How the feds can rip off your property

[avaistheone1]

Gary Hull, Fiscal Times - During a routine traffic stop, the officer asks if you have any cash in the car. “Why, yes,” you say, “$8,000 in business receipts that I’m taking to the bank.” He seizes the money. After months and some $2,000 in legal fees, you might get it back.

An expensive boat that you own free and clear is docked at the local marina. Unbeknownst to you, underage teenagers have been using it at night as their clandestine drinking spot. When the Coast Guard finds out, it seizes your boat for committing the “crime” of contributing to the delinquency of minors. Local law enforcement sells the boat, and keeps the proceeds.

Throughout the country, legions of bureaucrats, DEA agents, and local law enforcement scour the country for lucrative property (and cash) to steal from innocent citizens. They do so under a capricious law known as “civil asset forfeiture” – the bizarre notion that a thing or property “acted wrongly,” and thus is being charged with a crime.

Asset forfeiture is used by federal and state officials to seize cars, boats, cash, houses, businesses – all on the grounds that the asset might have been used or could conceivably be used in the commission of a crime, by someone, somewhere, at some point. The government’s take last year from the 15,000 cases: a cool $2.5 billion.



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[Dawson Leery]

1. The law enforcement community pushes for these laws.

Last edited Thu Oct 11, 2012, 04:09 PM - Edit history (1)

I have never understood why people embrace them. You must hold them at bay.

Here is an example the PIGS stealing private property.

Overpaid bastards!

[SamKnause]

2. No Justice

It is not asset forfeiture.

It is legal theft !!!!

There is no justice in this country.

The judicial system is corrupt to the core.

The police departments are corrupt to the core.

The politicians are corrupt to the core.

The citizens have no where to turn.

[fasttense]

3. Wow, that is crazy.

Too bad they don't use that law on the billionaire bankers and Wall Street firms.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. Smoking a joint in a hotel room will cause the owner of the hotel to lose everything...

...selling fake securities to investors and then running to the government when it turns out they are worthless is considered to be "saving the economy".

[Serve The Servants]

5. Highway robbery in Tennessee...

[HopeHoops]

6. Where's Superman when you need him? This is criminal at the federal, state, and local levels.