Amazon admits no basis for damages in $1M asset seizure by DOJ? | Hacker News Reader

Amazon admits no basis for damages in $1M asset seizure by DOJ?

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127 pointsilamont103 comments

Had to look up details of what was going on.

"After the first FBI visit, Amazon filed a civil lawsuit in the Eastern District Court of Virginia and the Nelsons could finally see what was alleged. Carl's former job had involved scouting land for Amazon to buy and build data centers on — or putting together deals with commercial real estate developers to do all that for AWS — and then he'd present the best option to decision makers. The lawsuit, which was fleshed out in July, alleged a massive fraud and kickback scheme involving a number of defendants, including Carl. It claims they inflated the lease prices and land purchase transactions for AWS to gain illicit profits that were distributed through a web of shell entities, including Carl's real estate startup he'd founded on the side. It added up to a lot — violating the federal RICO statute (The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) and engaging in wire fraud, honest services fraud, money laundering, and breach of contract, among other things. Amazon is seeking to recover "tens of millions of dollars" in unjust enrichment along with damages.

Carl agrees that the transactions took place, but argues they were completely legal and standard, all vetted by his lawyer and allowed per his employment contract..."

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/founder-amy-nelson-w...

Ok this makes me feel better about the whole thing.

For context, here is the write up on the situation from Ms Nelson’s, CEO of The Riveter, Medium account.

https://medium.com/@amy_riveter/the-united-states-of-amazon-...

Given the text is out of context, unattributed, and the meaningful parts have been redacted, the only reasonable conclusion is Amazon hasn't admitted anything.

Nope. The text was redacted by the other party.

The DOJ and Amazon are free to provide that additional context (since they did the redacting) if it would help them. The fact that they don’t speaks volumes.

It doesn't matter who redacted it.

The tweet claims "Amazon admits no basis for damages..."

The only possible source for this is a court filing by Amazon's attorney where Amazon admits there is no basis for damages.

The tweet appears to be a redacted filing by the Twitter user's attorney.

It doesn't support the headline at all. If you think it does, someone has sold you something.

I've added a question mark to the title. If someone can suggest a better* title, we can change it again. I'm pretty lost here.

* i.e. more accurate and neutral, preferably using representative language from the original source

For those looking for context: https://www.geekwire.com/2021/former-aws-real-estate-manager...

In court papers, Nelson’s attorneys claim provisions of his Amazon employment contract, inked in 2012 when he became the second member of the AWS real estate team, include broad allowances for outside work. They say the Justice Department has seized money he made independently of Amazon, and have taken Amy Nelson’s earnings as well.
Carl Nelson has filed his own suit against Amazon, alleging that the company has run afoul of Washington state’s new law restricting non-competition agreements. His attorneys also claim Amazon has violated his contract by suing him in federal court in Virginia rather than in Washington state court, the venue set in the agreement.

As evidence of Amazon endorsing outside business activities, and of company executives making liberal use of the contract provisions, Nelson’s attorneys point in part to Jassy’s investment in the ownership group behind the new Seattle Kraken NHL franchise, and Amazon’s subsequent purchase of naming rights for the team’s arena.

Yes, let us point out the side business of the checks notes CEO of AWS and now CEO of Amazon. This would be like a Tesla employee suggesting they can do something because Elon does.

I mean, it's not unreasonable. If employees can't do it, why can Andy?

Corporate executives are often not legally "employees", but have a contract with the company. This seemed to be the case with Nelson too (he had a contract).

That is not true. All executives are standard, W2 employees. They may have special employment contract provisions, but irs rules would not allow the executive of a company to be a contractor.

Or https://reason.com/2022/02/18/fbi-seized-almost-1-million-fr...

I am very confused by this.

First on Amazons claim: the key parts of the screenshots she herself provided are blacked out. So they show nothing?! Someone has specifically removed only the parts relevant to her claim.

Second, on the Civil Forfeiture: They have gotten most but not all of the cash back. If the DOJ actually admit there is no case why not insist on all of it (and lawyers fees and interest etc)? And also, the DOJ are VERY clear the only reason they didn't fight the return of the money is that there is an ongoing criminal investigation and they don't want to prejudice it. The DOJ having an open case AND secret sources seems like the opposite of proof you're innocent.

