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Judge orders Wyoming to return $92k seized by officers

186 points by warrenm 9y ago

turblety 9y ago
[deleted]
- turc1656 9y ago
  Civil Asset Forfeiture has nothing to do with Trump. This outright theft of money and other assets during traffic stops has been going on for years. It was originally enacted to help deal with gangs and drug dealers who tend not to use banks for obvious reasons. This would allow law enforcement to seize the cash, drugs, cars, etc. to help suppress their illegal operations by confiscating their capital and equipment/vehicles. It has since been perverted into the kind of travesty this article details. Personally, I don't even support Civil Asset Forfeiture on any level because it seems to violate every notion of property rights as well as some basic human rights that we supposedly believe here in America. EDIT: my reference to Trump was in regards to OP's reference, which has now been edited out.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- dang 9y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. If there's any kind of discussion we most don't want here, it must be that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
slazaro 9y ago
Every time I hear about asset forfeiture I can't believe this is legal. It just blows my mind.
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Just another reminder that there is no rule of law in the USA; its judicial system is an arm of oppression, not service. There's nothing we as individuals can do about it besides acknowledging the illegitimacy of laws and abiding by a basic empathetic moral code, but don't kid yourself about how that will be treated. If you feel like a law is wrong, look at why it was passed. There might be reasoning you aren't thinking of, like environmental damages. If you still feel like it's wrong, look at how likely the action it forbids is to hurt someone else by intent or accident. If you feel like that's extremely unlikely, and don't think you'll get caught, break that law! Part of civil disobedience is acknowledging that you may get caught and punished. But in doing so, you are riding on the fact that the punishment is arbitrary and offensive, which would rally people in support of you if it is carried out. At least, that's the idea. The real problem comes when your government is more than happy to simply arrest/beat/shoot people until they quiet down.
  - adventured 9y ago
    Fortunately you're wrong. In reality, the US is one of the 20 least corrupt nations on the planet, on par with Ireland and Japan and less corrupt than France. It has very strong property protection laws, which is both why the judge returned the money (naturally that would happen in a nation with no rule of law huh), and why the Obama Administration took important steps to neuter civil asset forfeiture abuse. Can more be done to fully end the abuse? Of course. https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016 https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_percept... The US also has rare universal Congressional support for ending civil asset forfeiture abuses. Jeff Sessions undid some of the fixes the Obama Administration made; it turns out that might have been ideal, as Congress is now going to put it down for good by law. Sept 2017: "In Surprise Vote, House Passes Amendment to Restrict Asset Forfeiture" "The amendment passed with a voice vote, meaning it had overwhelming support." https://theintercept.com/2017/09/12/in-surprise-vote-house-passes-amendment-to-restrict-asset-forfeiture/ https://theintercept.com/2017/09/12/in-surprise-vote-house-p... Nov 2017: "A bipartisan group of senators wants to defund Attorney General Jeff Sessions' expansion of the Justice Department's civil asset forfeiture program, following similar efforts by libertarian-leaning and progressive members of the House earlier this year." http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/08/senators-press-for-defunding-of-jeff-ses http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/08/senators-press-for-defundi...
coffee9 9y ago
Well it is suspicious to be driving around with $92k in cash.
- turc1656 9y ago
  Yes, it's highly unusual. Doesn't mean that every time someone does something that others don't understand the cops should step in and take their property in what is essentially legalized armed robbery. What if you were going to a casino and brought a few thousand dollars with you and got pulled over. People do that all the time. The cop notices a wad of cash in an envelope. Tells you you must be a drug dealer with all that cash and then just takes it. Any resistance to this results in you in cuffs and under arrest (or worse).
  - jetti 9y ago
    >What if you were going to a casino and brought a few thousand dollars with you and got pulled over. People do that all the time. The cop notices a wad of cash in an envelope. Tells you you must be a drug dealer with all that cash and then just takes it. Any resistance to this results in you in cuffs and under arrest (or worse). I sometimes take money out of my savings to put into my checking account to pay unexpected bills. Because my credit union (where my savings is) doesn't allow for online transfers I have to go in. I have a fear driving the 5 minutes from the credit union to a branch of my normal bank that I'll get pulled over and have the money taken. I end up hiding the envelop under seats so it isn't visible.
