Government: This Cash Was Your Cash, This Cash Is Our Cash
From California, to the New York island
https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=529923&post_id=156325438
SimulationCommander Substack Sun Feb 2 2025
https://substack.com/@simulationcommander
“Innocent until proven guilty” is a bedrock foundation of the American judicial system, but there are others. The Fourth Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable search and seizures. The Sixth allows the accused a right to council.
But amazingly, a specific type of government action gets around all those pesky Constitutional protections. Civil Asset Forfeiture (CAF) allows the government to confiscate your property — EVEN IF YOU AREN’T EVEN ACCUSED OF A CRIME! They do this by charging YOUR PROPERTY with the crime. This legal “loophole” (called in rem jurisdiction) leads to some hilarious case titles. My personal favorite:
United States of America v. An Article of Hazardous Substance Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls
And guess what sort of legal rights your property has.
The original intent of CAF — as is typical with these things — makes a lot of sense. Imagine the cops chasing a guy down the street. A huge bag of heroin falls out of his pocket, but he gets away. That guy obviously isn’t going to show up at the police station asking for his heroin back, so the police need some sort of system to process this contraband. (Fun fact: cocaine washes up on Florida beaches ALL THE TIME!)
But as usual, these programs get expanded to excess. During the drug war, police figured it didn’t make any sense to bust a guy for selling drugs but then let him keep his nice car he could only afford from selling drugs. So why not take it? Or his house? Or his night vision goggles? After all, the police get to keep some of the proceeds……
Civil Asset Forfeiture - Policing for profit
As we’ve learned over and over here at Screaming into the Void, incentives drive behavior, and in 2014, the government actually stole more from Americans than burglars did!
My friends: “Wanna play cobs and robbers?”
Me:
In many cases, CAF amounted to literal highway robbery, as police stops turned into shakedowns:
Sometimes, the property in question isn’t even owned by the person accused (or not accused) of the crime in the first place! Malinda Harris let her son borrow her car, which was seized when police suspected him of dealing drugs. Rozina Javis had her house seized because of illegal activity happening outside it after she went to bed. Instead of the police just……arresting the hooligans.
CAF extends to the mail service, as well. Indiana prosecutors intercepted cash to a California-based small business from its Virginia-based client because the FedEx package was routed through Indianapolis. Ryan Hamer tried to help a friend out by sending money orders through FedEx. The Greenville Police Department seized the money orders — and pretty clearly lied about the case in subsequent reports.
These are just a few of the most egregious cases, but most people don’t even file a claim to get their property back. (Often, it costs more to reclaim the property than to replace it.) We never find out their names or what they lost, it’s just turned into a line on an excel spreadsheet.
It’s not ALL bad news, though. Since the rough-and-tumble 2010s, many states have re-vamped their CAF laws to require a higher burden of proof from the government before seizure of property. Others have removed the incentive for police to “steal” by directing proceeds from seized assets go to the state’s general fund instead of the police fund. And recently, Rand Paul teamed up with Cory Booker to introduce (actually re-introduce) the FAIR Act to further reform the practice.
As a result of these reforms, CAF was “just” in 2024 2.2 billion (many of these assets worth over a million dollars!), while loss from burglaries was an estimated 3.4 billion! The cops are stealing less than the robbers! So…..go us?
But this fight is far from over — and the government is coming up with even more ways to steal your money:
The relevant portion of the argument (actually a footnote in this case):
Click to enlarge
I am not sure the government has thought through the implications of ideas like “the money in your bank account actually belongs to the government.”
It might lead people to go back to putting cash under the mattress.
Which would then be charged with a crime, obviously.
IT’S ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU SCREAM! |