Third, it seems entirely fair and reasonable for Amazon to have pressured the DOJ to seize/freeze assets. Isn't that very standard in any case of fraud (or whatever this is ultimately prosecuted as)? I don't know why Op talks about it like it is evidence of conspiracy...

I don't know much about this case. Civil Forfeiture seems like bullshit to me. It's confusing to me how long US cases seem to take (both before and during court proceedings, ditto for the Jan 6th prosecutions that are only just getting going). But these claims seem suspicious as hell...

Please do correct me if I am missing some key point here?

I find it shocking that's an allowable outcome, that you can have funds seized for 2 years, sue them to provide proof, and they can just return it back without showing what evidence they had.

> ongoing criminal investigation and they don't want to prejudice it

Too bad in my book. If you start arresting people and seizing property, just giving some of it back isn't good enough, you're going to have to explain yourself.

This is where I get even more confused.

I basically agree with you. And if it were me, I would be demanding ALL the money back. I wouldn't let them keep them keep $108k (17%) of the money. I'd have wanted every cent AND interest, fees, an apology etc.

It's not clear to me why they settled IF they are actually innocent and would win in an actual court case. And calling that a win is even weirder (doubly so when you add on lawyers fees etc).

The whole thread is extra confusing because further down there is (what I think is) a judges order to place into escrow $25mil (3.8mil and 21.3mil). Is that still locked up or has it been released? Because getting the DOJ to release 525k seems like a small win compared to still having 50x that amount tied up...

It's confusion all the way down as far as I can tell...

To be clear, 2 years is a very long time to wait IMHO. Not sure why the US system seems so slow or why people are tolerant of it.

> It's not clear to me why they settled IF they are actually innocent and would win in an actual court case.

How would they pay lawyers to prosecute that case? All their money was seized.

The DOJ would not return all the money without a legal fight, and that costs money. In this situation, the pragmatic decision to take what they can get cannot be read as evidence of some sort of malfeasance.

> ...why people are tolerant of it.

There is a disturbing tendency to feel that if law enforcement did something, the target was probably up to something, and that's justification enough. This circular reasoning is by no means accepted by everyone, all the time, but widely enough to damp down any groundswell of concern. Due process is a fuzzy, abstract and remote concern for many people.

This is why I hate settlements: Is she settling because it would cost more than it's worth to get the rest? Or because she knows the DOJ can publicly justify seizing that portion and doesn't want to lose? The whole "American rule" (everyone pays their own fees) just makes this worse. In most places she'd demand what is hers (or be admitting it was not hers) because she would get her fees back. But not the US. That creates a lot of uncertainty and (imho) injustice.

> The whole "American rule" (everyone pays their own fees) just makes this worse.

It would hardly be less worse if the plaintiffs were also likely to be liable for the DOJ's costs in the event that they lost. Few people can be certain of the outcome, no matter how reasonable the case might seem to someone not thoroughly acquainted with the relevant law.

Let's focus on the clear miscarriage of justice here, which is the use of forfeiture in the first place. Note that this issue is separable from the question of whether Carleton Nelson acted as Amazon alleges.

I think one key issue here is that no justice has happened yet. We cannot be sure whether it was a miscarriage of justice to take the funds until a court hears the case. Maybe it's a miscarriage to return them?

It makes sense they are returned because at this point it should be a default win for the plantiff. But 17% are being kept (unjust) and no one has actually HAD their day in court either (so there is no innocent/guilty party here). Default wins are still wins but they tell us nothing.

I think all of this could be solved by NOT taking 2 years (and counting) to file charges.

C'est la vie.

> We cannot be sure whether it was a miscarriage of justice to take the funds until a court hears the case.

So it's OK to impose a sentence presumptively, so long as the prosecution will ultimately prevail? Putting aside the practical difficulties in implementing such a policy, it is just about diametrically opposite to the usual concept of due process.

> I think all of this could be solved by NOT taking 2 years (and counting) to file charges.

Response to the manifest injustice of kangaroo courts is largely responsible for that. Civil forfeiture is a sort of back-door kangaroo court, IMHO (or not even that, as there seems to be not even the appearance of due process.)