    - turc1656 9y ago
      Totally understandable. And it's a sad state of affairs when that's something an average citizen has to worry about when you're talking about legally obtained and owned money. Have you thought about a bank check? Pretty much every bank charges a fee for this. It's possible a credit union doesn't, but I suspect they probably still do. If this is a recurring transaction you do, then the fees will add up. But if it's not that frequent, this might be a good option for you. To protect yourself even further, I would fill out the To: on the check to yourself. In the past I have used "cash" to make it payable to whomever wishes to cash the bank check for convenience, but if you are just transferring between your own accounts, just put your name on it. I can't see any way an officer would be able to deposit that check on behalf of their department, even if they were crazy enough to confiscate it, which seems highly unlikely given that it's very hard to argue that such money which is going through the banking system is being used for illegal purposes. Even if it was, it's damn near impossible to prove they had any reasonable belief of that based on the information available to them at the time of the stop.
j_s 9y ago
I must be missing something -- what did TechDirt add to the original article?
- dang 9y ago
  Ok, we've changed the url from https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171202/15391338726/judge-hands-back-92000-taken-musician-cops-failing-to-buckle-his-seatbelt.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171202/15391338726/judge... to the news article it points to.
  - warrenm 9y ago
    That's kinda dumb: the techdirt article added quite a bit to the original story
- stronglikedan 9y ago
  The ability for their users to discuss it - the exact same thing that HN adds to articles - plus an opinion piece to start the conversation. Although the direct link to the article is better for the HN discussion.
- warrenm 9y ago
  More context, other links, etc
mywittyname 9y ago
Any word on damages?
turc1656 9y ago
This is a prime example of why you never answer questions like this from police. Give them nothing and they have nothing to twist against you. In a rigged system, the best option is to not play whenever possible.
- jstarfish 9y ago
  He didn't answer their questions though. He did not give them permission to search the car. He refused, so they brought in a dog, (supposedly) made it act like it found drugs, and used that as probable cause to conduct a search.
  - turc1656 9y ago
    I think the link was updated. There is more information than was previously available. It includes more details now. Either way, my statement still stands. Whether or not it would have made a difference in this particular instance isn't important. What's important is that you should never offer up any information to uniformed officers without a very good reason to do so. Playing nice may or may not get you a break on some minor traffic violation if the officer is in a good mood, but I'd much rather be viewed an a polite but uncooperative, rights-loving hard-ass...because it just might save me one day. As a matter of fact, it already has. I had a major police event earlier this year that came to be because I pulled my own car off the main road late at night because I have an old car and it was making a strange noise (and the main road had no shoulder). There was a cop hiding down this road and immediately approached me and then called for backup (for no reason) and 4 cars and 6 officers in total were there harassing me for almost an hour. Telling me first that I was drunk. Then telling me that I am a drug dealer there to meet someone. Then telling me that I was a drug user there instead to buy drugs. None of which was true. I even played nice and explained why I actually pulled off the main road in an attempt to expedite the stop. They didn't believe and once it became clear they were out to screw me over any way they could, I stopped talking. Then they asked me to perform sobriety tests, which I refused. They eventually let me go free and with no tickets (because it wasn't a traffic stop to begin with). If you're wondering why I refused the sobriety test - it's because I know those tests are used to justify the breathalyzer and other things like searches (which can lead to confiscation of property). I know this because I had a friend years ago who drank nothing, blew a .00 and was arrested because "if it's not alcohol, you must be on something else so we're taking you in to take your blood and have it tested". My friend got arrested, spent the night in jail, and then had to pay a lawyer to show up to court to have his case dismissed even though everything came back squeaky clean. They would have done the same with me. Never give them an inch to work with. I'll take the $25 tickets in the meantime if that's the price of possibly avoiding major litigation at some point.
dumbfounder 9y ago
One more reason we need cryptocurrency. Asset forfeiture is incentive for the police to steal. Given the wrong incentives, even to the best of people, you will get the wrong outcome.
- lawn 9y ago
