12 ms·

FBI misled judge who signed warrant for seizure of $86M in cash

barneygale 4y ago
American law enforcement is a state-sponsored criminal gang. Here, they robbed a bank.
- hollywood_court 4y ago
  There are a few differences between street gangs and the police. Mainly the police receive medical and retirement benefits whilst also enjoying near infallibility.
- moistly 4y ago
  I guess if one were wholly uninformed about LA Police forces, they’d ignorantly downvote your post. It’s a shame people are being reactionary instead of taking the opportunity to inform themselves.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
It's funny... if an engineer fucks something up, s/he can be personally responsible for the fuckup.... doctors need personal malpractice insurance for their fuckups... professional drivers can easily go to jail if they fuck up... ...but if a government worker, paid by the taxpayers, fucks up... the worst that can happen is, the taxpayers have to pay for eventual lawsuit cost and damages to the people who got fucked by that worker. For something like this, atleast a few people should end up in jail for a long time.
- system2 4y ago
  System is rigger for them. That will not happen in 1000 years.
- heyflyguy 4y ago
  I agree and though much of the outrage has some political ties to it, I think and assume you agree that this is a pervasive problem for everyone not within the ranks of a federal agency of some kind.
- reset-password 4y ago
  Right. This is nuts that this is happening in America. Lynne Zellhart is disgusting and people like her should be imprisoned.
- elcritch 4y ago
  At the least the senior FBI and US Attorney’s should be liable to be held in contempt of court. Yes they might need some protection in carrying out their lawful duty but lying and misleading the judiciary isn’t lawfully carrying out those duties.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
  >if an engineer fucks something up, s/he can be personally responsible for the fuckup Except software engineers :)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - melony 4y ago
    Most SaaSes have much more lower stakes. Biomedical/automotive/aerospace are already covered by existing regulations.
- nine_zeros 4y ago
  It happens not just in judiciary or criminal cases, but also in DMV, state permits, immigration etc. Even a typographical error or minor delays by the government official has asymmetric consequences for the human but no consequence to the officer. You can be perfect and do everything correctly but still fall off a cliff because some government officer made a typographical error.
- Overtonwindow 4y ago
  I think what you might be suggesting is to remove prosecutorial immunity. There are so many cases of wrongdoing by prosecutors and judges, and there’s really very little that can be done to punish them.
- jmyeet 4y ago
  It's worth noting that this case wasn't a screw up. It was a deliberate act of deception. You may well understand this but "fuck up" is an ambiguous term that might allow for negligence or an error rather than actual malfeasance, which was the case here.
- koheripbal 4y ago
  This is not a correct comparison. Firstly, if an employee of a company fucks up at work, the company is responsible, not the employee. In certain regulated fields, if a licensed individual fucks up, even when employed, their licence can be impacted and they can be fined (this is common in the financial industry). If a prosecutor intentionally misleads a judge, there is a misconduct process that can impact their license and career. When the article says "fbi", they mean an attorney acting on behalf of the FBI, and that person can be held accountable if the judge decides to.
  - barelysapient 4y ago
    Not entirely true. It depends on the role the employee. Employee who are officers or directors of the company, or lawyers for the company, can absolutely be held personally responsible. That's why it's common for employee's in those position to be covered by E&O insurance.
    - dcow 4y ago
      How do I jump to this timeline?
      - koheripbal 4y ago
        This happens all the time. It's just not reported on social media. If you own shares in companies directly, you often receive updates on lawsuits against C-level execs.
      - barelysapient 4y ago
        I tried to find some statistics on this hit came up empty. Here’s a recent example. https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2022/09/09/lawsuit-accuses-kohls-executives-directors.html https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2022/09/09/lawsui...
  - lurquer 4y ago
    > Firstly, if an employee of a company fucks up at work, the company is responsible, not the employee. That’s utterly wrong. The employee is always a potential defendant. Legal doctrines such as respondeat superior and principal/agent and the like extend the liability to the employer. Nobody bothers to sue the employee as they’re generally broke. The goal is to sue the employer. But, there is no ‘immunity’ that arises from being an employee.
- plantain 4y ago
  Risk isn't free, if you want government workers to bear the risk of jail for their mistakes, you'll have to pay them like engineers or doctors.
  - okwubodu 4y ago
    Most people, regardless of salary, already bear the risk of jail for intentionally committing fraud and rights violations. Government employees are the only ones consistently exempt from this.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - FpUser 4y ago
