Federal government giving back money seized from man at Cleveland airport | Hacker News Reader

Federal government giving back money seized from man at Cleveland airport

cleveland.com

54 pointsvezycash19 comments

This should hurt CBP more than just returning "almost all" of the cash. Maybe then they will repair their processes and inform everybody better.

Otherwise it will just remain an absurd "I stole from you; you saw it; I gave the money back to you; No hard feelings please."

In some places, the budget for the police or the prosecutors office is made up of civil forfeiture proceeds.[0,1] A budget should never, ever be made up in part or in totem of the proceeds from civil or criminal fines and forfeitures. Ever.

0. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken 1. http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/28/new-york-prosecutors-gave-...

Another success of "war on drugs". How Americans got so apathetic and let different organisations essentially bully them however they want? The reports about what's happening in America paint a picture as if it was a police state where right to private property is no longer respected along with the right to life. If you have a bad day you can be killed and all your belongings confiscated and your family will not be able to seek recourse. Perhaps because of the chance of this happening is so small, average citizen doesn't care. Meanwhile hostility towards citizens grows undisturbed.

Most noxious aspects of the war on drugs are generally applied as a proxy war to the war on minorities...

Civil forfeiture seems to be often applied to whites. Perhaps they are the only cases that get attention.

When I watched documentary "The House I Live In" I was really shocked by the scale of the abuse towards citizens. It was in 2012, about six years later nothing has changed or it is going even worse. Now, when I share a link to this documentary, usual response is that I am a nutcase and that is some sort of conspiracy theory! This is insane...

Civil asset forfeiture simply needs to end. There's no excuse for it; it's such an obvious perverse incentive.

If somebody's suspected of a crime, charge them with that crime. If there's not enough evidence to charge them, then there is no reason the police (or border patrol, or anyone else) should be able to just take their stuff away and keep it.

Few things that bug me about this: - what would have happened if this guy didn’t get a lawyer, couldn’t afford one, or was too intimidated by this experience to do so? How many others fall into this category? - he was planning on using his life savings to buy some real estate. Now I don’t know what the Albanian market is like, but it’s been at least 90 days since this happened and I know in the US, 90 days can equal some big missed opportunities in real estate..

> How many others fall into this category?

It happens a lot. ($2.5B in 2010) In some states, it's a systemic source of income for police departments. Most asset forfeitures are never returned to the individual, yet they are never charged with any crime. Even with an attorney, it is extremely hard to recover your money or other assets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

Back in 1970 when these laws were written, 10,000 was worth abouy 65000 today.

These laws need to be revised for inflation. The idea that someone needs to justify having 10K in cash or proof of where it came from is far too low today.

See also, bank secrecy act if your business operates in cash transactions.

Of all things, this is something Trump ahould take on.

That is something I had not considered - good point!

Why would anyone have to have proof of anything? Where is "innocent until proven guilty". If the government thinks that someone got their money from an illegal activity they should prove that, not the other way around.

p much every country imposes the obligation on you.

That's like saying crime is OK in a high-crime neighborhood - that governments commonly intrude on civil liberties, if anything, makes the idea more important. Indeed, if governments didn't tend to do it, it wouldn't be very important to try to get them to stop!

In my country, you have to be criminally charged and on trial before the government can seize (until the trial is over if you are found innocent) the things related to the alleged criminal activity.

I'm talking about "proof for the money". The burden is on you to prove to source, taxes etc.

They can ask me for proof for tax purposes, but they can not TAKE THE MONEY AWAY on the spot. If I can not prove the source of the money, they can give me a fine after the process, without taking that money.

The penalties have been adjusted for inflation. It’s not an accident, it’s malice.

Off-topic: the website showed me (EU resident) an alert saying that they’re sorry that I don’t trust them with my personal data (because I unselected all data sharing in their GDPR consent screen on a previous visit). And then I got shown the consent form again. Tacky!

As an EU resident, you should prepare to have this maddening, awkward experience with most of the websites you visit from now on.

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