  You're getting downvoted but you have a good point. You can seize cryptocurrencies as well but it will be harder to force someone to give up their password/pin. If they even manage to find your wallet which is much easier to hide than a stack of 92k cash.
  - squegles 9y ago
    If they manage to 'seize' your encrypted wallet, you can restore your backup on another device and move your crypto elsewhere.
    - sjy 9y ago
      The FBI transfers seized cryptocurrency to its own wallet to prevent this: https://www.wired.com/2013/12/fbi_wallet/ https://www.wired.com/2013/12/fbi_wallet/
      - lawn 9y ago
        They would need to break your encryption first.
- warrenm 9y ago
  Scheier just had a post on why "Cryptocurrency" is a stupid name - https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/12/crypto_is_being.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/12/crypto_is_bei...
danschumann 9y ago
Having money is not suspicious. I'm sick of agencies acting as self-propagating thieves. The whole drug war needs to end.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  Well, having tens of thousands of dollars hidden in a speaker is suspicious. But it seems that there is a verifiable story to go along with it
  - haZard_OS 9y ago
    Even without a story to go along with it, engaging in "suspicious" activity is no cause for having your property stripped from you without due process.
  - markkanof 9y ago
    There is nothing suspicious about it. You might say it's abnormal given that the majority of people choose to keep their money in a bank, but it's not suspicious to merely keep money in an unusual place.
- Shivetya 9y ago
  I posted a story before, they can invent drugs and such and bust you for falling for it. https://www.cato.org/blog/stash-house-stings-when-government-can-invent-crimes-criminals https://www.cato.org/blog/stash-house-stings-when-government... with regards to asset forfeiture the police routinely take property that does not belong to the criminal but from relatives and friends who can rightfully claim innocence and lack of knowledge. Simple reason is they prey on the poor
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    In other places that's called entrapment, the article makes the distinction that only the first party directly in contact with LEOs can make that claim and everybody else can't. Pretty cheap, but they have to keep those prisons filled somehow. Interesting detail how the invented amount changes the sentencing. Very creative. /s
zik 9y ago
Where are the criminal charges against the officers? When the worst that can happen as the result of a theft is there's an outside chance that you might have to give the money back and there'll be no negative repercussions why wouldn't you keep on stealing?
- tantalor 9y ago
  Don't hold your breath, they were doing their job.
  - SauciestGNU 9y ago
    If this is their job then the entire institution of policing is irredeemably flawed and we ought to scrap it. If these officers were acting outside of the law then they should be fired and charged with a crime.
    - exelius 9y ago
      > If this is their job then the entire institution of policing is irredeemably flawed and we ought to scrap it. Our main problem as a society is that half the country believes the above, and the other half believes that the half that isn't them are all lawless savages who need order imposed by a heavy hand. This can't end well.
      - jMyles 9y ago
        > Our main problem as a society is that half the country believes the above, and the other half believes that the half that isn't them are all lawless savages who need order imposed by a heavy hand. I have just completed an 18-month tour of the country by land (thisisthebus.com). I've met people from every corner of the land and talked politics, technology, religion, and all sorts of other things with literally hundreds, probably a couple thousand, at urban watering holes, suburban campfires, and rural churches. Please point me to the place where I might find the latter half of the population you've described. From the Everglades to the Oregon Coast, from the desert to the Hudson Valley, I've searched long and hard and haven't found them. Everybody in this country wants peace. And a chance for their families to live in harmony in their communities. Nobody - (excuse my language) fucking nobody - wants two million people in prison. Nobody.
VeronicaJJ123 9y ago
This is the reason why I sympathize with drug dealers more than law enforcement officers.
cr0sh 9y ago
While I agree that this seizure of money wasn't right, and shouldn't have happened, one does have to wonder about the guy... ...has he never heard of safe deposit boxes? It sounds like he works strictly on cash. Usually, to get a safe deposit box, you have to have an account with the bank you are getting one at (and there might be other restrictions as well). If he didn't have a checking account and couldn't meet any other restrictions, then he couldn't get the box. But once you had the box, you could put the money in it, and not really worry about it. I just don't know why he didn't do this. It certainly couldn't have been lack of funds. He had more than enough to open an account, and pay for one year on a box big enough to hold the rest of the money. So if he didn't do this - why? One good reason I can think of might be - operating with cash only - not paying income taxes. Sadly, his efforts at getting his cash back will likely cause him more problems with the IRS down the road. He really didn't think this whole thing through, and it ultimately caught up with him. Of course, the fact that he wasn't wearing his seatbelt, against a law which makes it a crime of some manner in just about every state (save one), and it's also a federal law - all says something about his being ill prepared.
