4 ms·

This is not an honest reading of the article, which itself is of course slanted. The warrant allowed the "nests" of boxes to be siezed, but not their contents.

This is not an honest reading of the article, which itself is of course slanted. The warrant allowed the "nests" of boxes to be siezed, but not their contents. However, the government is supposed to safeguard items that are innocently affected by a seizure. So instead of simply dumping the contents on the floor of the vault and leaving the building unattended and unguarded they inventoried the box contents and stored them. They provided a mechanism, which the article notes is somewhat suspect in its underlying effect, for owners to identify their property and retrieve it. This is basically a dispute about how the government can best respect the rights of "innocent" vault owners while still carrying out their duty under the warrant and established rules. It's not about the government stealing people's property. It's about whether the box holders should have to identify themselves to obtain the contents.

j16sdiz 5y ago
The question is… why they need the nest for investigation? It is clearly the nest is not the target…
- 34679 5y ago
  I assume they were planning on liquidating seized assets. They could sell the nests at auction.
- caseysoftware 5y ago
  It's the legal acrobatics equivalent to a landlord not being able to evict a tenant so instead they take their front door for "repairs" So they can say "well, it's not our fault that happened, we followed the rules" wink wink
  - TomSwirly 5y ago
    Very good analogy there. In New York City, where I lived for many years, sometimes the landlords remove _the stairs_ when trying to evict people. Sociopaths abound.
34679 5y ago
As the article notes, at least one box had the name and contact information of the owner on the top. It's not clear if they all were marked similarly, but that is one instance where there was no need for the FBI to open the box at all. They simply could've returned the locked box to its owner, as they had no legal authority to do anything else.
- jhayward 5y ago
  The government has no duty to go to lengths to seek out prospective owners and deliver property to them. They post a notice at the site of the warrant and anyone with an interest goes to them. Since the owners allege that they put their name and contact information on that box, we can presume they would have no qualms about providing same, and a description of the contents, to the custodian of the property to claim it.
  - nybble41 5y ago
    Requiring a description of the contents would be abusing the warrant to gain access to information the warrant didn't cover. All they should need to claim their property is proof of their identity as the owner of the safe deposit box, including the key to the box. At that point they should be granted access to the box in private so that they can remove their property, just as if they were claiming it from the original custodian. The FBI definitely should not be opening the boxes themselves or attempting to inventory their contents.
    - curryst 5y ago
      It's actually worse than that. Assuming you do have something illegal in those boxes, they've pulled a legal maneuver whereby you are forced to claim ownership. It's an end-run around the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. They seized your property and require you to incriminate yourself to get it back. Lockboxes where the contents are legal will presumably be claimed by their owners, unless the contents are somehow embarrassing. Illegal lockboxes won't be claimed, and the FBI has effectively seized them without needing a warrant for the contents. I'll be surprised if the FBI wins this in court, but it won't make any difference. This will take years to hash out, and by the time it's done, all the legal lockboxes will have already been claimed. The illegal ones are presumably anonymous, and the FBI will just say "oh well, if they won't claim it then we don't know whose it is, so I guess it's ours".
TomSwirly 5y ago
> This is not an honest reading of the article, which itself is of course slanted. > The warrant allowed the "nests" of boxes to be siezed, but not their contents. By omitting the part of the article that very clearly discusses this aspect, just one sentence below that, I put it to you that you are the dishonest one here. "In court filings, however, Gluck and other attorneys representing anonymous plaintiffs argue that the seizure of the nests "does not appear to be the government's true purpose here." "A reasonable person could easily conclude that taking and searching the contents of the boxes was the true purpose of the USPV seizure, not just an unintended but unavoidable byproduct as the government seeks to portray and justify it," they write. Do they think we are stupid? "We want to seize these useless shelves, because we don't have the legal authority to search the boxes. Oh, now we've moved the shelves, we get to look into the boxes! What a surprise!" They got a subpoena for something with _no informational value_ because they knew they could _abuse_ the law to look into and take things they had no right to take.
- jhayward 5y ago
  Please read more carefully. I quote myself: "They provided a mechanism, which the article notes is somewhat suspect in its underlying effect, for owners to identify their property" This is clearly referring to the text you quote. I assume readers have read the actual article. So, since I clearly included reference to the information you are incensed about, who is it that is doing a dishonest reading here? You have misleadingly claimed I didn't include the reference.

