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I am concerned that by calling it "civil forfeiture" this article is using language to mask a very basic crime. What was described in this article is called st

I am concerned that by calling it "civil forfeiture" this article is using language to mask a very basic crime. What was described in this article is called stealing or theft. To call it anything else is to mask and downplay what was done to this man. It is to enable the very act that was committed. George Carlin observed this as a dangerous trend in our language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc Call it "civil forfeiture" once if you have to (perhaps as a footnote). But to repeatedly use such "soft language" is to delay an end to such injustice.

thedufer 11y ago
Civil forfeiture isn't "soft language", it's a precise legal term. You may not agree with the principle (I certainly don't), but calling it theft is no different from a libertarian doing the same with taxation.
- itistoday2 11y ago
  > Civil forfeiture isn't "soft language", it's a precise legal term. It is both. > calling it theft is no different from a libertarian doing the same with taxation. Taxation today is theft.
  - itistoday2 11y ago
    In common usage, theft is the taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. We are unable to give consent (consent implies choice), so it is theft through coercion (prison). See "group fund" for a voluntary form of taxation: http://groupcurrency.org http://groupcurrency.org
    - rhino369 11y ago
      Guess who defines who the rightful owner of property is? Government.
      - itistoday2 11y ago
        > Guess who defines who the rightful owner of property is? Government. A compelling argument. In that case this appears to be a non-story, and I'm not sure what the fuss is about.
    - vidarh 11y ago
      I always find this line of discussion amusing, given that most forms of property only meaningfully exists in the presence of coercion or violence to restrict others access, yet in my experience the people who gives the "tax is theft" line tend to be right wing libertarians who also tend to want strong enforcement of private property laws and tends to be totally humourless about it if Proudhons "property is theft" is brought up as a counterpoint.
      - itistoday2 11y ago
        I've lived long enough to be called "right wing" for the first time in my life... that is a first (I think). As far as Proudhon (first time hearing this), it seems he was referring to land only, and that "property did not extend to exclusive possession of labor-made wealth." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft! It's unclear to me how someone can "own" a piece of land which they did not create but stumbled upon. To me it just seems like a situation where the person with the biggest gun wins, and has nothing to do with "property". So in that sense, perhaps, yes, claiming ownership over something you did not create (Earth) might very well be interpreted as theft. However, the notion of "land property" is a potentially convoluted rabbit hole that is very different from a straightforward discussion about taking money people earned with their own labor under the threat of force.
  - titanomachy 11y ago
    If taxation today is theft, is there a time when it wasn't?
    - Frondo 11y ago
      Taxation isn't theft. The anti-tax crowd is just like the anti-vax crowd. They both want a free ride on the rest of our backs; the anti-vaxers want the benefit of herd immunity, and the anti-taxers want others to pay the cost of living in the modern world. (*edited to a missing word)
      - philh 11y ago
        Anti-tax is about not forcing people to pay for services they may not want. I don't think it's realistic, but your description of them is uncharitable. In a world where everyone gets hit on the head with a baseball bat once a week, some people are saying "what's with this? Can't we figure out some way of not getting hit by baseball bats every week?" And you're turning that into "I don't want to get hit by a baseball bat, someone else should get hit instead of me".
        bryondowd 11y ago
        I'm not sure I lean one way or the other, but that isn't a good analogy. There's no benefit to anybody from a baseball bat to the head. Now, if a certain number of baseball bats to heads is required to appease the gods and increase fertility, health, etc in a majority of the population, you've got a better comparison. Maybe not everybody needs all those benefits, but the options on the table are to let some people opt out, and decrease the benefits globally, or let some people opt out and increase the bat to head frequency for everyone else, force the holdouts to just quit whining and take their bat to the head for the greater good, or maybe see if there's some alternative way to appease the gods and reap their benefits with less head batting.
        philh 11y ago
        I agree that those features would make the analogy more accurate wrt taxation, but if that was the only important thing about an analogy, we wouldn't use analogies at all. (And it's quite possible that I shouldn't have used an analogy in this case.) I don't think those features are particularly relevant to the mistake Frondo was making.
  - patcon 11y ago
    > Taxation today is theft. You say "theft" like it's the typical "take" act that the word normally implies. It's more like someone stealing $200 and giving you a bicycle you didn't ask for, but you're likely still going to use it anyhow. ie. it's complicated, so it gets a new word :)
    - itistoday2 11y ago
      > It's more like someone stealing $200 Sounds like we're in agreement then. :) > and giving you a bicycle you didn't ask for s/bicycle/war. No worries, I make that typo all the time. ;)
      - sitkack 11y ago
        I can't even imagine what 6 trillion dollars worth of bicycles looks like.
        olefoo 11y ago
        6 Trillion dollars worth of bicycle infrastructure would bring the entire continental US up to Dutch standards. And bring healthcare up to French standards.
    - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
      The problem is when you agree to give them $10,000 for a new car but get a bicycle instead.
      - washadjeffmad 11y ago
        Don't forget they'll need a new tax for driving a vehicle with fewer than four wheels to subsidize the car industry, emissions testing for the bicycles, new vehicle registration fees still based on the value of the car you were supposed to receive, mandatory cycle insurance, tax to create a Department of Cyclist Services, tax for re-equipping the police to handle the change in criminal defenses (purchase of helmet-piercing rounds), tax for the creation of the position City Bicycle Inspector, tax to create the new lanes and parking areas for the bicycles, and the creation of bicycle dealerships that prevent you from buying bicycles and their parts directly from manufacturers. Several million dollars later, the initiative is scrapped and all bicycles are replaced at taxpayer expense with Enduros, in a move completely unrelated to the opening of the new Enduro factory and recent election of extremely popular Mayor Nathan Enduro, who ran on a platform of smaller government and the freedom to spend your money on as much gasoline and Enduro parts as you want.
  - Frondo 11y ago
    Taxation isn't theft. Taxation is you paying the bill you've incurred for living in this country. You've lived here, gotten some benefit from the services the government provides, and when the bill comes you start saying "theft!! theft!!!"? The anti-tax crowd is the biggest bunch of moochers and freeloaders this side of Wall Street. They're just out for a free ride, leaving the rest of us to pay for it.
    - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
      How about 'taxation may be theft'? Depending upon how it is done and how much of a tax there is compared to the benefits. For example, a one time tax of 30% of all bank accounts would be considered theft. Paying a gas tax to care for the road you use would not. Also, some of the corrupt dealings of Congress would be theft from the government, and since that raises taxes on the individuals, I think it would be reasonable to consider it theft.
    - itistoday2 11y ago
      Stereotypes and ad hominem don't help the conversation. I am not "anti-tax". I think taxation is a good idea as it helps a community re-invest in itself. I am anti-theft. Saying today's taxation is not theft won't change the reality that it is. Nor will downvoting this post change that reality. In fact, barring a change in the definition of the word, there is not a single action in this universe that can change the reality that taking something that belongs to someone else without their permission is theft.
      - Frondo 11y ago
        You agree to pay taxes by continuing to live here. Taxes aren't theft any more than the check at the end of a restaurant meal is theft. In both cases, you agree to pay something in exchange for something (a meal, a functioning government, etc).
        itistoday2 11y ago
        > You agree to pay taxes by continuing to live here. If we were free to move to a country where we agreed with the laws you might be right. That's not reality though. We are not (currently) free to choose how we pay taxes in any country and our freedom to move from one country to another is restricted. So, sorry, I never agreed to pay these taxes, I have little say in how they're used, and I have no alternatives except to go to prison. That's not freedom. That's simply coercion and theft.
- zaroth 11y ago
  What's the articulable suspicion? "He had the money, so we took it" about sums it up. In its time, I believe civil forfeiture can serve a just and necessary purpose, but this is not it.
- Goronmon 11y ago
  You may not agree with the principle (I certainly don't), but calling it theft is no different from a libertarian doing the same with taxation. I would say that calling civil forfeiture as theft makes more sense then comparing civil forfeiture to taxation. Unless you live in an area where "taxation" means armed men come to your house and demand all your cash on April 15th. Honestly, I don't really buy the argument that in cases like this, its wrong to call the action theft. I don't find the terms mutually exclusive depending on the context.
  - thedufer 11y ago
    > Unless you live in an area where "taxation" means armed men come to your house and demand all your cash on April 15th. They don't bother with armed men. If I refuse to pay long enough, they just take it straight out of my paycheck (wage garnishment). No need to intimidate someone when you own their bank.
  - LordKano 11y ago
    Unless you live in an area where "taxation" means armed men come to your house and demand all your cash on April 15th. It's the threat of armed men being sent for them that compels most people to pay their taxes and file the return. Both taxation and civil forfeiture have much in common with theft.
- hinkley 11y ago
  Are you saying you haven't noticed the systemic pattern of baking soft language into laws? Have you not noticed the names they put on bills to get them through Congress (state or federal)? Right to Work? No Child Left Behind? DOMA, Internet Freedom Act. Hell, the Affordable Care Act (I SAID IT, sue me!) These guys have it figured out, and when we figure it out they just change tactics. If they're that brazenly Orwellian on the title page how can they not be spending time softening the text in the middle?
  - sdoering 11y ago
    In Germany we have a great blog dedicated to detecting these words and dismantling them. And showing what they really mean and what the cover. It is called "Neusprech.org" (newspeak.org translated). Really a great resource.
- guelo 11y ago
  We shouldn't use technical jargon because it obscures the plain fact that they are stealing.
- mapt 11y ago