- jstarfish 9y ago
  FWIW, cash is not FDIC insured while in a safe deposit box. And it doesn't solve his "problem" of how to safely move it around without getting it seized.
downandout 9y ago
These stories make my blood boil, as they should all other people. The worst part of it is that people like to think that most police officers are good people just doing their jobs. However, their job is NOT supposed to involve stealing people’s life savings. I can’t see how any cop doing civil forfeitures, except in cases with extreme proof, (known drug dealer, drugs in the car, etc.) has any redeeming qualities as a human being. The officers involved in this and thousands of other cases are worse than the criminals they are paid to pursue - they are nothing more than armed members of a gang that conducts highway robberies.
- exelius 9y ago
  I find a lot of it is selection bias -- because the police generally interact with criminals, they come to view the whole population as criminal. Do it long enough, you start to get jaded and ask yourself "why do I follow the law when all these people break it with few consequences?" Also see the effects of the "thin blue line" eroding institutional morality... it's easy to get to a place where we are -- even white people in America no longer trust the police.
  - icantdrive55 9y ago
    I've know more than a few cops, and they all broke laws. I've been in a passenger car, where the driver(off duty Cop) is way over .08, and all all it takes is a flash of the badge. If you become a cop in America--you can break laws. Only the really stupid ones get caught. I don't belive it's the job, it's the system, and training. It should be federally licensed, and require more than a high school diploma, and a bad attitude. And let's be honest. Most areas in the USA do not need badily trained paramilitary cops. They are essentially Revenue Collectors in most municipalities.
- Voyage_wanderer 9y ago
  In other countries it is called corruption. In US the current Atorney General called for expansion of civil forfeiture recently... https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/sessions-forfeiture-justice-department-civil/534168/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/session...
noarchy 9y ago
At the very least, we should try to control the vocabulary here. Instead of using their terms (like "seize" or "asset forfeiture"), we should call this theft, robbery, and so forth, to reflect what's happening. Those would make for very different headlines.
- imcoconut 9y ago
  Could not agree with this more.
- justinjlynn 9y ago
  Indeed, a seizure is a justified theft of personal or corporate property by an agent of the state. If it's not justified, then it's theft pure and simple.
  - marcoperaza 9y ago
    If you are acquitted after being arrested, does that make your arrest a kidnapping? The government ultimately has to prove its case in court, but they can’t predict with certainty how a judge and jury will rule. If they lose, they give the money back.
    - hajile 9y ago
      You can be detained on reasonable suspicion (a nebulous legal term), but you cannot be arrested without probable cause. If you are arrested without probable cause, you can sue and win. If an officer had probable cause that someone was smuggling money, they would never have a civil asset forfeiture -- it would be a criminal case from start to finish. The fact that the law was designed to end run around constitutional protections speaks volumes about it and its authors.
    - Veratyr 9y ago
      > If you are acquitted after being arrested, does that make your arrest a kidnapping? If the officers have no reason to suspect that you actually committed a crime and arrest you solely for their own gain, then yes, it's a kidnapping. The problem here is that there's no evidence showing that assets should be "forfeited", cops are stealing people's stuff because they can.
greggarious 9y ago
Is there a lower bound on how much cash is "suspicious" under these laws? I feel like it's only a matter of time until some enterprising department sets up along one of the routes leading into Las Vegas and makes a killing. "Who carries around a thousand dollars in their wallet? Obvious drug money!"
- jstarfish 9y ago
  > Is there a lower bound on how much cash is "suspicious" under these laws? $100. And even then it depends on your skin color and where this is being called into question. It's more plausible to have $10000 in your pocket in Vegas than $1000 in the South Bronx.
0xWilliam 9y ago
Why is this here? On HackerNews? Since we are on the topic why are there more and more political stories on hackernews?
ringaroundthetx 9y ago
Starting to think those 50 pesos the Mexican police took from me were civilly seized as part of an investigation I'm unaware of. I must have like a dozen civil asset forfeiture cases open in Mexico.