    What FBI did was not a mistake and people of the level that had made those criminal decisions are definitely paid enough.
  - greedo 4y ago
    My neighbor is a sergeant in a small city's police force. Roughly 300K folks in our burg. He pulls in an average of $140K/year due mostly to overtime. Cry me a river about our poor overworked police who face deathly threats on a daily basis.
- pibechorro 4y ago
  This is how gov works. Its why we need as little as possible. Its very difficult to hold them accountable when their funding is essentially guaranteed regardless of performance.
  - egberts1 4y ago
    I concur
  - dehrmann 4y ago
    Once you learn that sovereign immunity exists, it makes you think differently about the role of government.
  - mcphage 4y ago
    Wait until you learn how hard it is to hold corporations accountable, let alone specific individuals at those corporations.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - IntelMiner 4y ago
    What do you propose as an alternative? History both old and new shows how irresponsible corporations across the planet have been
    - redeeman 4y ago
      very true, but corporations tend to not come to your house armed with guns if you dont pay protection money. sure, there have been such, but nobody ever considered them legitimate like people do with "governments"
      - dylan604 4y ago
        Have you ever heard of the Pinkertons? There are other corporations in history that had a "security" force of some sort that absolutely was used as a means of intimidation
- minhazm 4y ago
  I've always felt that people working in law enforcement related fields should be required to carry their own liability insurance. Just like if you're in an at-fault accident your rates go up, the same should happen for law enforcement. If you're a repeat offender the rates go up sufficiently that it will no longer make financial sense for you to remain in the job.
  - ALittleLight 4y ago
    That kind of insurance is there to cover accidents. A doctor's malpractice insurance would be irrelevant if the doctor had been taking cash from people's wallets - that's not malpractice, it's just theft. Similarly, if you lie to trick a judge into letting you "legally" take money, that's fraud, theft, and armed robbery - not any kind of malpractice. This article says that the FBI agents and US Attorney incorrectly accused a safe deposit company of being a criminal enterprise (case was later dropped, nobody convicted, no real evidence). The FBI then lied to a judge, disregarded their warrant they obtained under false pretenses, and stole money and valuable from hundreds of people, almost all of whom were entirely related to the crimes the FBI was ostensibly investigating. The problem here is not a lack of insurance, it's that the FBI is brazenly acting like a criminal gang and none of the people who perpetrated the crimes will face consequences.
    - abeyer 4y ago
      > incorrectly accused a safe deposit company of being a criminal enterprise (case was later dropped, nobody convicted, no real evidence). That's not quite correct, I think: the company itself plead guilty to the money laundering part and was fined... but it was also unable to pay the fine, and the government chose not to go after the owners/officers personally. So the individual charges were dropped, but not against the company. That seems like even more of an indication that this was primarily/just a fundraising via forfeiture expedition. Civil forfeiture laws need to be changed to require a criminal conviction first, and to impose mandatory multipliers of damages on the government when a forfeiture is found improper, or there is no motivation for law enforcement to stop padding their own budgets this way.
- deleted 4y ago
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- PhineasRex 4y ago
  Congress did pass a law decades ago allowing federal prosecutors to face civil suits for cases like this but the Supreme Court subsequently just said nah, prosecutors are exempt from the law while performing their job.
justinzollars 4y ago
In my lifetime one of the biggest freedoms we have lost is private banking. Prior to 9/11 banking was relatively private. What you had was your own, and secret. You could even have a private bank account in Switzerland. Now, if you are American foreign banks won't even bother dealing with you. Obviously the paranoid state, won't like the idea of a private safety deposit box company. I think the next leg to fall is cash itself. We will move to CBDC and social credit.
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  And China has a few years head start in that direction. The US following China's lead. I'd hope that the idea alone, of following in China's footsteps, is enough to get the US to change course.
  - trasz 4y ago
    >The US following China's lead. Quality of life in China is constantly improving. In US it isn’t. So no, US isn’t following China’s lead.
    - justinzollars 4y ago
      not sure why this is being downvoted. China recently surpassed the US in life expectancy. But suppose you do not trust Chinese statistics; Mexico passed US life expectancy. Life expectancy a good measure for right track / wrong track.
      - didericis 4y ago