  It's a hell of a lot different from a popularly-legislated general tax on the economy. These people are committing literal armed robbery, in order to fund themselves. It is explicitly contrary to the Fifth Amendment of the constitution, in spirit and in letter. They are pulling people over and rifling through their wallets for cash. That's not supposed to be how constitutional liberal democracy works, at a very fundamental level. "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."" "Civil asset forfeiture" precisely resembles the worst caricature of the behavior we were attempting to defend against when we wrote that. And it's affecting everybody going through police jurisdictions that rely on that revenue, not just the minorities that the drug war was designed to persecute in order to get Reagan & Bush Sr re-elected. I understand some of the politics of why the executive and the legislature ramped this up - perceptions that a generation of children was being lost to a class of sinister urban drug-pushers, and a desire for vigilante justice even when we couldn't convict them of anything. I don't understand how any judge anywhere could approve any of it. They're supposed to be above that. If you accept these legal fictions into your worldview, what's the point of having a justice system at all? This should have been ended decades ago, when hysteria about the 'crack epidemic' wore down. As far as I'm concerned, when a local cop steals money from you and claims he has a form that says that's okay, that's a reason for the FBI or Internal Affairs to come in and prosecute that person. Because they stopped being a legitimate representative of the people in any capacity: they stopped shepherding law-abiding citizens and started feeding on them. We used to have a word for that, 'dirty cops', and we used to believe, or at least hope, they were aberrations.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  Under some legal systems I can execute a homosexual for merely being a homosexual. But don't you dare call that murder. Under some legal systems you can own a sex slave, but don't you dare call it rape. Under some legal systems the government can take what they want because the law allows them, but don't you dare call it theft.
zaroth 11y ago
You could imagine reading it this way: DEA agents confronted the only black man in the train car and demanded he open his bags, shook him down, and stole his cash. In a brazen theft which DEA agents later claimed was legal under the veil of "civil forfeiture" the state prosecutor has refused to press charges, and the judge on the case has refused to provide relief for the plaintiff... I hope we continue to see a relentless stream of articles highlighting these cases one after another until finally the outcry builds loud enough for something substantive to be done at the federal level. It's to the point where we need an 'Audit the Fed' level response to scrutinize every dollar seized, and victims should be compensated in full, with interest. I wonder how the story would have gone differently if the man had refused to consent to the search. Probably not much better, heck, that would probably be considered 'evidence' against his money. I also wonder what the burden of proof is for showing the source of the funds. If you walk into court with bank statements and W-2s, why is it so hard to get the money back? Judges are obstructing this for some reason, and I think that's an angle to the story we haven't seen much reported.
- meric 11y ago
  That's a good idea for a blog.
- bobbles 11y ago
  > I wonder how the story would have gone differently if the man had refused to consent to the search. Probably taze the guy, then shoot him 7 times in the back as he runs off
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    This is so last year. Current trends in LE is to first shoot the guy than taze him
    - Mtinie 11y ago
      ...and then ask if you consent to a search of your bag.
    - 11y ago
sdoering 11y ago
Well in medieval times we called these people "robber knights" [1].  Good to see, that the US are capable of learning from history by importing great achievements and ideas of former times from the old world.  [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron
Houshalter 11y ago
George Orwell wrote a fantastic essay on this that is worth reading: >In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. https://web.archive.org/web/20120106011107/http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/language.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120106011107/http://www.k-1.co...
- dba7dba 11y ago
  dropping of the atom bombs on Japan I respectfully disagree that it's indefensible. It was either 100,000 Japanese civilians in those 2 cities OR million or more American casualties. AND if the invasion had taken place, millions and millions of Japanese civilians would've died also. I agree, with proper PR language, anything can be made look half decent and therefore tolerable.
  - myth_buster 11y ago
    I respectfully disagree that it's indefensible. It was either 100,000 Japanese civilians in those 2 cities OR million or more American casualties. AND if the invasion had taken place, millions and millions of Japanese civilians would've died also. I respectfully disagree with your defense as it's speculative.
    - 11y ago
juliangregorian 11y ago
Double-plus ungood.
evanpw 11y ago
I agree with your conclusion, but this is an example of the "worst argument in the world": http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst_argument_in_the/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
giltleaf 11y ago
This is a good point and I'm struggling to grasp how deep this article indicates this problem goes. I just finished reading Emergency by Neil Strauss and this just motivates me more and more.
copsarebastards 11y ago
It's not just theft, it's conspiracy to commit armed robbery.
mikeash 11y ago
There's a great deal of reluctance in the media to use anything but official terms for these things. For a widespread recent example, see the constant usage of "enhanced interrogation" and a complete absence of the word "torture" except when repeating its usage by someone else.