This isn't about a sentence. It's about who get's to hold the money until we decide who it actually belongs to. There are downsides whatever we decide...

> This isn't about a sentence.

Civil forfeiture clearly has a punitive effect, and is therefore a de facto sentence, prior to conviction and regardless of whether a conviction is ultimately secured. In this case, "while the government can give us our money back, they can’t give us back the life we had before Amazon’s accusations. We had to leave a city and community we loved, sell our home, leave our daughters’ schools – and move away from the place where I built The Riveter, created 100 jobs, and worked with women starting businesses." For families on the edge of poverty, the consequences can be more devastating still.

Just saying "there are downsides whatever we decide" does not even begin to make a case for civil forfeiture - you would need to expand that ellipsis into an actual argument.

So hold on, you and a police office come to your house and find someone inside stealing your TV and some cash. Does the thief get to keep the TV until he is tried? Can he keep and spend the cash since he's still technically innocent?

That's the problem with just taking the extreme "nothing punitive until there's a guilty verdict" approach.

The least bad answer is somewhere in between.

Personally I think 2 years is too long to wait. But that doesn't mean the right amount of time is zero...

Ah, so in your example, the least bad solution is that the thief should be allowed to keep the stolen TV and cash for a certain amount of time - but for how long? And how long should I be allowed to take your TV simply by alleging you stole it from me? Once again, your reply peters out in ellipsis just when it gets to the tricky part.

This is moot, however, being caught in the act is not a valid analogy for the situation we are discussing here, or generally for civil forfeiture as it is practiced in many parts of the US today. You started this thread saying you were very confused about what's going on here, and introducing hypothetical scenarios that do not resemble it is not going to help.

> The DOJ would not return all the money without a legal fight, and that costs money

Interesting to note, when the IRS makes a procedural mistake, they return improperly seized money, with interest. A very small interest rate, but nonetheless.

> It's not clear to me why they settled IF they are actually innocent and would win in an actual court case

Because you have to pay your lawyer. And you need at least some of your money back to do that. And you can then sue for actual damages later and get it all back.

This is the profit model for civil forfeiture, repeatedly supported by courts: the US government is allowed to seize any assets that they want if they claim it has been involved in illegal activities. They don’t charge the person they’re stealing from so the person can’t defend the claims and prevent the seizure - instead they have to prove their innocence to get their own money back. But that’s expensive, and if the stolen money is less than the recovery costs (which the government has stated are not recoverable) there’s no reason to try.

In a sane country you are innocent until proven guilty. That fact you exist as a human being is all the evidence you need to prove you are innocent.

If you have to "prove you are innocent" the government is the one violating the law, not you.

Seizing your family's wealth and denying you ability to make a living is punishment for a crime you are not convicted of. That itself alone is beyond violation of justice.

And yes it is "standard" for the government to leverage administrative law to seize assets before a court case. The true purpose of this is to deny a person ability to defend themselves against the government. This is the very definition of evil and tyranny. There is no excuse.

> Third, it seems entirely fair and reasonable for Amazon to have pressured the DOJ to seize/freeze assets. Isn't that very standard in any case of fraud (or whatever this is ultimately prosecuted as)?

Well just wait until somebody decides to seize everything you own with no explanation, no crime, no evidence, and no ability to appeal and see how you "fair and reasonable" it feels after that.

So much context missing. There are zero details regarding the actual case, and this appears to be a small detail in a big complicated case. Anytime the feds bring a RICO case, it can be pretty hard to prove

This is the result of revolving door (collusion between DOJ attorneys and private law firms). Where would these DOJ attorneys go if they want to get out of DOJ? The same private law firms in DC. That's why mega crops, uber wealthy have these law firms handle stuff for them; with a casual meeting at common friends' party, the private law firm attorney 'tells' DOJ guys what to do. And DOJ guys take it from there.

In the US in certain states, Cops can use civil asset forfeiture to just take whatever they want and a portion of what is seized goes to the police department. So they are incentivized to just take. Pretty hard to defend yourself after the government has taken all of your money and the lawyers want to get paid. Civil asset forfeiture does not even require proof of a crime, only accusation that there may have been a crime. Travelling with a bunch of cash? Well that's probably for drugs and its our cash now.

https://www.techdirt.com/2021/12/22/dea-gives-former-marine-...

