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It's a resource issue. You should run for office on the platform of raising taxes to hire more investigators to collect FCC fines. Let me know how that goes f
by jrockway 5y ago
It's a resource issue. You should run for office on the platform of raising taxes to hire more investigators to collect FCC fines. Let me know how that goes for you.
- mlyle 5y agoPresumably we could pay for collecting tens of millions of dollars in forfeitures by ... collecting tens of millions of dollars in forfeitures.
- jrockway 5y agoYou need to front the capital to start the investigation, though. This is like saying that you can pay for asteroid mining by mining asteroids. That's true! You just need a few billion dollars to mine that first asteroid. Like startups, criminal prosecutions don't have a 100% success rate. The system, despite its flaws, has a lot of protection for defendants. So you're basically asking the taxpayers to speculate on your pet project. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
- mlyle 5y ago> Like startups, criminal prosecutions don't have a 100% success rate. Here we're primarily talking about collecting civil forfeitures. DOJ can go scoop up assets they find, and defendants can try and claw them back (and the DOJ only requires a preponderance of the evidence to keep the money).
- criddell 5y agoThere's more than one way to handle that. Maybe the fines could be used to pay for future prosecutions? Or maybe let the justice department outsource prosecution to private sector attorneys who can keep most of what they win? Doesn't California do something similar for ADA cases?
- MisterBastahrd 5y agoFining the living crap out of people who break telemarketing and debt collection laws would win hands-down on a ballot in a true democracy.