thedufer 11y ago

Civil forfeiture isn't "soft language", it's a precise legal term. You may not agree with the principle (I certainly don't), but calling it theft is no different from a libertarian doing the same with taxation.

itistoday2 11y ago
> Civil forfeiture isn't "soft language", it's a precise legal term. It is both. > calling it theft is no different from a libertarian doing the same with taxation. Taxation today is theft.
- itistoday2 11y ago
  In common usage, theft is the taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. We are unable to give consent (consent implies choice), so it is theft through coercion (prison). See "group fund" for a voluntary form of taxation: http://groupcurrency.org http://groupcurrency.org
  - rhino369 11y ago
    Guess who defines who the rightful owner of property is? Government.
    - itistoday2 11y ago
      > Guess who defines who the rightful owner of property is? Government. A compelling argument. In that case this appears to be a non-story, and I'm not sure what the fuss is about.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    I always find this line of discussion amusing, given that most forms of property only meaningfully exists in the presence of coercion or violence to restrict others access, yet in my experience the people who gives the "tax is theft" line tend to be right wing libertarians who also tend to want strong enforcement of private property laws and tends to be totally humourless about it if Proudhons "property is theft" is brought up as a counterpoint.
    - itistoday2 11y ago
      I've lived long enough to be called "right wing" for the first time in my life... that is a first (I think). As far as Proudhon (first time hearing this), it seems he was referring to land only, and that "property did not extend to exclusive possession of labor-made wealth." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft! It's unclear to me how someone can "own" a piece of land which they did not create but stumbled upon. To me it just seems like a situation where the person with the biggest gun wins, and has nothing to do with "property". So in that sense, perhaps, yes, claiming ownership over something you did not create (Earth) might very well be interpreted as theft. However, the notion of "land property" is a potentially convoluted rabbit hole that is very different from a straightforward discussion about taking money people earned with their own labor under the threat of force.
- titanomachy 11y ago
  If taxation today is theft, is there a time when it wasn't?
  - Frondo 11y ago
    Taxation isn't theft. The anti-tax crowd is just like the anti-vax crowd. They both want a free ride on the rest of our backs; the anti-vaxers want the benefit of herd immunity, and the anti-taxers want others to pay the cost of living in the modern world. (*edited to a missing word)
    - philh 11y ago
      Anti-tax is about not forcing people to pay for services they may not want. I don't think it's realistic, but your description of them is uncharitable. In a world where everyone gets hit on the head with a baseball bat once a week, some people are saying "what's with this? Can't we figure out some way of not getting hit by baseball bats every week?" And you're turning that into "I don't want to get hit by a baseball bat, someone else should get hit instead of me".
      - bryondowd 11y ago
        I'm not sure I lean one way or the other, but that isn't a good analogy. There's no benefit to anybody from a baseball bat to the head. Now, if a certain number of baseball bats to heads is required to appease the gods and increase fertility, health, etc in a majority of the population, you've got a better comparison. Maybe not everybody needs all those benefits, but the options on the table are to let some people opt out, and decrease the benefits globally, or let some people opt out and increase the bat to head frequency for everyone else, force the holdouts to just quit whining and take their bat to the head for the greater good, or maybe see if there's some alternative way to appease the gods and reap their benefits with less head batting.
        philh 11y ago
        I agree that those features would make the analogy more accurate wrt taxation, but if that was the only important thing about an analogy, we wouldn't use analogies at all. (And it's quite possible that I shouldn't have used an analogy in this case.) I don't think those features are particularly relevant to the mistake Frondo was making.