186 points by warrenm 9y ago

turblety 9y ago

[deleted]

turc1656 9y ago
Civil Asset Forfeiture has nothing to do with Trump. This outright theft of money and other assets during traffic stops has been going on for years. It was originally enacted to help deal with gangs and drug dealers who tend not to use banks for obvious reasons. This would allow law enforcement to seize the cash, drugs, cars, etc. to help suppress their illegal operations by confiscating their capital and equipment/vehicles. It has since been perverted into the kind of travesty this article details. Personally, I don't even support Civil Asset Forfeiture on any level because it seems to violate every notion of property rights as well as some basic human rights that we supposedly believe here in America. EDIT: my reference to Trump was in regards to OP's reference, which has now been edited out.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
dang 9y ago
Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. If there's any kind of discussion we most don't want here, it must be that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

slazaro 9y ago

Every time I hear about asset forfeiture I can't believe this is legal. It just blows my mind.

leggomylibro 9y ago
Just another reminder that there is no rule of law in the USA; its judicial system is an arm of oppression, not service. There's nothing we as individuals can do about it besides acknowledging the illegitimacy of laws and abiding by a basic empathetic moral code, but don't kid yourself about how that will be treated. If you feel like a law is wrong, look at why it was passed. There might be reasoning you aren't thinking of, like environmental damages. If you still feel like it's wrong, look at how likely the action it forbids is to hurt someone else by intent or accident. If you feel like that's extremely unlikely, and don't think you'll get caught, break that law! Part of civil disobedience is acknowledging that you may get caught and punished. But in doing so, you are riding on the fact that the punishment is arbitrary and offensive, which would rally people in support of you if it is carried out. At least, that's the idea. The real problem comes when your government is more than happy to simply arrest/beat/shoot people until they quiet down.
- adventured 9y ago
  Fortunately you're wrong. In reality, the US is one of the 20 least corrupt nations on the planet, on par with Ireland and Japan and less corrupt than France. It has very strong property protection laws, which is both why the judge returned the money (naturally that would happen in a nation with no rule of law huh), and why the Obama Administration took important steps to neuter civil asset forfeiture abuse. Can more be done to fully end the abuse? Of course. https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016 https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_percept... The US also has rare universal Congressional support for ending civil asset forfeiture abuses. Jeff Sessions undid some of the fixes the Obama Administration made; it turns out that might have been ideal, as Congress is now going to put it down for good by law. Sept 2017: "In Surprise Vote, House Passes Amendment to Restrict Asset Forfeiture" "The amendment passed with a voice vote, meaning it had overwhelming support." https://theintercept.com/2017/09/12/in-surprise-vote-house-passes-amendment-to-restrict-asset-forfeiture/ https://theintercept.com/2017/09/12/in-surprise-vote-house-p... Nov 2017: "A bipartisan group of senators wants to defund Attorney General Jeff Sessions' expansion of the Justice Department's civil asset forfeiture program, following similar efforts by libertarian-leaning and progressive members of the House earlier this year." http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/08/senators-press-for-defunding-of-jeff-ses http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/08/senators-press-for-defundi...

coffee9 9y ago

Well it is suspicious to be driving around with $92k in cash.