Civil asset forfeiture is an abomination and a flagrant violation of the 4th amendment. It rewards cops and federal agencies for violating the rights of citizens that are generally ill equipped to fight back, even more so after their money is stolen.

> In the US in certain states, Cops can use civil asset forfeiture to just take whatever they want and a portion of what is seized goes to the police department.

In some states, the share can be up to 100%. But even where states don’t allow that with state law forfeitures, directing the funds instead to state general funds or dedicated state funds not connected to the seizing agency, federal law allows state/local agencies to do federal-law forfeitures and keep a share.

This has become such a problem the Canadian government has been warning its citizens traveling to the US to avoid carrying cash.

This is from 2014 when the problem seems to have really taken off.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/american-shakedown-police-won-...

This will end with a big payday for her and her husband. I'm not sure who will end up paying but they do have damages. If it were a race between which billionaire I like the least Zuckerberg, Musk, Bezos and Gates are making life really hard for each other.

Why are people hating on Gates these days? The others all spent their wealth on occasionally bizarre self-indulgent passion projects; Gates went into philanthropy. I know the man isn’t perfect but surely he’s a tier above those other three.

Did you miss all of the shite Microsoft pulled while Gates was still at the helm and the Epstein connection?

I don't think you should be able to spend your way out of a bunch of stuff like that.

There's an entire generation that only knows Gates as some sort of saint. Older folks here see him, rightly, as only trying to buy his way into heaven now that most of the blood has been washed off the money.

I’m amazed anyone could think that. What’s your take on Soros?

Why would their take on Soros matter at all here?

It's always interesting as well, that Mercer and Koch do all of the things certain segments accuse Soros of, but they aren't up in arms about them in the same way. The "teamification" of politics is complete.

I’m not a “they.” Truly, I have no team and I sort of feel bad that others do.

Soros didn’t make his money in a very honorable way, nor did the Koch brothers. They both have decided to use politics to exercise the same avarice that made them rich, perhaps deluding themselves and others into thinking that it’s ok if they are “doing good for the public.” Unending greed for political influence isn’t much better than greed for cash. It’s all just will to power. I feel similarly about most professional politicians, which is why I don’t have a team.

I agree with you. The argument I've heard is that Gates used to be just as much of a shark as any of the others back in the 90s/early 2000s but spent a lot to reverse his public image into a philanthropist. While that may or may not be true, it's certainly true that he does an extraordinary amount of charity with his money now in contrast to most of the others on the list.

They call it reputation laundering. His wife left him after the Epstein thing blew up. Former associates describe him as a pretty terrible person. Being evil and then making a show of your charity, which is often just another outlet for your own personal power trips doesn’t suddenly make you a good person. It’s just buying indulgences, but instead of the church it’s a corrupt fourth estate.

People who know him think he’s terrible, the whole humble Warren Buffet act is done for PR (the same reason Warren Buffet does it).

He wasn’t just palling around with Epstein, his friendship continued after Epstein was convicted. His excuse was that Epstein gave him access… as if Bill G wasn’t the richest person on the planet at the time.

And more often than not those foundations are tax dodges in disguise, you can't spend that much money in a reasonable fashion anyway.

It seems that this is a common misperception for some reason.

There are certainly many charities that are ineffective at their mission, inefficient with their funds or working on a mission that few would consider worthwhile. (And there are also some great charities out there that are effective, efficient and important, such as https://givedirectly.org.)

But charities (of which non-profit foundations are a subclass) aren't a "tax dodge". Money that you give to a charity is untaxed, so you can claim a refund on income taxes you've already paid on that money. But you don't get new money that you haven't already earned from the IRS; every penny given is money that you already had, and the tax refund is purely of tax that is no longer due on that money.

It's possible to be cynical of the motives of some philanthropic gifts, but Gates (and others) aren't financially better off from their giving itself.

No, but they are also not off materially worse because of the tax deductions and when played smart time wise these can actually lead to advantages. Note that Gates & co have a small army of tax lawyer who are very good at this and for Bill gates buying himself a reputation whitewash at the taxpayers expense definitely makes him 'better off' just maybe not in a pure financial sense.