- patcon 11y ago
  > Taxation today is theft. You say "theft" like it's the typical "take" act that the word normally implies. It's more like someone stealing $200 and giving you a bicycle you didn't ask for, but you're likely still going to use it anyhow. ie. it's complicated, so it gets a new word :)
  - itistoday2 11y ago
    > It's more like someone stealing $200 Sounds like we're in agreement then. :) > and giving you a bicycle you didn't ask for s/bicycle/war. No worries, I make that typo all the time. ;)
    - sitkack 11y ago
      I can't even imagine what 6 trillion dollars worth of bicycles looks like.
      - olefoo 11y ago
        6 Trillion dollars worth of bicycle infrastructure would bring the entire continental US up to Dutch standards. And bring healthcare up to French standards.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    The problem is when you agree to give them $10,000 for a new car but get a bicycle instead.
    - washadjeffmad 11y ago
      Don't forget they'll need a new tax for driving a vehicle with fewer than four wheels to subsidize the car industry, emissions testing for the bicycles, new vehicle registration fees still based on the value of the car you were supposed to receive, mandatory cycle insurance, tax to create a Department of Cyclist Services, tax for re-equipping the police to handle the change in criminal defenses (purchase of helmet-piercing rounds), tax for the creation of the position City Bicycle Inspector, tax to create the new lanes and parking areas for the bicycles, and the creation of bicycle dealerships that prevent you from buying bicycles and their parts directly from manufacturers. Several million dollars later, the initiative is scrapped and all bicycles are replaced at taxpayer expense with Enduros, in a move completely unrelated to the opening of the new Enduro factory and recent election of extremely popular Mayor Nathan Enduro, who ran on a platform of smaller government and the freedom to spend your money on as much gasoline and Enduro parts as you want.
- Frondo 11y ago
  Taxation isn't theft. Taxation is you paying the bill you've incurred for living in this country. You've lived here, gotten some benefit from the services the government provides, and when the bill comes you start saying "theft!! theft!!!"? The anti-tax crowd is the biggest bunch of moochers and freeloaders this side of Wall Street. They're just out for a free ride, leaving the rest of us to pay for it.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    How about 'taxation may be theft'? Depending upon how it is done and how much of a tax there is compared to the benefits. For example, a one time tax of 30% of all bank accounts would be considered theft. Paying a gas tax to care for the road you use would not. Also, some of the corrupt dealings of Congress would be theft from the government, and since that raises taxes on the individuals, I think it would be reasonable to consider it theft.
  - itistoday2 11y ago
    Stereotypes and ad hominem don't help the conversation. I am not "anti-tax". I think taxation is a good idea as it helps a community re-invest in itself. I am anti-theft. Saying today's taxation is not theft won't change the reality that it is. Nor will downvoting this post change that reality. In fact, barring a change in the definition of the word, there is not a single action in this universe that can change the reality that taking something that belongs to someone else without their permission is theft.
    - Frondo 11y ago
      You agree to pay taxes by continuing to live here. Taxes aren't theft any more than the check at the end of a restaurant meal is theft. In both cases, you agree to pay something in exchange for something (a meal, a functioning government, etc).
      - itistoday2 11y ago
        > You agree to pay taxes by continuing to live here. If we were free to move to a country where we agreed with the laws you might be right. That's not reality though. We are not (currently) free to choose how we pay taxes in any country and our freedom to move from one country to another is restricted. So, sorry, I never agreed to pay these taxes, I have little say in how they're used, and I have no alternatives except to go to prison. That's not freedom. That's simply coercion and theft.
zaroth 11y ago