j16sdiz 5y ago

The question is… why they need the nest for investigation? It is clearly the nest is not the target…

34679 5y ago
I assume they were planning on liquidating seized assets. They could sell the nests at auction.
caseysoftware 5y ago
It's the legal acrobatics equivalent to a landlord not being able to evict a tenant so instead they take their front door for "repairs" So they can say "well, it's not our fault that happened, we followed the rules" wink wink
- TomSwirly 5y ago
  Very good analogy there. In New York City, where I lived for many years, sometimes the landlords remove _the stairs_ when trying to evict people. Sociopaths abound.

34679 5y ago

As the article notes, at least one box had the name and contact information of the owner on the top. It's not clear if they all were marked similarly, but that is one instance where there was no need for the FBI to open the box at all. They simply could've returned the locked box to its owner, as they had no legal authority to do anything else.

jhayward 5y ago
The government has no duty to go to lengths to seek out prospective owners and deliver property to them. They post a notice at the site of the warrant and anyone with an interest goes to them. Since the owners allege that they put their name and contact information on that box, we can presume they would have no qualms about providing same, and a description of the contents, to the custodian of the property to claim it.
- nybble41 5y ago
  Requiring a description of the contents would be abusing the warrant to gain access to information the warrant didn't cover. All they should need to claim their property is proof of their identity as the owner of the safe deposit box, including the key to the box. At that point they should be granted access to the box in private so that they can remove their property, just as if they were claiming it from the original custodian. The FBI definitely should not be opening the boxes themselves or attempting to inventory their contents.
  - curryst 5y ago
    It's actually worse than that. Assuming you do have something illegal in those boxes, they've pulled a legal maneuver whereby you are forced to claim ownership. It's an end-run around the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. They seized your property and require you to incriminate yourself to get it back. Lockboxes where the contents are legal will presumably be claimed by their owners, unless the contents are somehow embarrassing. Illegal lockboxes won't be claimed, and the FBI has effectively seized them without needing a warrant for the contents. I'll be surprised if the FBI wins this in court, but it won't make any difference. This will take years to hash out, and by the time it's done, all the legal lockboxes will have already been claimed. The illegal ones are presumably anonymous, and the FBI will just say "oh well, if they won't claim it then we don't know whose it is, so I guess it's ours".

TomSwirly 5y ago

> This is not an honest reading of the article, which itself is of course slanted. > The warrant allowed the "nests" of boxes to be siezed, but not their contents. By omitting the part of the article that very clearly discusses this aspect, just one sentence below that, I put it to you that you are the dishonest one here. "In court filings, however, Gluck and other attorneys representing anonymous plaintiffs argue that the seizure of the nests "does not appear to be the government's true purpose here." "A reasonable person could easily conclude that taking and searching the contents of the boxes was the true purpose of the USPV seizure, not just an unintended but unavoidable byproduct as the government seeks to portray and justify it," they write. Do they think we are stupid? "We want to seize these useless shelves, because we don't have the legal authority to search the boxes. Oh, now we've moved the shelves, we get to look into the boxes! What a surprise!" They got a subpoena for something with _no informational value_ because they knew they could _abuse_ the law to look into and take things they had no right to take.

jhayward 5y ago
Please read more carefully. I quote myself: "They provided a mechanism, which the article notes is somewhat suspect in its underlying effect, for owners to identify their property" This is clearly referring to the text you quote. I assume readers have read the actual article. So, since I clearly included reference to the information you are incensed about, who is it that is doing a dishonest reading here? You have misleadingly claimed I didn't include the reference.