Here we go again with asset forfeiture laws

[user 37446]

I've followed this topic through a couple different threads over the last 2 years. Things were getting better, (less abuse, states repealing the forfeiture laws) but then I see a today dated article saying that new US Attorney General Jeff Sessions is tightening back up asset forfeiture again, "criminals shouldn't profit...".  Trouble is, we get hammered from unscrupulous PD department enforcement. Here's the news quote:

"Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Justice Department plans to issue a new directive aimed at ramping up seizure of property, "especially ill-gotten gains from drug dealers." Speaking at the National District Attorney's Association in Minneapolis on July 17, Sessions said, "no criminal should be able to keep the proceeds of their illegal activity." (Reuters)


Google or otherwise search for it today and you'll read that its back in the news. And I thought we had turned a corner on this... sigh  :-/

 

[user 423]

I know that it would vary by location but I wonder what the 'trigger amount' would be? I sometimes have up to $4-5K in cash with me in case I find a hot deal on a motorcycle or whatever.

 

[TrainChaser]

The 'trigger amount' is probably whatever you've got, plus any goodies they find. I'll bet they've never hit a politician.

 

[slynne]

*sigh* The good news is that it is still pretty rare. I have only known one person who had their assets seized. It was 25 years ago when I was in college in Sault Ste Marie. Some friends went over to Canada because Soo Ontario is the bigger town and they went to the mall. One of the kids bought a bong from a head shop. The person who was driving was not driving their own car and the person who bought the bong did so without telling the driver of the car but then declared it (as you are supposed to do) and then the car was seized. The owners of the car (the driver's parents) got it back though but only because they had the resources to hire an attorney and take it to court.

 

[user 423]

Yeah but think about all the Ferraris and Escalades with no gas tanks you can get for a song at those auctions down in Texas!

 

[tx2sturgis]

Yeah I deleted it...I decided I dont want any raids at my house because I broke radio 'silence'.

I have a good friend who is in a particularly powerful part of the federal government.

I need to be sure I am careful about what I post sometimes.

And I sure dont want to disappear like some seem to do.

Yikes.

 

[Cammalu]

I need to be sure I am careful about what I post sometimes.

And I sure dont want to disappear like some seem to do.

Yikes.

I thought you said those were the aliens doing the kidnapping? In that case they won't care what you post they will get you regardless.

 

[tx2sturgis]

I thought you said those were the aliens doing the kidnapping?

Thats what I'm told to say...

But...


The Truth Is Out There.

 

[akrvbob]

Sessions can only impact Federal prosecutors and LEOs. Odds are very low of any of us having any interactions with Federal Officers that could involve asset forfeiture.

Most of us deal with State and local cops and Sessions has virtually no impact on them.

 

[tx2sturgis]

Sessions can only impact Federal prosecutors and LEOs. Odds are very low of any of us having any interactions with Federal Officers that could involve asset forfeiture.

Border Patrol is one. And internal border checks are in several locations in the southwestern US.

They have infrared, RFID and other types of scanning devices in operation at those facilities. Plus K9s on duty.

The sensors can also detect large sums of money unless the currency is shielded.

For full-timers with a stash of cash, it might be a concern.

I agree the odds are low but I saw many cars, vans, RVs, and buses pulled over to secondary and none of those folks thought they would be in that situation.

It's a jungle out there folks....

 

[John61CT]

No the local departments get teamed up with feds via revenue sharing agreements, even when states have tried to rein them in.
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2014/nov/10/asset-forfeiture-article/


DEA as well http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/08/10/dea-travel-record-airport-seizures/88474282/

That's how the locals raise funds for the "surplus" military hardware from the Pentagon and secret Stingray-style cellphone surveillance gear. . .

http://boingboing.net/2016/10/20/by-stealing-from-innocents-ch.html/amp


This sort of positive trend is what's now being reversed https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...am-that-lets-cops-take-your-stuff-and-keep-it

 

[Svenn]

Not sure what this mysterious thread is about, but if y'all are worried about your vehicle being seized why not claim a homestead exemption?

 

[John61CT]

If you can hire a lawyer and "prove" you're not involved in illegal activities, show where the money came from, then at least in theory you get it back.

Just that the Fourth amendment is supposed to guarantee it working the other way around.

 

[Richard]

...Fourth amendment...

It seems that the 4th amendment is irrelevant if you happen to be within 100-miles of a national border within the U.S.:

https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

 

[lenny flank]

Alas, it is collateral damage from the "war on drugs" and the "war on immigrants".

 

[tx2sturgis]

For many, many years I passed thru those internal checkpoints, and never had a problem.

But I was a professional driver, I declared US citizenship, and rolled on thru.

Drug sniffing K9's never alerted and I always cooperated so I was never pulled into secondary in 37 years of passing thru them many times each month. That's by design: the job came first, getting where I was going was important, and cooperating with 'the man' is a necessary part of getting the job done.

But over the course of that career I saw many, many vehicles detained, and youtube has many videos where people decide to 'test' the agents at one of the checkpoints.

These checkpoints are NOT border crossings. They are on major roads and highways within the US, in a 100 mile range of US borders. 

The entrance to the checkpoints are lined with high levels of scanning technology: license plate readers, cell phone scanners, IR detectors, radar, x-ray, and sophisticated image processing cameras.