What's the articulable suspicion? "He had the money, so we took it" about sums it up. In its time, I believe civil forfeiture can serve a just and necessary purpose, but this is not it.
Goronmon 11y ago
You may not agree with the principle (I certainly don't), but calling it theft is no different from a libertarian doing the same with taxation. I would say that calling civil forfeiture as theft makes more sense then comparing civil forfeiture to taxation. Unless you live in an area where "taxation" means armed men come to your house and demand all your cash on April 15th. Honestly, I don't really buy the argument that in cases like this, its wrong to call the action theft. I don't find the terms mutually exclusive depending on the context.
- thedufer 11y ago
  > Unless you live in an area where "taxation" means armed men come to your house and demand all your cash on April 15th. They don't bother with armed men. If I refuse to pay long enough, they just take it straight out of my paycheck (wage garnishment). No need to intimidate someone when you own their bank.
- LordKano 11y ago
  Unless you live in an area where "taxation" means armed men come to your house and demand all your cash on April 15th. It's the threat of armed men being sent for them that compels most people to pay their taxes and file the return. Both taxation and civil forfeiture have much in common with theft.
hinkley 11y ago
Are you saying you haven't noticed the systemic pattern of baking soft language into laws? Have you not noticed the names they put on bills to get them through Congress (state or federal)? Right to Work? No Child Left Behind? DOMA, Internet Freedom Act. Hell, the Affordable Care Act (I SAID IT, sue me!) These guys have it figured out, and when we figure it out they just change tactics. If they're that brazenly Orwellian on the title page how can they not be spending time softening the text in the middle?
- sdoering 11y ago
  In Germany we have a great blog dedicated to detecting these words and dismantling them. And showing what they really mean and what the cover. It is called "Neusprech.org" (newspeak.org translated). Really a great resource.
guelo 11y ago
We shouldn't use technical jargon because it obscures the plain fact that they are stealing.
mapt 11y ago
It's a hell of a lot different from a popularly-legislated general tax on the economy. These people are committing literal armed robbery, in order to fund themselves. It is explicitly contrary to the Fifth Amendment of the constitution, in spirit and in letter. They are pulling people over and rifling through their wallets for cash. That's not supposed to be how constitutional liberal democracy works, at a very fundamental level. "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."" "Civil asset forfeiture" precisely resembles the worst caricature of the behavior we were attempting to defend against when we wrote that. And it's affecting everybody going through police jurisdictions that rely on that revenue, not just the minorities that the drug war was designed to persecute in order to get Reagan & Bush Sr re-elected. I understand some of the politics of why the executive and the legislature ramped this up - perceptions that a generation of children was being lost to a class of sinister urban drug-pushers, and a desire for vigilante justice even when we couldn't convict them of anything. I don't understand how any judge anywhere could approve any of it. They're supposed to be above that. If you accept these legal fictions into your worldview, what's the point of having a justice system at all? This should have been ended decades ago, when hysteria about the 'crack epidemic' wore down. As far as I'm concerned, when a local cop steals money from you and claims he has a form that says that's okay, that's a reason for the FBI or Internal Affairs to come in and prosecute that person. Because they stopped being a legitimate representative of the people in any capacity: they stopped shepherding law-abiding citizens and started feeding on them. We used to have a word for that, 'dirty cops', and we used to believe, or at least hope, they were aberrations.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Under some legal systems I can execute a homosexual for merely being a homosexual. But don't you dare call that murder. Under some legal systems you can own a sex slave, but don't you dare call it rape. Under some legal systems the government can take what they want because the law allows them, but don't you dare call it theft.

