"Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him for a crime"

vox

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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

Ridiculous

You see just a few states, like NC, where PD doesn't get to keep the seized property.

Seized property should have to go into a general fund completely divorced from the law enforcement agency. The moral hazard presented by a PD being able to keep fines and forfeitures for revenue and funding is just too high.

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Guess who the criminals are this time?

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Wiki wiki

I'd like to hear Chris Christie, Rand Paul, as well as all the other Dem/GOP droids duke it out over this subject.

Instead of being swept under the rug, or asking candidates what their Secret Service code name would be, how about discussing this important topic?

Wow, that is entirely fcked up. Legal theft because someone smelled something. BTW, I know Rand would be against this. But you're right, lets talk about this instead of secret service code names.

This is not uncommon.

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"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.

This one I think we would have a consensus in denouncing. I can barely think of something more un-American.

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“It is the heart of US policy to use fascism to preserve capitalism while claiming to be saving democracy from communism “ - Michael Parenti

i put use of eminent domain pretty high up on that list of "un-American" but civil forfeiture is exponentially worse

 

Yep, and is one of the money streams used to buy all that super cool military hardware and weaponry for your local PD. 

And, of course, they have to use it in order to justify it so they can buy more.  Besides fear, this is another contributor to the SWAT mentality which has become prevalent even among the local PDs and is now accepted as being normal by the public.

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If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC - KV

Y'all must not travel I-95 thru Georgia very much.

So why didn't have the money in the bank? Most folks don't travel around with 11k in their pocket. That would have alleviated alot of problems for this guy.

Victim blame 101.

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Wiki wiki

Georgia hell, how about Lawtey/Hampton along 301?

75/85/285 in jawjaw are probably worse than 95.

Blountstown in east Tennessee is pretty ridiculous.

 

Southern tradition. Speed trap for revenue to support a police department that is bigger than justified by the podunk population. Put the speed trap out on a highway where the speed limit change has nothing to do with public safety and where you can extract the toll from out-of-towners. That way the locals don't object.

Pretty similar to the civil forfeiture thing but civil forfeiture is worse because it is generally a much bigger hit on the victims.

 

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To be honest,  I was thinking the same thing. Trusting $11k in a checked luggage bag? None-the-less, he has the right to do whatever he wants to with his cash, and not have it taken from him when no crime was commited, or any other evidence suggesting so. Smelling is subjective, would that hold up in court as evidence?

Of course. If you aren't doing anything wrong then you've got nothing to worry about. The police are always trust worthy.

I'm sure that cops that took the money are saying the same thing to themselves. Just because he wasn't convicted, he was guilty as hell so he got what he deserved. Screw due process I reckon.

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victim is as victim does, stoopid, Do you carry 11k in cash? well maybe you don't have it but if you did it would be stoopid to carry it through an airport after you smoked your pot on the way there, just sayin

This happens all the time. Indeed, I have handled cases to get the seized money/property back. I am 100% against this. Progs, on the other hand, are all for it. This is what big gov't does. And progs want big gov't meddling in all of our affairs.

I would point out that something like this could happen to any of you at any time. And unless you have some serious money to pay someone like me, you won't get it back.

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I :heart; Q

Even tslap agrees with me.

Freedom means you get to be eccentric and carry your money with you if you like.

Hell, you should be glad this is a free country given your massive bad 'tude.  A negative attention seeker like you wouldn't like N. Korea.

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Wiki wiki

Yeah, the end of the world must be nigh, huh? But you progs are right on this one. Most people have no idea about this sort of thing or the criminalization of damn near everything. I can almost guarantee you that everyone on this forum has unknowingly committed some sort of federal crime at some point in the last year. And if they feds were to have found out about it, they would have license to take any  property involved. Look up some of the ridiculous seizures. It is mind boggling.

 http://fear.org/1/

 

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I :heart; Q