I think it all depends. I note the massive amounts he donates, as reported by the press, but I also note scattered anecdata like a sibling of the parent comment suggesting it's mostly ineffective. But what if the money does accomplish something?

When I hear the name "Carnegie", I think of music and libraries, but his contemporaries would think of emotional abuse and robber-barony.

On the one hand, yes. On the other, if I have to choose between evil and not doing good, and evil but now doing good (for whatever reason), and there’s no one available to choose who’s not evil, I’ll happily pick the one who’s at least doing good, even if it’s for their own reasons.

Do a search on jeffrey epstein and bill gates

Guy personally lobbied against having vaccine tech be put in the public domain. Hard to imagine what can counterbalance that (if ethics worked like carbon credits, which they don't)

> Guy personally lobbied against having vaccine tech be put in the public domain.

I think the reason was that he didnt want company to manufacture vaccines with defects and no quality control. In theory that sounds reasonable.

Only thing I can figure is cheating on his wife and cursory friendship with Epstein? It doesn't take a whole lot for the far left and far right to hate people and simplify complexity down to one or two character flaws for the "hate to flow"

Cursory?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-...

It's difficult to compare them: Gates has had 14 years of philanthropic retirement to redeem his image.

Bezos stepped down from Amazon in 2021, not sure if it counts as a retirement yet.

Musk is still two years away from Gates' retirement age.

And Zuckerberg is 15 years away from Gates' retirement age.

Have you used BeOS or Netscape lately? Do you recall when Internet Explorer became the dominant web browser and then saw no development for five years? Do you remember when the most widespread malware on the internet was Windows 2000?

Bill Gates is nothing but mindless aggression and wanton destruction. He is Vladimir Putin for your computer. Giving some money away does not erase his misdeeds or change him into a good person. We know his character.

For myself, Microsoft crushing everything in the 90's, and more recently, shorting Tesla. I could care less about Elon, the car is still dope and pushes humanity forward while every aristocrat tried to snuff it, Bill included.

The philanthropy bit I think is just a PR stunt. Bill is not a nice man, or a good man, IMHO.

Gates is buying a good name. He’s not really doing any good imo. Hop on a plane and look at what the foundation is actually doing in places where they are doing it. I have never seen anything useful. But it “sounds” really awesome to people back in the West.

Not sure about your hate on Musk though. Fighting climate change, preserving the only life in the universe that we know of, bringing connectivity to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged globally, among many other good things. Not sure what’s bad about that.

If Musk stuck to fighting climate change and his Mars mission I'd be fine with him. But he doesn't. He uses his money to actively destroy people and their reputations just for the lolz, is a continuous source of noise rather than signal and is about equal parts destructive as he is creative. Given another couple of years like the last two I would not be surprised if he final tally ends up as a significant net negative for society.

For example? Who did he “destroy for the lolz”?

Remember the episode with the cavediver rescuing children from a flooded cave that musk called a pedophile and then refused to back down? That one for example.

You mean where he worked with the Thai government on a rescue plan, got attacked verbally by that dude, attacked back, and then the dude couldn’t take it? Yes, I remember that he apologized a day later, even though the other one started it.

Sure I know, because it’s the one thing bad that’s repeated and repeated about him, and he didn’t even start it. And he apologized.

Any example that is actually bad?

The guy as an expert in his domain publicly called musks idea out as unworkable. Is that any kind of reason to call him a pedophile? Is that the standard that we should hold one of the most powerful men in the world to? That’s behavior I’d not accept from my five year old.

And he apologized after substantial public backlash, not because he had a change of mind.

I'm not sure about destroy but attempt to destroy at the very least.

The guy that rescued the kids out of that cave in thailand(?), Yoel Roth, that twitter engineer that told him on twitter that he had his facts wrong... that's just a short list I'm sure that if I weren't posting this while eating breakfast I could cite more.

And another one about the cave dude. Please see my other reply for that case.

Regarding the Twitter guy: Yoel Roth was a different person. What was bad about how he treated Roth and the Twitter Android guy (I guess that’s who you actually were referring to)?

He selectively cited Roth’s academic work to make it appear as if Roth was supporting grooming and sexualization of children, despite the work doing none of that.

Roth had to flee their home due to threats to their safety.