turc1656 9y ago
Yes, it's highly unusual. Doesn't mean that every time someone does something that others don't understand the cops should step in and take their property in what is essentially legalized armed robbery. What if you were going to a casino and brought a few thousand dollars with you and got pulled over. People do that all the time. The cop notices a wad of cash in an envelope. Tells you you must be a drug dealer with all that cash and then just takes it. Any resistance to this results in you in cuffs and under arrest (or worse).
- jetti 9y ago
  >What if you were going to a casino and brought a few thousand dollars with you and got pulled over. People do that all the time. The cop notices a wad of cash in an envelope. Tells you you must be a drug dealer with all that cash and then just takes it. Any resistance to this results in you in cuffs and under arrest (or worse). I sometimes take money out of my savings to put into my checking account to pay unexpected bills. Because my credit union (where my savings is) doesn't allow for online transfers I have to go in. I have a fear driving the 5 minutes from the credit union to a branch of my normal bank that I'll get pulled over and have the money taken. I end up hiding the envelop under seats so it isn't visible.
  - turc1656 9y ago
    Totally understandable. And it's a sad state of affairs when that's something an average citizen has to worry about when you're talking about legally obtained and owned money. Have you thought about a bank check? Pretty much every bank charges a fee for this. It's possible a credit union doesn't, but I suspect they probably still do. If this is a recurring transaction you do, then the fees will add up. But if it's not that frequent, this might be a good option for you. To protect yourself even further, I would fill out the To: on the check to yourself. In the past I have used "cash" to make it payable to whomever wishes to cash the bank check for convenience, but if you are just transferring between your own accounts, just put your name on it. I can't see any way an officer would be able to deposit that check on behalf of their department, even if they were crazy enough to confiscate it, which seems highly unlikely given that it's very hard to argue that such money which is going through the banking system is being used for illegal purposes. Even if it was, it's damn near impossible to prove they had any reasonable belief of that based on the information available to them at the time of the stop.

j_s 9y ago

I must be missing something -- what did TechDirt add to the original article?

dang 9y ago
Ok, we've changed the url from https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171202/15391338726/judge-hands-back-92000-taken-musician-cops-failing-to-buckle-his-seatbelt.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171202/15391338726/judge... to the news article it points to.
- warrenm 9y ago
  That's kinda dumb: the techdirt article added quite a bit to the original story
stronglikedan 9y ago
The ability for their users to discuss it - the exact same thing that HN adds to articles - plus an opinion piece to start the conversation. Although the direct link to the article is better for the HN discussion.
warrenm 9y ago
More context, other links, etc

mywittyname 9y ago

Any word on damages?

turc1656 9y ago

This is a prime example of why you never answer questions like this from police. Give them nothing and they have nothing to twist against you. In a rigged system, the best option is to not play whenever possible.

jstarfish 9y ago
He didn't answer their questions though. He did not give them permission to search the car. He refused, so they brought in a dog, (supposedly) made it act like it found drugs, and used that as probable cause to conduct a search.
- turc1656 9y ago
  I think the link was updated. There is more information than was previously available. It includes more details now. Either way, my statement still stands. Whether or not it would have made a difference in this particular instance isn't important. What's important is that you should never offer up any information to uniformed officers without a very good reason to do so. Playing nice may or may not get you a break on some minor traffic violation if the officer is in a good mood, but I'd much rather be viewed an a polite but uncooperative, rights-loving hard-ass...because it just might save me one day. As a matter of fact, it already has. I had a major police event earlier this year that came to be because I pulled my own car off the main road late at night because I have an old car and it was making a strange noise (and the main road had no shoulder). There was a cop hiding down this road and immediately approached me and then called for backup (for no reason) and 4 cars and 6 officers in total were there harassing me for almost an hour. Telling me first that I was drunk. Then telling me that I am a drug dealer there to meet someone. Then telling me that I was a drug user there instead to buy drugs. None of which was true. I even played nice and explained why I actually pulled off the main road in an attempt to expedite the stop. They didn't believe and once it became clear they were out to screw me over any way they could, I stopped talking. Then they asked me to perform sobriety tests, which I refused. They eventually let me go free and with no tickets (because it wasn't a traffic stop to begin with). If you're wondering why I refused the sobriety test - it's because I know those tests are used to justify the breathalyzer and other things like searches (which can lead to confiscation of property). I know this because I had a friend years ago who drank nothing, blew a .00 and was arrested because "if it's not alcohol, you must be on something else so we're taking you in to take your blood and have it tested". My friend got arrested, spent the night in jail, and then had to pay a lawyer to show up to court to have his case dismissed even though everything came back squeaky clean. They would have done the same with me. Never give them an inch to work with. I'll take the $25 tickets in the meantime if that's the price of possibly avoiding major litigation at some point.

dumbfounder 9y ago

One more reason we need cryptocurrency. Asset forfeiture is incentive for the police to steal. Given the wrong incentives, even to the best of people, you will get the wrong outcome.

