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I’m pretty sure you’ve misunderstood. The implication here is that the FBI has “stolen” more assets than burglars have.

by yunohn 5y ago

tomerv 5y ago
Yes, but the comparison is useless. Presumably, at least some of that civil forfeiture is "legitimate", i.e. illegal gains. So what are you actually comparing here?
- yunohn 5y ago
  I was correcting the commenter; not judging the value of the comparison - as weird as it is that civil forfeiture is more rampant than burglary.
joshAg 5y ago
They're saying that the total amount of stolen good isn't an upper bound on things that could be legitimately forfeited, because there's other ways to colors goods enough that they become subject to forfeiture. But that wasn't my argument or point. Like how you put it, it's that the scope of forfeitures is bigger than stolen goods. The comparison is only useful to help give a size of the problem. The critique is in 2 parts: 1, at least a significant portion of civil forfeitures are illegitimate, if not most of them and 2 this isn't a small problem but instead on the same order as stolen property.
ryan_lane 5y ago
Some amount of assets listed as stolen by burglars is insurance fraud. Does that matter? Not really, because it's a small percentage that doesn't change the fact that most of it is crime. Civil forfeiture doesn't require the government to convict anyone, or even arrest them, for that matter. The vast majority of the money that comes from this process comes from people we're supposed to assume innocent, since they haven't been proven guilty. Due to that, we have to assume that all of the money that comes from this process without convictions is stolen from innocent people. If the government wants to seize the assets of people it convicts, that's one thing, but taking money from people and making them pay to prove it wasn't related to crime is absolutely theft.

I’m pretty sure you’ve misunderstood. The implication here is that the FBI has “stolen” more assets than burglars have.

by yunohn 5y ago

I’m pretty sure you’ve misunderstood. The implication here is that the FBI has “stolen” more assets than burglars have.

Yes, but the comparison is useless. Presumably, at least some of that civil forfeiture is "legitimate", i.e. illegal gains. So what are you actually comparing here?

yunohn 5y ago
I was correcting the commenter; not judging the value of the comparison - as weird as it is that civil forfeiture is more rampant than burglary.

joshAg 5y ago

They're saying that the total amount of stolen good isn't an upper bound on things that could be legitimately forfeited, because there's other ways to colors goods enough that they become subject to forfeiture. But that wasn't my argument or point. Like how you put it, it's that the scope of forfeitures is bigger than stolen goods. The comparison is only useful to help give a size of the problem. The critique is in 2 parts: 1, at least a significant portion of civil forfeitures are illegitimate, if not most of them and 2 this isn't a small problem but instead on the same order as stolen property.

ryan_lane 5y ago

Some amount of assets listed as stolen by burglars is insurance fraud. Does that matter? Not really, because it's a small percentage that doesn't change the fact that most of it is crime. Civil forfeiture doesn't require the government to convict anyone, or even arrest them, for that matter. The vast majority of the money that comes from this process comes from people we're supposed to assume innocent, since they haven't been proven guilty. Due to that, we have to assume that all of the money that comes from this process without convictions is stolen from innocent people. If the government wants to seize the assets of people it convicts, that's one thing, but taking money from people and making them pay to prove it wasn't related to crime is absolutely theft.