Has Musk apologized yet?

https://gaynrd.com/if-yoel-roth-is-harmed-should-elon-musk-f...

Falsely implying other people are pedophiles or support pedophiles actions seems to be a recurring pattern in this context.

It was a direct quote from Roth’s dissertation, including context. Nobody “had to flee”.

Old Twitter had countless tweets containing images of violence against children. Under Musk it took only days to remove all of that.

Just one example:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...

Separate the things that musk controls (Tesla, Space X, starlink, Solar City, etc) and musk the person (Forcing animal testing, calling rescue operators pedophiles, market manipulation, etc) and it’s easy not to like musk the person. Let’s also not pretend like he’s doing any of those ventures out of the goodness of his heart

that still doesn't help a ton. Solar City/Tesla has backed out of a huge number of deals for solar installs unless the client pays more than the signed contracts. the 'solar roof' was YEARS late and way overpriced.

For Tesla, we still don't have fully self driving cars, but its always coming in Q4 of this year. Products are announced WAY too soon. Its been years since the cybertruck and new roadster were announced and demoed, and still none exist. This isn't their first new model, they should understand how the building of factories work, etc.

I particularly liked the Tesla bot announcement, where it was clear they hadn't even thought about it until just before they announced it. There's also the Dojo which they hyped for years as something that will give them the cutting edge imminently and still AFAICT isn't doing anything yet, meanwhile a couple more generations of TPU have been designed and productionized en masse

> Hop on a plane and look at what the foundation is actually doing in places where they are doing it. I have never seen anything useful.

You're prasing this as if you've flown to Africa, examined something like an anti-malaria program, and decided it was useless for unstated reasons. Somehow I doubt you've done so.

Lived in Africa and all other continents with poverty for 20+ years.

Sure you did. Is your name Dean Browning?

I’m super conflicted on Musk. His stated aims are admirable, and I used to think very highly of him. He’s clearly a smart guy who’s executing on big things most people aren’t (or at least weren’t) even considering.

Sadly the way he goes about that is less than ideal. Tesla keep selling vapourware features and releasing things that are actively dangerous. Boring company was mostly a ploy to distract from high speed rail (which would reduce the need for cars). The Twitter takeover has been a debacle so far. SpaceX are about the only untainted venture here, and my understanding is they’re not run day to day by Musk, with staff spending inordinate amounts of effort to keep him happy and out of the way of the real work.

Tesla isn’t just about cars, it’s about making renewable energy useful.

Boring had little to do with Musk. It was an idea that seemed promising, and a Tesla manager volunteered to make it reality. Musk just provided some initial finding. It is completely unrelated to rail.

Not sure why you feel Twitter to be a “debacle”? I like diversity of though and open discourse. Also the scientific method is a good thing to save.

I'm not sure that we can really assume hyperloop is unrelated to rail

People have claimed musk told them its driven by his hatred for California's high-speed rail project [0]. That sounds like significant evidence that it is related to rail.

[0]. https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990?ref...

Gates was against sharing vaccine technology with India while the country's hospitals were literally running out of oxygen and people gasping for breath. Then after finally acquiescing under intense pressure, his foundation ran illegal medical trials on vulnerable groups. Honestly it's a lot more concerning than the various Twitter dramas (or any web app dramas) so many here are obsessed with.

https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/why-are-indians-so-angry-at-...

> Gates went into philanthropy

And what does that mean to me? Successful businesses like Tesla and Spacex have done much more for the world through the technology they have developed than any donation ever has. I'm supposed to value charity more highly just because it's not profitable?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9iF4k16be0

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=...

"Moreover, the fact that no males, only females of child-bearing age, were vaccinated..."

Referenced from the above article: http://archive.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/...

"We must make this the decade of vaccines," Bill Gates said in a statement.

Referenced from the above article: https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_innovating_to_zero

"Bill Gates warned that we weren’t ready for a global pandemic in a talk at TED2015. Now he’s working to make sure the world is better prepared next time around."

https://singjupost.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Innovating...

"First, we’ve got population. The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about nine billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10% or 15%. But there, we see an increase of about 1.3."

Unfortunately it wont. Amazon did not take her money. Who is she going to sue? The government who took her money? That's not going to happen. They would spend all the money they got back on attorney fees and still not have enough and then in the end their case would get tossed as civil asset forfeiture is not illegal. It sucks but that is the current American legal system.