        The US is definitely on the wrong track, but I think the more we think emulating China will “fix” things (especially under Xi), the worse things will get. Look at what we did with Covid. We had existing pandemic response strategies that were thrown out to mimic China, and we destroyed our economy, didn’t save anyone, and stunted child development. Sweden was much more rational and adhered to much saner western policies that we abandoned due to panic and false advertising from China. There are things about China worthy of emulation, like how easy it is (or was, not sure if this is still true) to set up factories, the cultural emphasis on hard work and education, the stronger generational family support networks, the sense of unity and cooperation and trust in authority. But there are also severe problems that China doesn’t talk about, many of which are side effects of some of the same things that are admirable when moderated, and extremely dysfunctional when under poor leadership.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Semi related: It is interesting that these items are not considered the bank's property yet if I upload something to the cloud it is considered the cloud provider's data. Why isn't cloud data treated the same as a safety deposit box?
- LadyCailin 4y ago
  You agreed to terms of service that gave the data to them. That would be a good canary case though, have a bank provide the same terms of service for their physical lock boxes, and see if that gets struck down, despite the TOS. If so, you have a case to annul the digital TOS as wel.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- buran77 4y ago
  > if I upload something to the cloud it is considered the cloud provider's data Is it? The cloud stores your data but the provider does not own your pictures or your PhD paper just because you uploaded them there. Any example of an EULA where a cloud provider assumes ownership of all data? Or you're thinking of situations like Facebook who I believe (may be wrong or misremembering) has this in their EULA - content uploaded become theirs. On the other end of the spectrum as long as they don't know what's there (encryption?) it can't hurt them in the eyes of the law. If they can see what's there then authorities can still force them to act (identify the owner, remove the data, etc.).
  - GeekyBear 4y ago
    > The cloud stores your data but the provider does not own your pictures or your PhD paper just because you uploaded them there. I would assume that a bank does not regularly go rifling through the contents of everyone's safety deposit boxes and reporting items they believe are incriminating the way a cloud provider does. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...
_cs2017_ 4y ago
> Only those who wish to hide their wealth from the DEA, IRS, or creditors would” rent a box anonymously at U.S. Private Vaults, she wrote It appears this opinion was wrong: many honest people did choose this store instead of a bank for their safety deposit needs. I wonder why? I understand this question has no bearing on the legality of the FBI actions, but I do want to understand the customers' rationale.
- mikeyouse 4y ago
  From previous reading on the place, it seems a certain religious / ethnic sect used it (Persian refugees of Christian faith) and they perhaps used it based on their experience with having their assets seized by the Iranian regime before they fled. It’s a bit tricky since a number of the deposit boxes were directly connected to actual crimes but I believe that’s how they became popular in the first place.
- 5555624 4y ago
  Maybe U.S. Private Vaults had greater access? Instead of 0900-1700, maybe they're open later. Maybe they are open on Sundays?
  - nlh 4y ago
    Agreed. Never underestimate the value of convenience. If USPV had better hours, better tech, and was more convenient than a bank, why wouldn’t normal people use it? It honestly sounds quite appealing to me - quick trip to a strip mall, access via retinal scan, in and out nice and easy.
- wsh 4y ago
  Banks in the U.S. are required to have customer identification programs (31 CFR § 1020.220), but U.S. Private Vaults allowed its customers to be anonymous: https://www.securityinfowatch.com/access-identity/access-control/article/12288537/iris-biometrics-provide-anonymity-and-security-at-us-private-vaults https://www.securityinfowatch.com/access-identity/access-con... Also, not all bank branches offer safe deposit boxes, and it’s difficult to get one unless you have other accounts. For someone who does their banking online or with an institution that doesn’t have a large branch network, it might have been more convenient to use U.S. Private Vaults than to set up and maintain another banking relationship.
bumblebritches5 4y ago
jmyeet 4y ago
Here's the lesson I want people to take away from this: the idea that there is a literal interpretation of the Constitution is a myth. This egregious seizure is just further proof that the Fourth Amendment is pretty much dead. Any kind of forfeiture without probable cause should be a Fourth Amendment violation but yet civil asset forfeiture (the most egregious form of Fourth Amendment violation) remains legal. Probably the worst thing about this case is that the government has been caught in a lie and isn't backing down and they want to keep the contents. Any "evidence" gleaned from these contents should be absolutely inadmissible without prior and specific probable cause. There should be no allowance for "there's no reason why legitimate customers would use USPV instead of a bank". Lots of people distrust banks. Not using a bank is not evidence of a crime let alone probable cause. I really hope the FBI and the US attorney get their rear ends handed to them over this but I have doubts they ever will.
- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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- 42e6e8c8-f7b8-4 4y ago
  The Institute for Justice keeps trying to send civil asset forfeiture all the way up the courts to the Supreme Court. https://ij.org/issues/private-property/civil-forfeiture/ https://ij.org/issues/private-property/civil-forfeiture/ Support their work to have a chance of restoring this right.
  - anm89 4y ago
    Pretty crazy to me that this has never made it to the supreme court. Is there some reason for that? Is someone blocking it?
    - 42e6e8c8-f7b8-4 4y ago
      I think it will, with IJ sponsoring lawsuits, in addition to the the Beverly Hills FBI fiasco. The deal is that many agencies only do civil asset forfeiture with game theory in mind. They will only take $10k , because it would be a Pyrric victory to win in court, since the lawsuit would cost you more than $10k. They also play games where they'll give you back the money if you're angry enough to sue them anyway, then you no longer have a case and you can't continue your suit. Give IJ $20. I think they have a chance of getting it done.
fareesh 4y ago
In the Crossfire Hurricane case, an FBI Lawyer - Kevin Clinesmith doctored an email from the CIA and used the doctored email as fake evidence to secure a FISA warrant. He doctored the email to mean the exact opposite of what the email was communicating. It seems to have been uncritically assumed that this lawyer acted alone and nobody else at the agency was aware of this act. Stories like this seem to suggest that this manner of operation could be fairly routine at the agency.
- sneak 4y ago
  - speakfreely 4y ago
    For the convenience of its massive reach for solving major national problems, the FBI has been allowed to grow far too large and influential. While I don't think disbanding it is the solution, it should definitely be split up into smaller, more focused parts where there's no upper management of unelected political players that exert massive influence the way they do now.
    - divided 4y ago
      Right-wing has tried to portray them as politically biased against Republicans, but the evidence doesn’t bear this out. Since 1935 there have been 16 directors or acting directors. Only one of those was a registered Democrat and he only served in the position for 71 days.
      - hunterb123 4y ago
        divided 4y ago
        You’re telling me you believe the heads of the FBI have been registering as Republicans for 85 years and been appointed to the role by Republican presidents all as a long running scheme to lull Republicans into believing the FBI was not the secretly Democrat-controlled organization it truly is?
sneak 4y ago
“Based on my training and experience” is the magic phrase that lets feds say whatever falsehoods they want in a warrant application (a sworn statement made under penalty of perjury) and suffer zero consequences for lying. Literally 100% of the times I have read this phrase, obvious falsehoods followed shortly thereafter. Courts and police conspire to avoid penalizing police with violations of law.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
Submitting false statements to the court should be an offense that carries jail time - and it should be even harsher for agents of the government and law enforcement officers.
- octoberfranklin 4y ago
  Unfortunately the relevant prosecutor will simply decline to prosecute. We didn't always have this loophole. The original purpose of grand juries was to allow any citizen to bring criminal charges, so that political appointees wouldn't have this "pre-conviction pardon" capability. The grand jury's job, when returning an indictment, was to appoint an attorney general for that particular indictment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury#United_States
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  I agree in principle, but feel it would almost exclusively be used to prosecute people who are more or less innocent. People like those manipulated into giving false confessions/testimony, or eyewitness accounts where the person genuinely believes a falsehood.
hamiltonians 4y ago
safe deposit boxes are not safe. invest in home security
- 5555624 4y ago
  "Safe Deposit Boxes Aren’t Safe" (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box-theft.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box...) Covered at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20545276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20545276
5555624 4y ago
From a few months ago, the same raid: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32267266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32267266
- octoberfranklin 4y ago
  I sort of expect headlines like this from Reason. The fact that the LA Times is running it is what really caught my attention -- "Man bites dog". Also, the recent news is the unsealing of documents which confirm what was just suspicion two months ago.
  - puffoflogic 4y ago
    Most Reason contributors would feel right at home in the pages of the LA Times. Not the headlines they write for Reason, you understand; but the authors themselves, yes.
zhxshen 4y ago
This puts me in the mood for a Diet Shasta.
puffoflogic 4y ago
Don't forget the bit where the FBI claimed that a lot of the seized money was physically contaminated with illegal drug residue, but we can't show you the evidence because we converted all the physical seized cash into vouchers/deposits. But please trust us and we'd like to indict people on this evidence.

