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Comment by molecule | Hacker News Reader

> Here's how it works. If a trooper suspects you may have money tied to some type of crime, the highway patrol can scan any cards you have and seize the money.

Given the low-threshold for seizure and how we've seen civil-asset forfeiture exercised by law enforcement, that's terrifying.

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Agreed:

"We've seen single mom's stuff be taken, a cancer survivor his drugs taken, we saw a Christian band being taken. We've seen innocent people's stuff being taken. We've seen where the money goes and how it's been misspent," Loveless said.

It boggles the mind that this doesn't violate due process.

The despicable logic they use is that they're not charging the person with a crime (because people have due process rights), they're charging an inanimate object, the money, the car, etc. Property doesn't have due process rights, apparently.

Seriously. If you look at the court cases for asset forfeitures, it is titled "The State of Oklahoma vs $1,534.32 in cash" or "Iowa vs 2014 Mercedes".

> Seriously. If you look at the court cases for asset forfeitures, it is titled "The State of Oklahoma vs $1,534.32 in cash" or "Iowa vs 2014 Mercedes".

That type of thing is ok in Admiralty Law, but should have no place in criminal law. How we got to a point where things can be taken from someone who is not convicted of a crime is beyond belief.

> That type of thing is ok in Admiralty Law, but should have no place in criminal law.

It doesn't take place within criminal law.

(There is also "criminal asset forfeiture", which is a different beast, and takes place within normal criminal process against a particular criminal defendant: that is a part of criminal law, and its a lot less controversial than civil asset forfeiture.)

ok, fine, but I think civil asset forfeiture in this context is misnamed and bs.

How can an inanimate object be charged with a crime? It's inanimate, so by definition cannot make a decision...

Also, if they're confiscating assets, why not confiscate the car? Why just the cash/cards?

How do we get this absurd law overturned? What's the minimum required? Supreme court decision?

They've long confiscated cars and cash. They're just upping their game.

Yeah... Now, the logic is:

"You have a bunch of money on your ATM card. You can potentially go to an ATM take out cash, then get drugs. Now, I need to seize all your money to ensure you can't buy those illegal drugs that may or may not exist."

They are civil cases- the objects aren't being charged with crimes.

Strictly speaking, they are accusing the asset of being a nuisance (sometimes, though not always, as a result of being an instrumentality in a crime -- but civil asset forfeiture doesn't require a crime to have been involved at all; they are also providing both public notice and private notice to the person (if any) from whom the property was seized of the action, and anyone who has an interest in the asset (whether the person, if any, from whom it was seized, or any other person) has the right to assert that interest, at which case they have all the rights normally attendant to civil process [not criminal process, because its not a criminal action, and criminal penalties can not be imposed.])

Well, the real funny asset-forfeiture case names are United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls and United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins.

But the likes of United States v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency is obviously more dangerous than either of those:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._$124,700_in_U...

And the list of cases here is hilarious as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_rem_jurisdiction

like United States v. 11 1/4 Dozen Packages of Articles Labeled in Part Mrs. Moffat’s Shoo-Fly Powders for Drunkenness, or United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, United States v. One Tyrannosaurus Bataar Skeleton, or Marcus v. Search Warrant of Property at 104 East Tenth Street, Kansas City, Missouri, or R.M.S. Titanic, Inc. v. The Wrecked and Abandoned Vessel, R.M.S. Titanic ...

These sound like McSweeneys article titles

> Property doesn't have due process rights,

Apparently, property doesn't really belong to us.

Well if property is people, then of course not silly!

Corporations are also people, so you can't really have one of those either.

try not paying your property tax and see what happens. Deeds mean nothing. Receipts mean nothing. Registration means nothing. The State owns everything.

There's a whole stack of gold bricks in Ft. Knox that's done me wrong. Where can I file?

I guess married mothers, non-sick people and secular bands would all be fair game.

Shouldn't this just be "Citizens robbed by police".

In India at least they have the decency to say "Do you have a gift for me?" so you know what's happening.

My dad would pretend to be hard of hearing and deliberately misunderstand ad nauseum until waved on his way, this would happen about once a month while going about his lawful business.

He even gatecrashed a police function and got himself a picture shaking hands with the Chief of Police. He kept the photo in the vehicle so he could produce it and attempt to start up a conversation as though they were great friends.

This is a country where the guards of the police armoury were bribed with $5 to allow weapons to be removed.

I'm pretty sure the speaker was trying to point out a few examples which he thought the audience would sympathize were unlikely to be threats or otherwise engaged in criminal activity.

Of course all of these forfeitures stink of illegality, regardless of the victim. Forth Amendment? Never heard of it, apparently.

Yes, undoubtedly that was the idea. But "Vulnerable person exploited" is really less of a story than "police rob citizens". You could add "at gunpoint" to bait it.

I'm sure they're going to use that bullshit legal reasoning that because the money committed the crime, the money itself can be held responsible and seized, and money doesn't have 4th amendment protections because it's not a person.

Yet if it's not a person, it can't be convicted of a crime either. Has a dog ever been charged for biting, instead of its owner?

What makes you think money can't be put on trial?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._$124,700_in_U...

Oh I'm aware of that. I was pointing out the logical inconsistency between "not a person, so no 4th amendment" and "not a person, so no case"

There is no logic here. The 4th amendment clearly states papers are protected, cash is paper. It's protected no matter what retarded logic you use.

Lots of times, plenty also found guilty, including a swarm of crickets who were excommunicated.

http://www.wired.com/2014/09/fantastically-wrong-europes-ins...

Not disagreeing with you but that quote is specifically about standard CAF, nothing to do with this new card process.

Yeah that's terrible. You could be completely clean and have the trooper suspect you because he thinks you look shifty or something.

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