Lawsuit against TSA and DEA over airport seizures achieves first victory
ij.org
ij.org
This is insanity.
[0]https://reason.com/2019/11/21/with-this-forfeiture-trick-inn...
somehow, this has avoided sunshine for far too long
Citation needed.
(On caste system in the US I recommend “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson)
As I said in the past, we're trained to think that the pervasive small time corruption is the dangerous one, the small bribe you may give to a cop to get out of a speeding fine. In reality that type has close to no impact on society compared to high level corruption like this.
If this had happened in any "3rd world country" nobody would hesitate to call it corruption.
And it's the same for unlimited campaign contributions and lobbying.
It's not an accident that laws don't look at the deed but rather at where the person sits in society. There's not enough room in a book, let alone a comment to show just the most obvious evidence of this. But when someone can use an "affluenza" [0] defense to kill people and get away with it, you know where that country stands.
[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/02/us/ethan-couch-affluenza-...
If you aré carrying a big wad of cash, it’s safe to say you aren’t performing a service for the ruling class. You are probably defying your servile status and must be made an example of.
Rich people carry large amounts of cash without suspicion or difficulty. It’s only peasants that get their assets seized just because they have them.
By Joe Blow, minimum-wage TSA agent #24601?
I'm not rich now, but when I am then people like me better watch their step!
Like whom?
> the TSA violates the Fourth Amendment by detaining travelers and their cash without reasonable suspicion of criminality
Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Association[1] was the Supreme Court case that set precedent for random drug testing of public employees in sensitive positions, which would otherwise also be a fourth amendment violation. It doesn't seem like much of a stretch to say that precedent applies just as well (in the general sense) to searches/detainment of airline passengers in the name of public safety.
The defense would need to sweep the fact the money in this particular case was "detained" (ahem, stolen) for six months (as opposed to, like, one minute to check it for hazards) under the rug, but since this is a class action lawsuit rather than a lawsuit about this particular incident, isn't that detail irrelevant to the class action suit?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner_v._Railway_Labor_Execu...
To put it another way, the reason we allow drug tests of railroad workers is to ensure employees are sober when they are operating dangerous equipment. The reason we allow the TSA to search people and their belongings is to prevent terrorism. In neither case should there be any form of "cooperation" with law enforcement agencies based on a search that the law enforcement agency itself could not have performed.
If that financial data were shared without protections, no one would declare anything. Which hamstrings the capability of the service to operate. The same logic should be applied to TSA. If they must violate the 4th Amendment to keep airlines able to do business, they should not be able to tag in law enforcement, and more importantly, they should not be acting as an extension of DEA or Customs. It should be strictly limited to disarmament/destructive device detection.
But lets be honest with ourselves, That is too sane and principled to ever be executed on.
We don’t ask folks to declare other financial instruments (cashiers check, money orders) or jewelry on domestic flights. Cash is no different.
That is waaay too specific for you to have come up with it right off the top of your head; I sense there's a story here.
You're civil, aren't you? Or were we just caught thinking with that side of the brain again?
Contrary to popular belief, there are in general perfectly reasonable people out there to talk business with in transit.
Not every person you meet will be "civil", despite appearances.
And dont forget that, at least for some people, 100k is chunk change. Maybe they are heading to a big poker tournament with other 0.1%ers.
Life can be stranger than fiction, and I love a good story.
Anyway, I call shenanigans unless he showed you his suitcase full of cash.
Was shooting a movie and had too much trouble setting up a Canadian account so decided to pay everyone cash.
Cash was counted and returned to him.
Secondly, I play a lot of poker and regularly take $25k or more with me to Vegas, especially if it’s a spur of the moment flight. I keep my bankroll in cash because it’s simpler than having to go to a bank every time I want to play.
Additionally, I also play locally and it’s tough to get access to tens of thousands in actual cash immediately, especially in a small cardroom or “home” game.
If you have full-disk-encryption and a crypto-wallet passphrase, you may be held on contempt charges anyways. That might be better, it might not. The underlying problem of "the state can seize your assets if you act 'suspicious'" is still there.
dogecoin is the ultimate asset of the digital nomad
I hear you. You can't get $82k cash from an ATM, you need a flesh and blood teller for that. Fine, fine, if there's a bank of bitcoin that will facilitate my $82k withdrawal, I'd be happy with that.
You can spread it out over time. Banks would rather you did it in person so they can do the paperwork fpr large cash transactions once instead of 41 times.
Which is hilarious, in a tragic way, because I've almost always ended up as an outlier in most sets of data that I end up in. Nice to know somewhere along the way the powersthat be decided to make everyone's life even more miserably constrained, probably in the name of risk mitigation.
- Distrust of government herein obviously justified
- Large debts including but not limited to medical debt that would result in the funds enriching creditors instead of serving the individuals needs
- Need to do business with individuals with any of the above considerations the best example is probably a car from a private seller.
- A transaction related to the marijuana industry that is legal for the majority of Americans and still illegal federally and therefore untouchable by a bank.
If you don't carry it in a bag with a large dollar sign or lurk in a bad part of town after dark your chances of getting robbed are statistically small.
Back in 19(mumble), I drove from VA to IL with all of my possessions in my Civic Hatchback, including my life savings wrapped in a towel, inside a casserole, inside my microwave. Now, my life savings at the time was around $2500... I was moving, so I closed out my old bank account and planned to open a new one when I got where I was going.
When I was a kid, my mom was the bookkeeper for a local drug store. She had to make the treasury drop at the bank (deposit the cash from the registers). She would drive her car, and an assistant manager would literally ride shotgun - ok, not literally, he was wearing a pistol.
You are allowed to <except>. Just be ause you don't normally run into X doesn't mean it's illegal; regardless of what law enforcement and the media do their best to have you believe.
This is exactly the kind of thinking uninspiring politicians have when they try to or pass laws that curtail freedom for no good reason.
Plenty of people love and use cash, myself included. We don't need a reason for our preferences, but there exist plenty of good ones if you unreasonably demand that one exist.