American law enforcement is a state-sponsored criminal gang. Here, they robbed a bank.

hollywood_court 4y ago
There are a few differences between street gangs and the police. Mainly the police receive medical and retirement benefits whilst also enjoying near infallibility.
moistly 4y ago
I guess if one were wholly uninformed about LA Police forces, they’d ignorantly downvote your post. It’s a shame people are being reactionary instead of taking the opportunity to inform themselves.

It's funny... if an engineer fucks something up, s/he can be personally responsible for the fuckup.... doctors need personal malpractice insurance for their fuckups... professional drivers can easily go to jail if they fuck up... ...but if a government worker, paid by the taxpayers, fucks up... the worst that can happen is, the taxpayers have to pay for eventual lawsuit cost and damages to the people who got fucked by that worker. For something like this, atleast a few people should end up in jail for a long time.

system2 4y ago
System is rigger for them. That will not happen in 1000 years.
heyflyguy 4y ago
I agree and though much of the outrage has some political ties to it, I think and assume you agree that this is a pervasive problem for everyone not within the ranks of a federal agency of some kind.
reset-password 4y ago
Right. This is nuts that this is happening in America. Lynne Zellhart is disgusting and people like her should be imprisoned.
elcritch 4y ago
At the least the senior FBI and US Attorney’s should be liable to be held in contempt of court. Yes they might need some protection in carrying out their lawful duty but lying and misleading the judiciary isn’t lawfully carrying out those duties.
aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
>if an engineer fucks something up, s/he can be personally responsible for the fuckup Except software engineers :)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- melony 4y ago
  Most SaaSes have much more lower stakes. Biomedical/automotive/aerospace are already covered by existing regulations.
nine_zeros 4y ago
It happens not just in judiciary or criminal cases, but also in DMV, state permits, immigration etc. Even a typographical error or minor delays by the government official has asymmetric consequences for the human but no consequence to the officer. You can be perfect and do everything correctly but still fall off a cliff because some government officer made a typographical error.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
I think what you might be suggesting is to remove prosecutorial immunity. There are so many cases of wrongdoing by prosecutors and judges, and there’s really very little that can be done to punish them.
jmyeet 4y ago
It's worth noting that this case wasn't a screw up. It was a deliberate act of deception. You may well understand this but "fuck up" is an ambiguous term that might allow for negligence or an error rather than actual malfeasance, which was the case here.
koheripbal 4y ago
This is not a correct comparison. Firstly, if an employee of a company fucks up at work, the company is responsible, not the employee. In certain regulated fields, if a licensed individual fucks up, even when employed, their licence can be impacted and they can be fined (this is common in the financial industry). If a prosecutor intentionally misleads a judge, there is a misconduct process that can impact their license and career. When the article says "fbi", they mean an attorney acting on behalf of the FBI, and that person can be held accountable if the judge decides to.
- barelysapient 4y ago
  Not entirely true. It depends on the role the employee. Employee who are officers or directors of the company, or lawyers for the company, can absolutely be held personally responsible. That's why it's common for employee's in those position to be covered by E&O insurance.
  - dcow 4y ago
    How do I jump to this timeline?
    - koheripbal 4y ago
      This happens all the time. It's just not reported on social media. If you own shares in companies directly, you often receive updates on lawsuits against C-level execs.
    - barelysapient 4y ago
      I tried to find some statistics on this hit came up empty. Here’s a recent example. https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2022/09/09/lawsuit-accuses-kohls-executives-directors.html https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2022/09/09/lawsui...
- lurquer 4y ago
  > Firstly, if an employee of a company fucks up at work, the company is responsible, not the employee. That’s utterly wrong. The employee is always a potential defendant. Legal doctrines such as respondeat superior and principal/agent and the like extend the liability to the employer. Nobody bothers to sue the employee as they’re generally broke. The goal is to sue the employer. But, there is no ‘immunity’ that arises from being an employee.
plantain 4y ago
Risk isn't free, if you want government workers to bear the risk of jail for their mistakes, you'll have to pay them like engineers or doctors.
- okwubodu 4y ago
  Most people, regardless of salary, already bear the risk of jail for intentionally committing fraud and rights violations. Government employees are the only ones consistently exempt from this.
- deleted 4y ago
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- FpUser 4y ago
  What FBI did was not a mistake and people of the level that had made those criminal decisions are definitely paid enough.
- greedo 4y ago
  My neighbor is a sergeant in a small city's police force. Roughly 300K folks in our burg. He pulls in an average of $140K/year due mostly to overtime. Cry me a river about our poor overworked police who face deathly threats on a daily basis.
pibechorro 4y ago
This is how gov works. Its why we need as little as possible. Its very difficult to hold them accountable when their funding is essentially guaranteed regardless of performance.
- egberts1 4y ago
  I concur
- dehrmann 4y ago
  Once you learn that sovereign immunity exists, it makes you think differently about the role of government.
- mcphage 4y ago
  Wait until you learn how hard it is to hold corporations accountable, let alone specific individuals at those corporations.
  - deleted 4y ago
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- IntelMiner 4y ago
  What do you propose as an alternative? History both old and new shows how irresponsible corporations across the planet have been
  - redeeman 4y ago
    very true, but corporations tend to not come to your house armed with guns if you dont pay protection money. sure, there have been such, but nobody ever considered them legitimate like people do with "governments"
    - dylan604 4y ago
      Have you ever heard of the Pinkertons? There are other corporations in history that had a "security" force of some sort that absolutely was used as a means of intimidation
minhazm 4y ago
I've always felt that people working in law enforcement related fields should be required to carry their own liability insurance. Just like if you're in an at-fault accident your rates go up, the same should happen for law enforcement. If you're a repeat offender the rates go up sufficiently that it will no longer make financial sense for you to remain in the job.
- ALittleLight 4y ago
  That kind of insurance is there to cover accidents. A doctor's malpractice insurance would be irrelevant if the doctor had been taking cash from people's wallets - that's not malpractice, it's just theft. Similarly, if you lie to trick a judge into letting you "legally" take money, that's fraud, theft, and armed robbery - not any kind of malpractice. This article says that the FBI agents and US Attorney incorrectly accused a safe deposit company of being a criminal enterprise (case was later dropped, nobody convicted, no real evidence). The FBI then lied to a judge, disregarded their warrant they obtained under false pretenses, and stole money and valuable from hundreds of people, almost all of whom were entirely related to the crimes the FBI was ostensibly investigating. The problem here is not a lack of insurance, it's that the FBI is brazenly acting like a criminal gang and none of the people who perpetrated the crimes will face consequences.
  - abeyer 4y ago
    > incorrectly accused a safe deposit company of being a criminal enterprise (case was later dropped, nobody convicted, no real evidence). That's not quite correct, I think: the company itself plead guilty to the money laundering part and was fined... but it was also unable to pay the fine, and the government chose not to go after the owners/officers personally. So the individual charges were dropped, but not against the company. That seems like even more of an indication that this was primarily/just a fundraising via forfeiture expedition. Civil forfeiture laws need to be changed to require a criminal conviction first, and to impose mandatory multipliers of damages on the government when a forfeiture is found improper, or there is no motivation for law enforcement to stop padding their own budgets this way.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
PhineasRex 4y ago
Congress did pass a law decades ago allowing federal prosecutors to face civil suits for cases like this but the Supreme Court subsequently just said nah, prosecutors are exempt from the law while performing their job.

