The Fourth Amendment quite literally has the words "unlawful search and seizure". I want people to remember that whenever they're pushing the propaganda that is the originalist or textualist interpretation of the Constitution by the Supreme Court. That propaganda is a lie.

I understand the mental gymanstics used to justify this, in that the property is the defendant in a civil action (for a suspected criminal act by its owner, no less). The end result is what we see here: civil asset forfeiture and absolutely no protection against unlawful seizure.

Now a lot of people won't care about this because it's SBF and it looks pretty likely that he's guilty. At least there's a criminal indictment in this case. If the government has this power (and, again, I think they should not) this use seems appropriate.

But the government doesn't require a criminal indictment at all (let alone a conviction) to use this power. Consider the case of Amy Nelson [1]. At the behest of Amazon, the Department of Justice seized the bank accounts of her, her husband, a bunch of employees of a company and even their lawyers who worked for a law firm, ultimately charging nobody with anything and returning 85% of the money 2 years later once the Nelsons agreed not to sue the government.

Also, SBF gave tens of millions in donations to both parties in the recent midterms. If the Robinhood shares are fair game, why aren't the donations?

[1]: https://www.geekwire.com/2022/former-seattle-entrepreneur-an...