New Posts
By:
Filters
  • Hi there guest! Welcome to PoliticalJack.com. Register for free to join our community?

Civil Forfeiture

Emily said:
George will wrote a column about this not long ago...
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/46603

The Feds are in on it, too...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...s-the-looter/2012/05/18/gIQAUIKVZU_story.html

and, of course, the IRS...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...56ca9e-cfc5-11e3-a6b1-45c4dffb85a6_story.html

Thanks for bringing up this important issue, Arkady. It's not going to stop until the people
-- in large numbers -- demand it stop.
Click to expand...

One of my bigger fears is law enforcement using this horrible policy to coerce people into giving up other rights.

Example: let's say a guy is on the way to buy a car and has $10,000 cash on him. The cops pull him over, pull the guy out of the car and pat him down. They feel a thick wallet and look and find the cash. Now they can threaten to take the money using this policy unless the driver gives up his Fourth Amendment rights.

No matter how you slice it, this is horrible policy. I believe at minimum, there should be a probable cause hearing to freeze the assets. And the standards should be pretty high, such as pretty solid indications some illegal activity is involved. Being any particular demographic is simply not enough.

This is also another indicator of how horrible the alleged war on drugs is affecting our basic freedoms.

A few years ago, my wife was going through customs, returning from a SE Asian country known for heroin exports. She had $10,000 cash her father gave her before he died on that visit. She had his death certificate. These morons asked why the death certificate wasn't in English. When she got upset, they told her they could seize her money. Disgusting.
 
Bullshit about white supremacy aside I could take you seriously on this if you weren't such a Progressive. As it is, you're just being an opportunist. You no more embrace the Constitution even in this one instance than you embrace the Bible had you cited the Golden Rule.

Oh look. A leopard trying to change his spots. Hmm.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
resident_evil said:
What has Trump got to do with the issue of civil asset forfeiture? I thought you were keeping this non-partisan? I accept this thread in the spirit intended.
Click to expand...
As I mentioned in the top post, Trump was asked about this by a sheriff who was complaining about an attempt by a Texas legislator to reign in civil forfeiture, and Trump indicated he was on the sheriff's side, and "joked" he'd destroy the legislator's career for daring to stand between the police and their ill-gotten gains.
 
The Thinker said:
One of my bigger fears is law enforcement using this horrible policy to coerce people into giving up other rights.

Example: let's say a guy is on the way to buy a car and has $10,000 cash on him. The cops pull him over, pull the guy out of the car and pat him down. They feel a thick wallet and look and find the cash. Now they can threaten to take the money using this policy unless the driver gives up his Fourth Amendment rights.

No matter how you slice it, this is horrible policy. I believe at minimum, there should be a probable cause hearing to freeze the assets. And the standards should be pretty high, such as pretty solid indications some illegal activity is involved. Being any particular demographic is simply not enough.

This is also another indicator of how horrible the alleged war on drugs is affecting our basic freedoms.

A few years ago, my wife was going through customs, returning from a SE Asian country known for heroin exports. She had $10,000 cash her father gave her before he died on that visit. She had his death certificate. These morons asked why the death certificate wasn't in English. When she got upset, they told her they could seize her money. Disgusting.
Click to expand...
I knew a guy who was relocating to Seattle, driving cross country, with a couple thousand in cash to cover the trip plus setting up in his new apartment when he got there. The police pulled him over and searched the car for drugs. They found none, but when he demanded to know why he'd been pulled over, they threatened to seize the cash if he didn't pipe down. Giving them that kind of discretion just invites abuse.
 