justinzollars 4y ago

In my lifetime one of the biggest freedoms we have lost is private banking. Prior to 9/11 banking was relatively private. What you had was your own, and secret. You could even have a private bank account in Switzerland. Now, if you are American foreign banks won't even bother dealing with you. Obviously the paranoid state, won't like the idea of a private safety deposit box company. I think the next leg to fall is cash itself. We will move to CBDC and social credit.

BLKNSLVR 4y ago
And China has a few years head start in that direction. The US following China's lead. I'd hope that the idea alone, of following in China's footsteps, is enough to get the US to change course.
- trasz 4y ago
  >The US following China's lead. Quality of life in China is constantly improving. In US it isn’t. So no, US isn’t following China’s lead.
  - justinzollars 4y ago
    not sure why this is being downvoted. China recently surpassed the US in life expectancy. But suppose you do not trust Chinese statistics; Mexico passed US life expectancy. Life expectancy a good measure for right track / wrong track.
    - didericis 4y ago
      The US is definitely on the wrong track, but I think the more we think emulating China will “fix” things (especially under Xi), the worse things will get. Look at what we did with Covid. We had existing pandemic response strategies that were thrown out to mimic China, and we destroyed our economy, didn’t save anyone, and stunted child development. Sweden was much more rational and adhered to much saner western policies that we abandoned due to panic and false advertising from China. There are things about China worthy of emulation, like how easy it is (or was, not sure if this is still true) to set up factories, the cultural emphasis on hard work and education, the stronger generational family support networks, the sense of unity and cooperation and trust in authority. But there are also severe problems that China doesn’t talk about, many of which are side effects of some of the same things that are admirable when moderated, and extremely dysfunctional when under poor leadership.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

