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Comment by jacksonkmarley | Hacker News Reader

> The stop was a pretext to ask Stephen about his trip, and “a bunch of silly questions,” like “[are there] any large amounts of United States currency in the vehicle.”

Haha, what a silly question...except the guy actually did have a large amount of United States currency in the vehicle. Either that cop is the world's luckiest guesser, or they had some reason to think he had a bunch of cash in his car.

If the DEA really didn't comply with it's legal obligations about returning the money/explaining though, I guess the guy has a pretty strong case to get it all back plus a bit extra.

Not sure why he couldn't just send the bank receipts he already showed the cop to the DEA or whatever. Principle?

I have a lot of questions about this story.

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> Haha, what a silly question...except the guy actually did have a large amount of United States currency in the vehicle. Either that cop is the world's luckiest guesser, or they had some reason to think he had a bunch of cash in his car.

… or he asks everyone that he pulls over that question.

Seemed weirdly specific to me, but I guess in certain areas with lots of drug sales or whatever it could be more generally applicable.

In jurisdictions that make heavy use of civil forfeiture, it’s a standard question. It’s unfortunately common in some small towns and low population counties as it’s a large chunk of their funding.

That certainly puts a different light on how I was looking at the topic.

It's fucking Nevada. They already knew exactly which Dea agent to call. These asshats probably troll for gamblers and steal much lower amounts all the time.

The incentives are aligned for cops to ask the question as much as possible–if their local department gets to keep a good chunk of the seized money, that’s more in the bank to pay for all sorts of stuff, including additional overtime hours aka money directly in the officers pockets.

> Either that cop is the world's luckiest guesser, or they had some reason to think he had a bunch of cash in his car.

Have you heard of parallel construction? Perhaps he and his wife had discussed the cash in private messages.

> Not sure why he couldn't just send the bank receipts he already showed the cop to the DEA or whatever.

If he did this (and he may have done) why do you think they would give him his money back?

> Have you heard of parallel construction? Perhaps he and his wife had discussed the cash in private messages.

That's why I said they had some other reason to think he had cash.

> If he did this (and he may have done) why do you think they would give him his money back?

As the article explained, if he can provide evidence of how he came by the money legally, he gets it back. Otherwise the federal government is breaking the law, no?

Guilty until proven innocent is a much simpler system it’s true.

> As the article explained, if he can provide evidence of how he came by the money legally, he gets it back. Otherwise the federal government is breaking the law, no?

Even on the face of it, that is a blatant violation of the presumption of innocence and it boggles the mind that this is deemed constitutional in the USA. Even the 90 day term is wildly unacceptable for taking someone's possessions without a clear cause - perhaps 90 minutes?

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