created the situation.
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No, it is the piece of shit son for creating the situation. If he wasn't a fucking loser and a decent human being he wouldn't be selling drugs and his parents wouldn't have to deal with shit.

The very fact that you are blaming the government instead of the son for this situation tells me you are a fucking idiot. Dubbs away.
 
panamaican said:
I don't know about cash and vehicles, the only times I've dealt with it involved property.

Cash and vehicles are probably harder since they could be evidence related to the crime and since they can easily disappear, confiscating it can be necessary. You don't need to confiscate a house to establish that someone sold drugs from that location or that the house was related to the crime. Houses rarely disappear before trial, lol.

But my point was that they never take the property without notice giving the property owner time to resolve the situation before any confiscation takes place and it rarely requires anything more than a straightforward communication.
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You shouldn't have to involve a lawyer to stop someone in the government from stealing your house. This should be a court proceeding where they better be able to go in front of a credible judge and show that the house is the proceed of crime.
 
No idea how anyone can support this...its batshit crazy
 
UFC Truck said:
No, it is the piece of shit son for creating the situation. If he wasn't a fucking loser and a decent human being he wouldn't be selling drugs and his parents wouldn't have to deal with shit.

The very fact that you are blaming the government instead of the son for this situation tells me you are a fucking idiot. Dubbs away.
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Was it the son who decided to have his family's house taken away, or the government?
 
Cubo de Sangre said:
Sure, that's the rationale. But how does any honest person buy into it?

I agree with your last statement.
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Excellent question. Perhaps because the people that buy into this kind of propaganda don't ask the question that separates us from the other hominid species... "why"?
 
Greoric said:
Was it the son who decided to have his family's house taken away, or the government?
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It was the son's actions. It is a shame that he is a piece of shit and you have any sympathy for a family that would support a piece of shit like him.
 
UFC Truck said:
It was the son's actions. It is a shame that he is a piece of shit and you have any sympathy for a family that would support a piece of shit like him.
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You sound like the kinda guy who beats is wife and then when it's over says "Look what you made me do!".
 
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