lawn 9y ago
You're getting downvoted but you have a good point. You can seize cryptocurrencies as well but it will be harder to force someone to give up their password/pin. If they even manage to find your wallet which is much easier to hide than a stack of 92k cash.
- squegles 9y ago
  If they manage to 'seize' your encrypted wallet, you can restore your backup on another device and move your crypto elsewhere.
  - sjy 9y ago
    The FBI transfers seized cryptocurrency to its own wallet to prevent this: https://www.wired.com/2013/12/fbi_wallet/ https://www.wired.com/2013/12/fbi_wallet/
    - lawn 9y ago
      They would need to break your encryption first.
warrenm 9y ago
Scheier just had a post on why "Cryptocurrency" is a stupid name - https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/12/crypto_is_being.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/12/crypto_is_bei...

danschumann 9y ago

Having money is not suspicious. I'm sick of agencies acting as self-propagating thieves. The whole drug war needs to end.

oh_sigh 9y ago
Well, having tens of thousands of dollars hidden in a speaker is suspicious. But it seems that there is a verifiable story to go along with it
- haZard_OS 9y ago
  Even without a story to go along with it, engaging in "suspicious" activity is no cause for having your property stripped from you without due process.
- markkanof 9y ago
  There is nothing suspicious about it. You might say it's abnormal given that the majority of people choose to keep their money in a bank, but it's not suspicious to merely keep money in an unusual place.
Shivetya 9y ago
I posted a story before, they can invent drugs and such and bust you for falling for it. https://www.cato.org/blog/stash-house-stings-when-government-can-invent-crimes-criminals https://www.cato.org/blog/stash-house-stings-when-government... with regards to asset forfeiture the police routinely take property that does not belong to the criminal but from relatives and friends who can rightfully claim innocence and lack of knowledge. Simple reason is they prey on the poor
- jacquesm 9y ago
  In other places that's called entrapment, the article makes the distinction that only the first party directly in contact with LEOs can make that claim and everybody else can't. Pretty cheap, but they have to keep those prisons filled somehow. Interesting detail how the invented amount changes the sentencing. Very creative. /s

zik 9y ago

Where are the criminal charges against the officers? When the worst that can happen as the result of a theft is there's an outside chance that you might have to give the money back and there'll be no negative repercussions why wouldn't you keep on stealing?

tantalor 9y ago
Don't hold your breath, they were doing their job.
- SauciestGNU 9y ago
  If this is their job then the entire institution of policing is irredeemably flawed and we ought to scrap it. If these officers were acting outside of the law then they should be fired and charged with a crime.
  - exelius 9y ago
    > If this is their job then the entire institution of policing is irredeemably flawed and we ought to scrap it. Our main problem as a society is that half the country believes the above, and the other half believes that the half that isn't them are all lawless savages who need order imposed by a heavy hand. This can't end well.
    - jMyles 9y ago
      > Our main problem as a society is that half the country believes the above, and the other half believes that the half that isn't them are all lawless savages who need order imposed by a heavy hand. I have just completed an 18-month tour of the country by land (thisisthebus.com). I've met people from every corner of the land and talked politics, technology, religion, and all sorts of other things with literally hundreds, probably a couple thousand, at urban watering holes, suburban campfires, and rural churches. Please point me to the place where I might find the latter half of the population you've described. From the Everglades to the Oregon Coast, from the desert to the Hudson Valley, I've searched long and hard and haven't found them. Everybody in this country wants peace. And a chance for their families to live in harmony in their communities. Nobody - (excuse my language) fucking nobody - wants two million people in prison. Nobody.

VeronicaJJ123 9y ago

This is the reason why I sympathize with drug dealers more than law enforcement officers.

cr0sh 9y ago

While I agree that this seizure of money wasn't right, and shouldn't have happened, one does have to wonder about the guy... ...has he never heard of safe deposit boxes? It sounds like he works strictly on cash. Usually, to get a safe deposit box, you have to have an account with the bank you are getting one at (and there might be other restrictions as well). If he didn't have a checking account and couldn't meet any other restrictions, then he couldn't get the box. But once you had the box, you could put the money in it, and not really worry about it. I just don't know why he didn't do this. It certainly couldn't have been lack of funds. He had more than enough to open an account, and pay for one year on a box big enough to hold the rest of the money. So if he didn't do this - why? One good reason I can think of might be - operating with cash only - not paying income taxes. Sadly, his efforts at getting his cash back will likely cause him more problems with the IRS down the road. He really didn't think this whole thing through, and it ultimately caught up with him. Of course, the fact that he wasn't wearing his seatbelt, against a law which makes it a crime of some manner in just about every state (save one), and it's also a federal law - all says something about his being ill prepared.