Arkady said:
I knew a guy who was relocating to Seattle, driving cross country, with a couple thousand in cash to cover the trip plus setting up in his new apartment when he got there. The police pulled him over and searched the car for drugs. They found none, but when he demanded to know why he'd been pulled over, they threatened to seize the cash if he didn't pipe down. Giving them that kind of discretion just invites abuse.
Click to expand...
You ever heard of "road pirates"?
 
freyasman said:
You ever heard of "road pirates"?
Click to expand...
no-victim-no-crime-road-pirate-copblock.jpg
 
Arkady said:
I knew a guy who was relocating to Seattle, driving cross country, with a couple thousand in cash to cover the trip plus setting up in his new apartment when he got there. The police pulled him over and searched the car for drugs. They found none, but when he demanded to know why he'd been pulled over, they threatened to seize the cash if he didn't pipe down. Giving them that kind of discretion just invites abuse.
Click to expand...

BINGO. And just imagine how many cases of this there are when you and I each happen to know at least one person this has happened to.

There's no question some cops are just gangsters.
 
Arkady said:
As I mentioned in the top post, Trump was asked about this by a sheriff who was complaining about an attempt by a Texas legislator to reign in civil forfeiture, and Trump indicated he was on the sheriff's side, and "joked" he'd destroy the legislator's career for daring to stand between the police and their ill-gotten gains.
Click to expand...

If I didn't say so before, I find both Trump's and the sheriff's attitudes and statements quite disturbing. Trump making light of it is horrible.
 
Arkady said:
As I mentioned in the top post, Trump was asked about this by a sheriff who was complaining about an attempt by a Texas legislator to reign in civil forfeiture, and Trump indicated he was on the sheriff's side, and "joked" he'd destroy the legislator's career for daring to stand between the police and their ill-gotten gains.
Click to expand...
I finally saw that and on this and torture I completely disagree with Trump.
 
Arkady said:
One of the issues I'd hope would cross the partisan divide is civil forfeiture. If you've never watched the excellent John Oliver segment on it, I highly recommend doing so:


Civil forfeiture is a bizarre area of law that has grown up outside the normal Constitutional requirement for due process. Police can simply seize a person's property without so much as charging him with a crime, if they suspect he's engaged in illegal behavior. Then, to make matters worse, the police departments are often allowed to keep that property. This creates an incentive for police departments to steal money from ordinary citizens in order to fund their budgets.

The way the courts have reasoned their way around the need for due process is by creating a legal fiction, where it isn't a matter of the government prosecuting a criminal suspect (which would trigger the Constitutional protections afforded to criminal defendants), but instead is a matter of the police suing the property itself, which lacks the same rights. For example, the police will sue your house, instead of bringing charges against you. This then transfers the burden of proof to the person who has had his property stolen by the police -- it's up to him to prove that the property wasn't involved in a crime.... even if the police haven't proven that a crime was even committed.

I say this is an issue that I would hope could cross the partisan divide, because there's a reason to hate civil forfeiture from both a liberal and a conservative perspective. For a liberal, it's a clear due process issue, and it's also a way that authorities prey on poorer and less powerful communities. The authorities aren't going to seize Donald Trump's tower because it was the base of operations for his plan to defraud Trump "University" students. Civil forfeiture doesn't get used against corporate criminals, but instead against those suspected involvement in recreational drugs. Meanwhile, it should also be an issue from a traditional conservative perspective, since it's a way that government has moved beyond its proper Constitutional limits and acquired the ability to feed itself -- thanks to civil forfeiture, government budgets can expand beyond the scope assigned to them by the political process, simply by way of seizing people's money and then spending it on whatever they like. For those who speak so often of liberty and property rights and the dangers of an out-of-control government, civil forfeiture should be an outrage.

Unfortunately, the kinds of people who call themselves "conservative" in this country are typically not traditional conservatives, but rather white supremacists who are fine with civil forfeiture being used, as long as it's confined to keeping the brown people in line. For example, when Trump heard about a Texas senator who was trying to limit civil forfeiture (so that in most cases a criminal conviction was required before the state could seize a person's property), rather than applaud that senator for reigning in an outrageous government abuse, Trump's immediate response was to "joke" about destroying the senators career.

Here's more on civil forfeiture in Texas:

https://www.texasobserver.org/preying-innocent-civil-forfeiture/
Click to expand...


