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Comment by jmcgough | Hacker News Reader

I had to stop reading after a bit, I got so upset. Completely unbelievable that this could happen to someone.

Me too. But, on the other hand, I am not too surprised given that civil forfeiture is legal in the US...

A quick note, civil forfeiture is clearly illegal under the fourth amendment but courts have moved from a literal interpretation of law to a "the law means what I think it should mean in my better wisdom"* interpretation in regards to the constitution.

* See local and state firearms prohibitions, wiretapping by the NSA, title nine sexual assault courts, presidents declaring war without congressional approval, paris accord agreement without congressional approval and many other examples.

And it took at least 30 years for the media to start meaningfully questioning that practice.

I believe this is because it was used correctly (i.e. confiscating the actual profits of criminals), and started to be abused after (decades of) systematic under-funding of police departments.

The entire way that it works - giving police a direct, personal financial incentive to confiscate personal property with no due process, arrest or official accusation of a crime - is clearly problematic. I personally experienced and witnessed systematic, flagrant abuse of forfeiture in the late 90s in a small US state. The officers involved said they were especially interested if someone could help them locate cash rather than drugs, because they got to split it all vs. only being paid for a percentage of the drugs.

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