Why is this so highly upvoted? Is this a famous case? The tweet isn't exactly doing numbers...

The first tweet is so heavily redacted and posted by an obviously biased source, I don't trust it at all. Very weird.

I do hate civil asset forfeiture, though!

Amazon weaponized civil foreiture. Civil forfeiture is just theft. DOJ/FBI will goon-enforce well-funded and completely bogus claims without any independent investigation on behalf of both large corporations and small, local law enforcement agencies.

Every argument I have that these are acceptable practices in a free society requires Olympic mental gymnastics.

There is the old(?) saying that America isn't a country; just three corporations in a trenchcoat. Illicit cooperation between megacorps and the organs of state do nothing to dispel the meme.

It's crazy how out of control the FBI is. It's time for another Church commission, prosecutions of misconduct, and a RIF.

Please cite where the FBI failed to follow the law in this case. The FBI is a law enforcement agency. If you have an issue with the law, that's separate. In this case it appears the law is the issue:

> For most of the country’s history, civil forfeiture was an obscure backwater. At the time of the Founding, civil forfeiture was limited to confiscating ships and cargo that ran afoul of customs duties. But now civil forfeiture has become wildly popular across law enforcement, precisely because it doesn’t require a criminal conviction, or even an indictment, to confiscate someone’s property.

Empty talking points from conspiracy videos you saw on Youtube aren't helpful.

Civil forfeiture is legalized theft. Rationalize its legality all you want, but it is the government agents acting like criminals. This kind of behavior flagrantly steals assets from lawful citizens. They are routinely overstepping the bounds of civil behavior, so these institutions need to be burned to the ground - literally if need be.

> They are routinely overstepping the bounds of civil behavior, so these institutions need to be burned to the ground - literally if need be.

Or you know, work on changing the civil forfeiture laws and save the libertarian revolt talk for another issue?

Because I do not believe for one second that such a policy can be reformed? That our system has reached a stable state of endemic corruption, such that meaningful reform is no longer possible by the soap, ballot, or jury boxes?

Burning the FBI (literally, of course) to the ground will solve your issues? Aren't you missing the military, congress, the executive branch, ... the rest of the government? Or was it merely the start of your insurrection?

Being so flippant about this is how January 6th happened. Your original comment wasn't logical, it was tough person on the internet noise.

So any country without civil forfeiture is just following libertarian talking points? You realize america is the exception, and not allowing the police to randomly seize property isn't libertarian? It's complete partisan brain rot to defend FBI asset seizure just to own the imaginary libertarians, or because the FBI is on "your side" now. Abolishing the institution that is so eagerly participating in civil forfeiture would be a pretty moderate position outside the US.

> They are routinely overstepping the bounds of civil behavior...

What does that even mean? Your argument starts with a statement everyone agrees with, you assert something that's a stretch to believe at best. Then you just start making things up.

Finally you assert that absurd action needs to be taken. Why is it possible to burn the FBI to the ground but not reform civil forfeiture?

You need to ask yourself who would benefit from dismantling the FBI, because the FBI does a lot more than civil forfeiture.

The same goes for the Post Office and IRS. Someone else has a lot more to gain from dismantling those institutions than you do. They're just riling you up to carry out their agenda.

"Please cite where the FBI failed to follow the law in this case. The FBI is a law enforcement agency."

There's this:

A federal prosecutor told Amazon's Pat Stokes that DOJ "seized the money too early" and that being forced to "prove" its seizure with evidence would have a "negative impact."

That doesn’t mean they failed to follow the law. They can lawfully seize assets and later decide they were wrong/premature.

That statement is from a prosecutor, who would have been as generous to the DOJ/FBI as possible in their wording. That it still sounds bad is telling.

The doj isn’t the fbi

Yes, the DOJ is a superset.

the FBI is part of the DOJ and the AG is overall responsible for them.

It is the investigative arm of the DOJ.

Their procedures and powers are covered by guidelines (a public set and a classified set) issued by the AG

Please don't cross into flamewar swipes. Your comment would be fine without the last sentence.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I guess "defund the police" is a libertarian talking point now?

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