Wow you are waaaaaaaaaay late on that subject in Texas. That issue has been discussed as far back as the 70's by Republicans. There have been plenty of democratic administrations that could have changed this in Texas.

Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court determined that the defendant's arrest in El Paso County, Texas for a refusal to identify himself, after being seen and questioned in a high crime area, was not based on a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing and thus violated the Fourth Amendment. It is an important case for Stop and Identify statutes in the United States.[1]

The decision was written by Chief Justice Warren Burger and unanimously supported by the other justices.

This issue was addressed by Republicans 38 years ago...Nice to see you come join the party.
 
Drumcollie said:
Wow you are waaaaaaaaaay late on that subject in Texas. That issue has been discussed as far back as the 70's by Republicans. There have been plenty of democratic administrations that could have changed this in Texas.

Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court determined that the defendant's arrest in El Paso County, Texas for a refusal to identify himself, after being seen and questioned in a high crime area, was not based on a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing and thus violated the Fourth Amendment. It is an important case for Stop and Identify statutes in the United States.[1]

The decision was written by Chief Justice Warren Burger and unanimously supported by the other justices.

This issue was addressed by Republicans 38 years ago...Nice to see you come join the party.
Click to expand...
This is about civil asset forfeiture and not stop and frisk. :0)
 
Arkady said:
One of the issues I'd hope would cross the partisan divide is civil forfeiture. If you've never watched the excellent John Oliver segment on it, I highly recommend doing so:


Civil forfeiture is a bizarre area of law that has grown up outside the normal Constitutional requirement for due process. Police can simply seize a person's property without so much as charging him with a crime, if they suspect he's engaged in illegal behavior. Then, to make matters worse, the police departments are often allowed to keep that property. This creates an incentive for police departments to steal money from ordinary citizens in order to fund their budgets.

The way the courts have reasoned their way around the need for due process is by creating a legal fiction, where it isn't a matter of the government prosecuting a criminal suspect (which would trigger the Constitutional protections afforded to criminal defendants), but instead is a matter of the police suing the property itself, which lacks the same rights. For example, the police will sue your house, instead of bringing charges against you. This then transfers the burden of proof to the person who has had his property stolen by the police -- it's up to him to prove that the property wasn't involved in a crime.... even if the police haven't proven that a crime was even committed.

I say this is an issue that I would hope could cross the partisan divide, because there's a reason to hate civil forfeiture from both a liberal and a conservative perspective. For a liberal, it's a clear due process issue, and it's also a way that authorities prey on poorer and less powerful communities. The authorities aren't going to seize Donald Trump's tower because it was the base of operations for his plan to defraud Trump "University" students. Civil forfeiture doesn't get used against corporate criminals, but instead against those suspected involvement in recreational drugs. Meanwhile, it should also be an issue from a traditional conservative perspective, since it's a way that government has moved beyond its proper Constitutional limits and acquired the ability to feed itself -- thanks to civil forfeiture, government budgets can expand beyond the scope assigned to them by the political process, simply by way of seizing people's money and then spending it on whatever they like. For those who speak so often of liberty and property rights and the dangers of an out-of-control government, civil forfeiture should be an outrage.

Unfortunately, the kinds of people who call themselves "conservative" in this country are typically not traditional conservatives, but rather white supremacists who are fine with civil forfeiture being used, as long as it's confined to keeping the brown people in line. For example, when Trump heard about a Texas senator who was trying to limit civil forfeiture (so that in most cases a criminal conviction was required before the state could seize a person's property), rather than applaud that senator for reigning in an outrageous government abuse, Trump's immediate response was to "joke" about destroying the senators career.

Here's more on civil forfeiture in Texas:

https://www.texasobserver.org/preying-innocent-civil-forfeiture/
Click to expand...


This has elements of the Obamacare mandate.
 
Arkady said:
I don't imagine for a minute I could sway the conservatives here. That's why I stopped coming back for a while. But then I realized I really like rattling the monkey cages, so I returned. That's not going to educate the monkeys, but it's awfully fun listening to them screech.
Click to expand...

Racist Post
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top