4 ms·

Civil forfeiture laws in the US. I don't feel safe carrying a reasonable amount of cash. Here the police can just rob me, and now I'm guilty until proven innoce

Civil forfeiture laws in the US. I don't feel safe carrying a reasonable amount of cash. Here the police can just rob me, and now I'm guilty until proven innocent. In DC it costs up to $2500 for the right to challenge a police seizure in court, it's complex, expensive and it can take years.

khuey 11y ago
Realistically, if your choices are the police who might rob you, and bankers that will rob you ...
sremani 11y ago
Technically, the cash is guilty not you.
- a3n 11y ago
  I guess if cash is speech then cash can be a person too. Can I send my cash to jury duty? :)
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    I think that we can skip the middle layer wetware and just elect cash president. With the (multi) billion campaign season that comes - who is in charge will be just a formality. Side note - how amazingly high ROI you got with donations to politicians - for a couple of hundred of million - you get people that oversee and direct the 3-4 trillion dollar federal budget (scale to state level too).
ams6110 11y ago
It rarely happens. Like cops shooting unarmed people in the back, it isn't something that you really need to worry about.
- TDL 11y ago
  Even if it's (asset forfeiture) a statistically rare event, we have to worry about it because it is a deeply corruptive practice. Asset forfeiture goes against much of the philosophical underpinnings of this nation.
- eevilspock 11y ago
  sadly, ams6110, HN is allergic to sarcasm.
rhino369 11y ago
You are way more likely to get stuck up by a mugger (aka the real cash risk). But 2500 is insane. Is it really that much? Or does that include attorneys fees.
- akshatpradhan 11y ago
  >You are way more likely to get stuck up by a mugger (aka the real cash risk). Can you provide citations? Thanks!
  - jonas21 11y ago
    There were an estimated 345,031 robberies in the US in 2013, of which 42.5%, or about 146,000, were street/highway robberies (muggings) [1]. For the 13 years between Sept. 2001 and Sept. 2014, the Washington Post analyzed records from the DOJ and found 61,998 civil forfeiture cases "that were not made at businesses and that occurred without warrants or indictments". This is around 4,770 per year. [2] Neither of these are broken down by location, race, etc. so your particular circumstances may vary, but at the aggregate level, you're about 30 times more likely to be mugged than to have assets seized at a traffic stop. [1] https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/violent-crime/robbery-topic-page https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/... [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/08/they-fought-the-law-who-won/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/08/th...
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      Wow, but I don't expect my public servants to stick me up. Something terribly twisted about that.
      - jonas21 11y ago
        Yeah, and I don't mean to defend civil forfeiture at all. It's a very troubling practice. But it is interesting to see how far off we can be at evaluating the risk of various things happening.

khuey 11y ago

Realistically, if your choices are the police who might rob you, and bankers that will rob you ...

sremani 11y ago

Technically, the cash is guilty not you.

a3n 11y ago
I guess if cash is speech then cash can be a person too. Can I send my cash to jury duty? :)
- venomsnake 11y ago
  I think that we can skip the middle layer wetware and just elect cash president. With the (multi) billion campaign season that comes - who is in charge will be just a formality. Side note - how amazingly high ROI you got with donations to politicians - for a couple of hundred of million - you get people that oversee and direct the 3-4 trillion dollar federal budget (scale to state level too).

ams6110 11y ago

It rarely happens. Like cops shooting unarmed people in the back, it isn't something that you really need to worry about.

TDL 11y ago
Even if it's (asset forfeiture) a statistically rare event, we have to worry about it because it is a deeply corruptive practice. Asset forfeiture goes against much of the philosophical underpinnings of this nation.
eevilspock 11y ago
sadly, ams6110, HN is allergic to sarcasm.

rhino369 11y ago

You are way more likely to get stuck up by a mugger (aka the real cash risk). But 2500 is insane. Is it really that much? Or does that include attorneys fees.

akshatpradhan 11y ago
>You are way more likely to get stuck up by a mugger (aka the real cash risk). Can you provide citations? Thanks!
- jonas21 11y ago
  There were an estimated 345,031 robberies in the US in 2013, of which 42.5%, or about 146,000, were street/highway robberies (muggings) [1]. For the 13 years between Sept. 2001 and Sept. 2014, the Washington Post analyzed records from the DOJ and found 61,998 civil forfeiture cases "that were not made at businesses and that occurred without warrants or indictments". This is around 4,770 per year. [2] Neither of these are broken down by location, race, etc. so your particular circumstances may vary, but at the aggregate level, you're about 30 times more likely to be mugged than to have assets seized at a traffic stop. [1] https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/violent-crime/robbery-topic-page https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/... [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/08/they-fought-the-law-who-won/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/08/th...
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Wow, but I don't expect my public servants to stick me up. Something terribly twisted about that.
    - jonas21 11y ago
      Yeah, and I don't mean to defend civil forfeiture at all. It's a very troubling practice. But it is interesting to see how far off we can be at evaluating the risk of various things happening.