By Elaine Magliaro
John Oliver did a hilarious segment on civil forfeiture on his HBO program last night. I thought readers of this blog would enjoy watching it so I’m posting it at FFS for you.
About Civil Asset Forfeiture:
According to the ACLU, federal and state law enforcement agents seize millions of dollars from people during traffic stops every year. All the agents have to do is assert “that they believe the money is connected to some illegal activity and without ever pursuing criminal charges.” The ACLU says that under federal law and the laws of most states, “they are entitled to keep most (and sometimes all) of the money and property they seize.”
ACLU:
In many jurisdictions, the money can go to pay for salaries, advanced equipment and other perks. When salaries and perks are on the line, officers have a strong incentive to increase the seizures, as evidenced by an increase in the regularity and size of such seizures in recent years. Asset forfeiture practices often go hand-in-hand with racial profiling and disproportionately impact low-income African-American or Hispanic people who the police decide look suspicious and for whom the arcane process of trying to get one’s property back is an expensive challenge. ACLU believes that such routine “civil asset forfeiture” puts our civil liberties and property rights under assault, and calls for reform of state and federal civil asset forfeiture laws.
NOTE: In addition to seizing money, law enforcement agents have also taken people’s houses and vehicles
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Civil Forfeiture (HBO)
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
Civil Asset Forfeiture (ACLU)
Another civil asset forfeiture outrage (Washington Post)
Law to Clean Up ‘Nuisances’ Costs Innocent People Their Homes (ProPublica)
Gamblers say cash seizure was illegal (Des Moines Register)
United States v. 434 Main Street, Tewksbury, Mass. (The Motel Caswell)
Federal & Local Law Enforcement Agencies Try to Take Family Motel from Innocent Owners (Institute for Justice)
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
Elaine,
Thank you for this. Civil Forfeiture is one of the worst changes that have been made in America under the pretense of fighting organized crime and the “War on Drugs”.
It must have been well over twenty or twenty-five years ago, but I recall a Florida district attorney who was notorious for her vigorous efforts to seize property in cases even peripherally related to drugs. But, curiously, when her drug-dealer son was arrested on drug charges for running a grow operation in her house, the subject of property seizure never came up.
A guy landed his Beechcraft at a south Florida airport. IIRC, it was Dade County, but it may have been another county. While he was visiting the area, police stopped and questioned him on suspicion of smuggling drugs. He was completely cleared, but local law enforcement would not let him have his plane back. New quarter million dollar business-class airplane. They said once it was seized, they NEVER give the property back. Even if total innocence is proved.
When one combines the seizure of property and cash from law abiding citizens with cops shooting tear gas and rubber bullets from atop their armored vehicles into crowds of unarmed civilians, would it be too far afield to suggest the terrorists won?
“There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
Sad state of affairs buckaroo..
————–
Chuck;
Many people contact me about the ordeal of process to get back monies, cars etc., seized improperly. Just like in other bad faith scenarios, there’s extremist cases where feds swoop in and clamp down. Such was the case with one town in Florida that was reported upon on blogs, as the most corrupt in the state. The little town of less than 500, swelled its 1 man police force to nearly 20, when it annexed a stretch of highway and found a windfall profit by doing so.
You simply can’t give law enforcement the motive to become profiteers.
Bad faith is bad faith, no matter – whether or not – you were a badge.
Laser,
There is a community on US Highway 11-E between Johnson City and Bristol, TN called Bluff City. Also on that stretch of road is the famed Bristol Motor Speedway. BMS is one of the most popular tracks in NASCAR. They have big races twice a year, and race weekend is like having the Super Bowl come to your town. Additionally, that straight stretch of road is straight and well maintained. So, Bluff City availed themselves of the latest in photo-radar technology, and set up cameras on 11-E. The speed limit suddenly drops to 45 mph with only a few yards of warning.
A local IT guy got a speeding ticket which he had to pay. However, being an IT guy, he checked the web page of the Bluff City Police Department. He saw the domain name ownership would soon expire, so he kept checking. He was sitting at his computer, credit card in hand, watching it come up for availability.
Here is the result if you Google “Bluff City PD”:
http://www.bluffcitypd.com/
Seems the Mayor and Police Chief were both out of town for meetings. They claimed they had completely forgotten about the renewal date.
I’ll set my dvr to start recording “Law and Order Civil Asset Forfeiture Unit”
I thought all your stuff had been confiscated
🙂
Chuck;
I actually worked on cars there, on some occasions.
Pretty cool that the guy popped the site;
but ICANN has a measure to return domain names to proper owners.
Still – real cool.
Laser,
They either don’t know how to do it, or didn’t bother. They got another domain. It created quite a stir at the time. The speed cameras are now turned off on court order.
Actually, their ineptitude, seems to have turned out to be a good thing (IMO);
even many cops, put the petal to the metal, when they believe they are ‘Scot Free’
(and here in SoCal, if everyone went double nickle, the town would come to a halt)
A reported piece on this, credited to Forbes, made it on Yahoo News
https://autos.yahoo.com/news/how-cops-take-millions-from-motorists-not-charged-with-crimes-215603712.html
Thanks Elaine, yeah this is outrageous. Actually and no offense intended (I adore your pieces of work, you are actually the reason I started following FOS in the first place) it is old news. I read about it in some awful fiction book by Cussler (I think?) years ago working a third shift and was assuming it was some “leap of fiction” of the author. Imagine my horror when I realized it was true.
Even worse when you think of what we traded this liberty for, essentially nothing. My professors in C.J. at MSU predicted the failure of the War on Drugs as far back as the early 90’s.
And to add insult to injury we not only forget about this travesty as a whole but then we let the Patriot Act sweep in and make the former assault seem like a stolen kiss.
As i said before i think the main issue is that we as a people are simply mis-directed, overwhelmed and exasperated to the point of apathy.
The truly scary thing is that from comedy as rich is this comes indigestion that eventually vomits up a violent reaction to the toxicity we have been consuming with our daily meals for decades.
back to that professor at MSU I mentioned. I believe he even said that the only result in drug traffic we would see from the focus on drugs to the south of the States was a shift to the drug flow from the Pacific rim i.e. opiate based or heroin. Which we have and is currently the rising addiction among young people to my observations at least.
Consequently the investments in said areas of production in the Pacific Rim are largely held by American interests now.
Asset seizures fuel police spending
10/11/14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/cash-seizures-fuel-police-spending/
Excerpt:
Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.
ABOVE: In Douglasville, Ga, population 32,000, an armored personnel carrier costing $227,000 was bought using money taken from Americans under civil forfeiture laws.
The details are contained in thousands of annual reports submitted by local and state agencies to the Justice Department’s Equitable Sharing Program, an initiative that allows local and state police to keep up to 80 percent of the assets they seize. The Washington Post obtained 43,000 of the reports dating from 2008 through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The documents offer a sweeping look at how police departments and drug task forces across the country are benefiting from laws that allow them to take cash and property without proving a crime has occurred. The law was meant to decimate drug organizations, but The Post found that it has been used as a routine source of funding for law enforcement at every level.
“In tight budget periods, and even in times of budget surpluses, using asset forfeiture dollars to purchase equipment and training to stay current with the ever-changing trends in crime fighting helps serve and protect the citizens,” said Prince George’s County, Md., police spokeswoman Julie Parker.
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