zaroth 11y ago

You could imagine reading it this way: DEA agents confronted the only black man in the train car and demanded he open his bags, shook him down, and stole his cash. In a brazen theft which DEA agents later claimed was legal under the veil of "civil forfeiture" the state prosecutor has refused to press charges, and the judge on the case has refused to provide relief for the plaintiff... I hope we continue to see a relentless stream of articles highlighting these cases one after another until finally the outcry builds loud enough for something substantive to be done at the federal level. It's to the point where we need an 'Audit the Fed' level response to scrutinize every dollar seized, and victims should be compensated in full, with interest. I wonder how the story would have gone differently if the man had refused to consent to the search. Probably not much better, heck, that would probably be considered 'evidence' against his money. I also wonder what the burden of proof is for showing the source of the funds. If you walk into court with bank statements and W-2s, why is it so hard to get the money back? Judges are obstructing this for some reason, and I think that's an angle to the story we haven't seen much reported.

meric 11y ago
That's a good idea for a blog.
bobbles 11y ago
> I wonder how the story would have gone differently if the man had refused to consent to the search. Probably taze the guy, then shoot him 7 times in the back as he runs off
- venomsnake 11y ago
  This is so last year. Current trends in LE is to first shoot the guy than taze him
  - Mtinie 11y ago
    ...and then ask if you consent to a search of your bag.
  - 11y ago

sdoering 11y ago

Well in medieval times we called these people "robber knights" [1].  Good to see, that the US are capable of learning from history by importing great achievements and ideas of former times from the old world.  [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron

Houshalter 11y ago

George Orwell wrote a fantastic essay on this that is worth reading: >In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. https://web.archive.org/web/20120106011107/http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/language.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120106011107/http://www.k-1.co...

dba7dba 11y ago
dropping of the atom bombs on Japan I respectfully disagree that it's indefensible. It was either 100,000 Japanese civilians in those 2 cities OR million or more American casualties. AND if the invasion had taken place, millions and millions of Japanese civilians would've died also. I agree, with proper PR language, anything can be made look half decent and therefore tolerable.
- myth_buster 11y ago
  I respectfully disagree that it's indefensible. It was either 100,000 Japanese civilians in those 2 cities OR million or more American casualties. AND if the invasion had taken place, millions and millions of Japanese civilians would've died also. I respectfully disagree with your defense as it's speculative.
  - 11y ago

juliangregorian 11y ago

Double-plus ungood.

evanpw 11y ago

I agree with your conclusion, but this is an example of the "worst argument in the world": http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst_argument_in_the/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst...

deleted 11y ago

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giltleaf 11y ago

This is a good point and I'm struggling to grasp how deep this article indicates this problem goes. I just finished reading Emergency by Neil Strauss and this just motivates me more and more.

copsarebastards 11y ago

It's not just theft, it's conspiracy to commit armed robbery.

mikeash 11y ago

There's a great deal of reluctance in the media to use anything but official terms for these things. For a widespread recent example, see the constant usage of "enhanced interrogation" and a complete absence of the word "torture" except when repeating its usage by someone else.