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Comment by veidr | Hacker News Reader

it is absolutely not an aberration, it is the status quo, it happens to thousands of people a year, it's happened on camera during many episodes of C.O.P.S. (an old popular TV show where camera crews follow police officers around doing their police job), and it mostly happens to non white people (of course) but it also happens to white male citizens, too — some of whom happen to be software engineers going to buy a used car off craigslist or some shit, who have posted to this very website (can't find the link now, as my kids are rioting, but it's there)

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I think gp means by aberration, "it's not something that most people have to worry about". Which is true. If even 10% of Americans had to deal with this it would become illegal. The police prey on those they think they can get away with, and those who have a lot of assets to forfeit (but not too much). They are often right.

Yes, this is correct, and I can’t imagine any other definition of the word. Accepting the claim that this happens to thousands every year, that still puts us in “odds of being struck by lightning” territory. It’s still wrong, the laws should be changed, but no one should fear coming to the US on account of it.

What makes you think you and I aren't the kind of people the police can get away with preying on?

Even if you fit the skin color type, AND the car type AND the speeding profile, you'd probably STILL have to make multiple trips driving up and down states where your license plate doesn't match to bring the likelihood up above "aberrant"... You would be driving so much you wouldn't have time to read and comment hn. (I just drove across four states and there was no time for hn, and I'm an addict).

Yeah, I cited the white HN craigslist car buyer as a kind of 'it can happen to even us!!'abberation. Probably 99% of civil forfeitures are seized from black/hispanic people.

E.g., yes, "those they (police) think they can get away with" but not "those who have a lot of assets to forfeit".

I think most of the cases I've read about on this site were like (non-white) people flying with, say, $25,000 (and who could credibly claim that was roughly their total liquid net worth).

It is possible for 99% of civil asset forfeitures to happen to minorities AND for 99% of minorities to not have to deal with them.

Also, If you are a minority, and the police stop you while driving, you are probably more worried about other things like police violence, than civil asset forfeiture (this doesn't excuse civil asset forfeiture ofc)

I recall an episode of COPS where the Sheriff (?) of Multnomah County Oregon was grinning into the camera, declaring how good he's going to look driving around a pickup truck that they'd just confiscated.

Multnomah County featured a lot on COPS. That Sheriff was camera ready.

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