Semi related: It is interesting that these items are not considered the bank's property yet if I upload something to the cloud it is considered the cloud provider's data. Why isn't cloud data treated the same as a safety deposit box?

LadyCailin 4y ago
You agreed to terms of service that gave the data to them. That would be a good canary case though, have a bank provide the same terms of service for their physical lock boxes, and see if that gets struck down, despite the TOS. If so, you have a case to annul the digital TOS as wel.
deleted 4y ago
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buran77 4y ago
> if I upload something to the cloud it is considered the cloud provider's data Is it? The cloud stores your data but the provider does not own your pictures or your PhD paper just because you uploaded them there. Any example of an EULA where a cloud provider assumes ownership of all data? Or you're thinking of situations like Facebook who I believe (may be wrong or misremembering) has this in their EULA - content uploaded become theirs. On the other end of the spectrum as long as they don't know what's there (encryption?) it can't hurt them in the eyes of the law. If they can see what's there then authorities can still force them to act (identify the owner, remove the data, etc.).
- GeekyBear 4y ago
  > The cloud stores your data but the provider does not own your pictures or your PhD paper just because you uploaded them there. I would assume that a bank does not regularly go rifling through the contents of everyone's safety deposit boxes and reporting items they believe are incriminating the way a cloud provider does. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...

_cs2017_ 4y ago

> Only those who wish to hide their wealth from the DEA, IRS, or creditors would” rent a box anonymously at U.S. Private Vaults, she wrote It appears this opinion was wrong: many honest people did choose this store instead of a bank for their safety deposit needs. I wonder why? I understand this question has no bearing on the legality of the FBI actions, but I do want to understand the customers' rationale.

mikeyouse 4y ago
From previous reading on the place, it seems a certain religious / ethnic sect used it (Persian refugees of Christian faith) and they perhaps used it based on their experience with having their assets seized by the Iranian regime before they fled. It’s a bit tricky since a number of the deposit boxes were directly connected to actual crimes but I believe that’s how they became popular in the first place.
5555624 4y ago
Maybe U.S. Private Vaults had greater access? Instead of 0900-1700, maybe they're open later. Maybe they are open on Sundays?
- nlh 4y ago
  Agreed. Never underestimate the value of convenience. If USPV had better hours, better tech, and was more convenient than a bank, why wouldn’t normal people use it? It honestly sounds quite appealing to me - quick trip to a strip mall, access via retinal scan, in and out nice and easy.
wsh 4y ago
Banks in the U.S. are required to have customer identification programs (31 CFR § 1020.220), but U.S. Private Vaults allowed its customers to be anonymous: https://www.securityinfowatch.com/access-identity/access-control/article/12288537/iris-biometrics-provide-anonymity-and-security-at-us-private-vaults https://www.securityinfowatch.com/access-identity/access-con... Also, not all bank branches offer safe deposit boxes, and it’s difficult to get one unless you have other accounts. For someone who does their banking online or with an institution that doesn’t have a large branch network, it might have been more convenient to use U.S. Private Vaults than to set up and maintain another banking relationship.

bumblebritches5 4y ago

jmyeet 4y ago

Here's the lesson I want people to take away from this: the idea that there is a literal interpretation of the Constitution is a myth. This egregious seizure is just further proof that the Fourth Amendment is pretty much dead. Any kind of forfeiture without probable cause should be a Fourth Amendment violation but yet civil asset forfeiture (the most egregious form of Fourth Amendment violation) remains legal. Probably the worst thing about this case is that the government has been caught in a lie and isn't backing down and they want to keep the contents. Any "evidence" gleaned from these contents should be absolutely inadmissible without prior and specific probable cause. There should be no allowance for "there's no reason why legitimate customers would use USPV instead of a bank". Lots of people distrust banks. Not using a bank is not evidence of a crime let alone probable cause. I really hope the FBI and the US attorney get their rear ends handed to them over this but I have doubts they ever will.