jstarfish 9y ago
FWIW, cash is not FDIC insured while in a safe deposit box. And it doesn't solve his "problem" of how to safely move it around without getting it seized.

downandout 9y ago

These stories make my blood boil, as they should all other people. The worst part of it is that people like to think that most police officers are good people just doing their jobs. However, their job is NOT supposed to involve stealing people’s life savings. I can’t see how any cop doing civil forfeitures, except in cases with extreme proof, (known drug dealer, drugs in the car, etc.) has any redeeming qualities as a human being. The officers involved in this and thousands of other cases are worse than the criminals they are paid to pursue - they are nothing more than armed members of a gang that conducts highway robberies.

exelius 9y ago
I find a lot of it is selection bias -- because the police generally interact with criminals, they come to view the whole population as criminal. Do it long enough, you start to get jaded and ask yourself "why do I follow the law when all these people break it with few consequences?" Also see the effects of the "thin blue line" eroding institutional morality... it's easy to get to a place where we are -- even white people in America no longer trust the police.
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  I've know more than a few cops, and they all broke laws. I've been in a passenger car, where the driver(off duty Cop) is way over .08, and all all it takes is a flash of the badge. If you become a cop in America--you can break laws. Only the really stupid ones get caught. I don't belive it's the job, it's the system, and training. It should be federally licensed, and require more than a high school diploma, and a bad attitude. And let's be honest. Most areas in the USA do not need badily trained paramilitary cops. They are essentially Revenue Collectors in most municipalities.
Voyage_wanderer 9y ago
In other countries it is called corruption. In US the current Atorney General called for expansion of civil forfeiture recently... https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/sessions-forfeiture-justice-department-civil/534168/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/session...

noarchy 9y ago

At the very least, we should try to control the vocabulary here. Instead of using their terms (like "seize" or "asset forfeiture"), we should call this theft, robbery, and so forth, to reflect what's happening. Those would make for very different headlines.

imcoconut 9y ago
Could not agree with this more.
justinjlynn 9y ago
Indeed, a seizure is a justified theft of personal or corporate property by an agent of the state. If it's not justified, then it's theft pure and simple.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  If you are acquitted after being arrested, does that make your arrest a kidnapping? The government ultimately has to prove its case in court, but they can’t predict with certainty how a judge and jury will rule. If they lose, they give the money back.
  - hajile 9y ago
    You can be detained on reasonable suspicion (a nebulous legal term), but you cannot be arrested without probable cause. If you are arrested without probable cause, you can sue and win. If an officer had probable cause that someone was smuggling money, they would never have a civil asset forfeiture -- it would be a criminal case from start to finish. The fact that the law was designed to end run around constitutional protections speaks volumes about it and its authors.
  - Veratyr 9y ago
    > If you are acquitted after being arrested, does that make your arrest a kidnapping? If the officers have no reason to suspect that you actually committed a crime and arrest you solely for their own gain, then yes, it's a kidnapping. The problem here is that there's no evidence showing that assets should be "forfeited", cops are stealing people's stuff because they can.

greggarious 9y ago

Is there a lower bound on how much cash is "suspicious" under these laws? I feel like it's only a matter of time until some enterprising department sets up along one of the routes leading into Las Vegas and makes a killing. "Who carries around a thousand dollars in their wallet? Obvious drug money!"

jstarfish 9y ago
> Is there a lower bound on how much cash is "suspicious" under these laws? $100. And even then it depends on your skin color and where this is being called into question. It's more plausible to have $10000 in your pocket in Vegas than $1000 in the South Bronx.

0xWilliam 9y ago

Why is this here? On HackerNews? Since we are on the topic why are there more and more political stories on hackernews?

ringaroundthetx 9y ago

Starting to think those 50 pesos the Mexican police took from me were civilly seized as part of an investigation I'm unaware of. I must have like a dozen civil asset forfeiture cases open in Mexico.