The agents are watching a screen filled with information about your vehicle and its contents as you approach, and they know a lot about you and your vehicle before you even roll up to him or her. If you are guilty of something, anything, they will probably know it and pull you into secondary.

Big brother really IS watching.

 

[Optimistic Paranoid]

Not sure what this mysterious thread is about, but if y'all are worried about your vehicle being seized why not claim a homestead exemption?

A:  Not sure if a homestead exemption would protect against asset seizure if the cops "claimed" the assets were the result of, or were to be used for, illegal activities.  There have been cases where defendants couldn't even use their own money to pay for their defense attorney, if the government claimed they were the proceeds of illegal activity.

B:  Not sure it could be applied to a vehicle.  Even one you are living in.  Even if it COULD, the cops would doubtless make you hire a lawyer and go to court over it, and even if you have the money for that, the lawyer's fees would probably exceed the value of any vehicle that was seized.

C:  It's not just the vehicle.  They're also looking for any cash they can seize.  I remember reading about a gambler driving to Vegas for a World Poker Championship with $50,000 in cash for his buy in.  The cops found it, claimed it was to be used for a drug deal ("What honest person drives around with $50,000 in cash?")  and seized it.

D:  On a semi-related note, I'm seeing reports that the Feds want to crack down on states legalizing marijuana.  It wouldn't surprise me if they started setting up random road blocks in and around those states and seizing the vehicle of anybody they found with grass in it.

 

[Richard]

...Big brother really IS watching.

All too true. I find Oklahoma's recent electronic scanning of pre-paid money cards (for the purpose of electronic seizure of 'cash') particularly disturbing. Here are the closing paragraphs from the article where I found that information:

State Sen. Kyle Loveless, R-Oklahoma City, said that removes due process and the belief that a suspect is presumed innocent until proven guilty. He said we've already seen cases in Oklahoma where police are abusing the system. 

"We've seen single mom's stuff be taken, a cancer survivor his drugs taken, we saw a Christian band being taken. We've seen innocent people's stuff being taken. We've seen where the money goes and how it's been misspent," Loveless said.

Loveless plans to introduce legislation next session that would require a conviction before any assets could be seized.

"If I had to err on the side of one side versus the other, I would err on the side of the Constitution,” Loveless said. “And I think that's what we need to do."

News 9 obtained a copy of the contract with the state. 

It shows the state is paying ERAD Group Inc., $5,000 for the software and scanners, then 7.7 percent of all the cash forfeited through the courts to the highway patrol.

 

[user 37446]

I'm not paranoid, yet, but it is disturbing when the trend of going away from these seizures is being ramped up again. I looked at the article linked above from Oklahoma (where I have grandkids so I could be hit with that one day), the parts that were very concerning were this quote: (bold text is my doing)

[font=Arial, sans-serif]OKLAHOMA CITY -[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]You may have heard of civil asset forfeiture.  [/font][/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]That's where police can seize property and cash without first proving a person committed a crime; without a warrant and without arresting them, as long as they suspect that the property is somehow tied to a crime.[/font][/font]

[font=Arial, sans-serif][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Now, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a device that also allows them to seize money on prepaid cards.[/font][/font]

[font=Arial, sans-serif][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]It's called an ERAD, or Electronic Recovery and Access to Data machine, and OHP began using 16 of them last month.  [/font][/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Here's how it works. If a trooper suspects a person may have money tied to some type of crime, the highway patrol can scan and seize money from prepaid cards.  OHP stresses troopers do not do this during all traffic stops, only situations where they believe there is probable cause. [/font][/font]

[font=Arial, sans-serif][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]"We're gonna look for different factors in the way that you're acting,” Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. John Vincent said. “We're gonna look for if there's a difference in your story. If there's someway that we can prove that you're falsifying information to us about your business."[/font][/font]

End of quote

[font=Arial, sans-serif][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]What I don't like is the use of the terms/words "somehow" and "someway". That's a lot of latitude, I think. For example, one of these days I'm going to be selling the Prius and getting a van, just not ready for what kind yet. Since I travel a fair amount in the summers, like right now, I want to be able to spot a "for sale" sign on a likely vehicle and be able to wave 2-3K cash in front of their face, and then get the vehicle. That means having ready access to those funds, usually in the car somewhere.  [/font][/font]

[font=Arial, sans-serif][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]For example - I was driving through NW Montana just this week, heading back to BC (Canada) and saw an older GMC (80's) Vandura camper van sitting beside a farmhouse and obviously from the dust on the van it wasn't being used. If I was on a van quest, I'd have stopped. There was no town with a bank around for 30 miles and I can't withdraw more than $400 a day with my atm card anyways. So to purchase that vehicle would require cash. Now it just so happens that a few minutes prior, I was going, uhh, 70+ in a 60 mph marked rural highway and a sheriff was going the other way. Had he stopped me, and asked if I had any "large amounts of cash", what would I say? That's what I don't like, the possible issue. Of course I could alleviate the speeding part but then it could be anything else... just sayin'.[/font][/font]

 

[wayne49]

More disturbing is that in the few states that have laws limiting CAF, the Federal authorities are directing and rewarding the LEOs for carrying out Federal policy that violates the State's policy.

Local law enforcement no longer work for the locals, they work for the Federal government.