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42e6e8c8-f7b8-4 4y ago
The Institute for Justice keeps trying to send civil asset forfeiture all the way up the courts to the Supreme Court. https://ij.org/issues/private-property/civil-forfeiture/ https://ij.org/issues/private-property/civil-forfeiture/ Support their work to have a chance of restoring this right.
- anm89 4y ago
  Pretty crazy to me that this has never made it to the supreme court. Is there some reason for that? Is someone blocking it?
  - 42e6e8c8-f7b8-4 4y ago
    I think it will, with IJ sponsoring lawsuits, in addition to the the Beverly Hills FBI fiasco. The deal is that many agencies only do civil asset forfeiture with game theory in mind. They will only take $10k , because it would be a Pyrric victory to win in court, since the lawsuit would cost you more than $10k. They also play games where they'll give you back the money if you're angry enough to sue them anyway, then you no longer have a case and you can't continue your suit. Give IJ $20. I think they have a chance of getting it done.

fareesh 4y ago

In the Crossfire Hurricane case, an FBI Lawyer - Kevin Clinesmith doctored an email from the CIA and used the doctored email as fake evidence to secure a FISA warrant. He doctored the email to mean the exact opposite of what the email was communicating. It seems to have been uncritically assumed that this lawyer acted alone and nobody else at the agency was aware of this act. Stories like this seem to suggest that this manner of operation could be fairly routine at the agency.

sneak 4y ago
- speakfreely 4y ago
  For the convenience of its massive reach for solving major national problems, the FBI has been allowed to grow far too large and influential. While I don't think disbanding it is the solution, it should definitely be split up into smaller, more focused parts where there's no upper management of unelected political players that exert massive influence the way they do now.
  - divided 4y ago
    Right-wing has tried to portray them as politically biased against Republicans, but the evidence doesn’t bear this out. Since 1935 there have been 16 directors or acting directors. Only one of those was a registered Democrat and he only served in the position for 71 days.
    - hunterb123 4y ago
      - divided 4y ago
        You’re telling me you believe the heads of the FBI have been registering as Republicans for 85 years and been appointed to the role by Republican presidents all as a long running scheme to lull Republicans into believing the FBI was not the secretly Democrat-controlled organization it truly is?

sneak 4y ago

“Based on my training and experience” is the magic phrase that lets feds say whatever falsehoods they want in a warrant application (a sworn statement made under penalty of perjury) and suffer zero consequences for lying. Literally 100% of the times I have read this phrase, obvious falsehoods followed shortly thereafter. Courts and police conspire to avoid penalizing police with violations of law.

StanislavPetrov 4y ago

Submitting false statements to the court should be an offense that carries jail time - and it should be even harsher for agents of the government and law enforcement officers.

octoberfranklin 4y ago
Unfortunately the relevant prosecutor will simply decline to prosecute. We didn't always have this loophole. The original purpose of grand juries was to allow any citizen to bring criminal charges, so that political appointees wouldn't have this "pre-conviction pardon" capability. The grand jury's job, when returning an indictment, was to appoint an attorney general for that particular indictment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury#United_States
boomboomsubban 4y ago
I agree in principle, but feel it would almost exclusively be used to prosecute people who are more or less innocent. People like those manipulated into giving false confessions/testimony, or eyewitness accounts where the person genuinely believes a falsehood.

hamiltonians 4y ago

safe deposit boxes are not safe. invest in home security

5555624 4y ago
"Safe Deposit Boxes Aren’t Safe" (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box-theft.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box...) Covered at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20545276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20545276

5555624 4y ago

From a few months ago, the same raid: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32267266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32267266

octoberfranklin 4y ago
I sort of expect headlines like this from Reason. The fact that the LA Times is running it is what really caught my attention -- "Man bites dog". Also, the recent news is the unsealing of documents which confirm what was just suspicion two months ago.
- puffoflogic 4y ago
  Most Reason contributors would feel right at home in the pages of the LA Times. Not the headlines they write for Reason, you understand; but the authors themselves, yes.

zhxshen 4y ago

This puts me in the mood for a Diet Shasta.

puffoflogic 4y ago

Don't forget the bit where the FBI claimed that a lot of the seized money was physically contaminated with illegal drug residue, but we can't show you the evidence because we converted all the physical seized cash into vouchers/deposits. But please trust us and we'd like to indict people on this evidence.