Showing posts with label asset forfeiture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label asset forfeiture. Show all posts

Civil Asset Forfeiture Allows For Abuse Of Police Power

by Allison Chavez.    People need to be aware of the practice of civil asset forfeiture and understand their rights when dealing with the police. The police doctrine known as civil asset forfeiture is barbaric and needs to be more strictly regulated. Civil asset forfeiture is essentially an excuse the police employ in order to steal civilians’ property and    ... MORE

Shining A Light On Police Seizures, Civil Forfeitures

by Nick Sibilla and Lauren Krisai.    How a town of 7,000 can build a $4.1 million dollar police station.  Mississippi has some of the strongest protections in the country for private property rights. But those protections are shockingly lax when it comes to a little-known police practice called “civil forfeiture.” Unlike criminal forfeiture,     ... MORE

Asset Forfeiture Steals Due Process Rights

A Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial. On a dark desert highway, a sleek, Navy-blue Ford Explorer forces a car to the side of the road. Armed men emerge from the SUV and demand that the occupants of the car open their trunk. Inside, they find $250,000 in cash. The men take the money, leaving the car's passengers on the roadside. They   ... MORE

Goodbye To 2015, A Year Of Absurdity And Overreach

by George Will.  E.B. White reportedly said "the most beautiful sound in America" is "the tinkle of ice at twilight." In 2015's twilight, fortify yourself with something 90 proof as you remember this year in which: We learned that a dismal threshold has been passed. The value of property that police departments seized through civil asset forfeiture — usually      ... MORE

Force Awakens As Asset-Forfeiture Plunder Is Threatened

by Orange County Register editorial.    The Justice Department gave civil liberties advocates an early Christmas present last week when it announced that it would be suspending indefinitely its “equitable sharing” asset forfeiture program, which notoriously allowed state and local police agencies to bypass restrictions on forfeiture by partnering with  ... MORE

DOJ Suspends Asset Forfeiture Equitable Sharing

by Mikayla Hellwich.    Police currently take more of citizens’ assets than thieves do. The Department of Justice released a memorandum addressed to local, state, and tribal law enforcement agencies Monday to announce that the equitable sharing program for asset forfeiture funds has been temporarily suspended due to financial considerations.    ... MORE

DOJ Suspends Abusive Asset Forfeiture Program – For Now

by Ilya Somin.     On Monday, the Justice Department suspended its abusive “equitable sharing” asset forfeiture program, which incentivizes state and local governments to seize the property of criminal suspects – including many who have never even been charged with any crime, much less convicted. The program enables state law enforcement     ... MORE

Drug Czar Wants More $ To Spend On Taking Your Stuff

by Nick Gillespie.       The Washington Post reports that the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) wants more money "to identify assets, prosecute cases and 'manage the massive paper flow associated with forfeiture.'"   Asset-forfeiture, in which law enforcement seizes property, cash, and goods that it says is connected to drug      ... MORE

Charles P. Pierce: That Whole "License To Steal" Thing

Civil forfeiture is a civil shitshow.       There was a very interesting statistic that popped earlier this month as regards criminals and criminal justice in the United States. According to economist Martin Armstrong, in 2014, the police seized through civil forfeiture more of the property of their fellow citizens than was stolen by all the burglars in the    ... MORE

Civil Forfeiture Laws: It’s Mine, Until The Police Take It

by Paul Samakow.        Civil forfeiture laws allow police in just about every state to take citizens’ property, including cash, cars, electronics, even houses, without due process, simply by stating they believe the taken property was somehow involved in a criminal activity. Property can be legally taken without any charges being placed, without an    ... MORE

John Kerr: Take Profit And Self-Interest Out Of Policing

All theft should be illegal.  Law enforcement officials have plenty of words to categorize property heists, including robbery, theft, burglary, embezzlement and larceny. Perhaps it’s time to add another term to the lexicon: civil forfeiture. Many Americans may not realize that civil forfeiture laws—which proliferated in the 1980s as the drug war   ... MORE

Jason Snead: Why Police In Many States Can Seize Your Property Without Proving You’re Guilty Of A Crime

Politicians use cops to legally hold up citizens.      Civil asset forfeiture is a growing problem throughout the nation, driven by a profit incentive that encourages property seizures by law enforcement authorities even under dubious circumstances. That is the inescapable conclusion of the second iteration of Policing for Profit:        ... MORE

The Cops Now Steal More Property Than The Burglars

The incentives of civil asset forfeiture.   For decades now, federal government and their cohorts in law enforcement have been carrying out theft of the citizenry on a massive scale. We’re not talking about taxes, but an insidious power known as Civil Asset Forfeiture (CAF). The 1980’s-era laws were designed to drain resources from powerful     ... MORE

Supreme Court Considers Boundaries For Legalized Theft

by Doug Mataconis.    How much of your stuff can government without conviction of a crime? Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Luis v. United States, a case that deals with the issue of whether, and when, the government can seize assets prior to conviction when those assets are being used to pay for a Defendant’s criminal defense:   ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: The Real Issues That You Won't Hear From The 2016 Presidential Candidates This Election Year

Government's stealth tyranny.    We now have less than one year until the 2016 presidential election. Despite the dire state of our nation, however, you can rest assured that none of the problems that continue to undermine our freedoms will be addressed in any credible way by the presidential candidates—certainly not if doing so might        ... MORE

John W Whitehead: The Real Issues You Won't Hear From The 2016 Presidential Candidates This Election Year

The tyranny behind the curtain.   We now have less than one year until the 2016 presidential election.  Despite the dire state of our nation, however, you can rest assured that none of the problems that continue to undermine our freedoms will be addressed in any credible way by the presidential candidates—certainly not if doing so might      ... MORE

VIDEO: 3 Supreme Court Cases To Watch

Paul Albaugh: The Need for Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform

Because theft should not be a legal activity.    Among the many reforms needed in government, civil asset forfeiture might be near the top. While a majority of Americans are not affected by the practice, it’s a problem that if left unchecked could get more out of hand than it already is. The French philosopher Frederic Bastiat warned of “legal   ... MORE