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Comment by subroutine | Hacker News Reader

If the DEA knows you are about to board a plane back to Columbia with copious amounts of cash after a 24 hour vacation to the States, it's questionable if it's really "your money".

The three options are (a) the feds hold the cash until its origin is found to be legit, (b) they hold the person until the cash is verified legit, (c) the suitcase of cash and the person fly away never to be seen again.

I guess the 4th option would be making it much easier and faster for the DEA to obtain a warrant; but this just leads back to a, b, or c.

n.b. I am totally against local cops holding any amount of discovered money during random searches. That's a huge conflict if interest. I'm mainly commenting on the original post.

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Columbia, Indiana is not exactly outside of the US

True, true. If they are really shaking down passengers for the hell of it to steal their money, that is obviously messed up. It will certainly make me reconsider traveling to Indiana with a duffle bag filled with wads of hundreds.

People who trust the police have never met the police.

They generally aren't interested in catching criminals. They're interested in catching someone. The easier the better.

When you say criminals, who do you mean exactly - someone who very recently committed a crime? And by catching someone... catching them do what?

I know several officers, and can safely say they are as varied a group as any other profession. Their day-to-day typically consists of responding to 911 calls, backup to other officers, or traffic duty. I think they generally are interested in catching people breaking the law - particularly the really bad ones. And sure, they would prefer it to be easy, who wouldn't. They get paid like $60k/yr and their day-to-day involves stuff like responding to a domestic violence calls with belligerents wielding various weapons. My biggest challenge most days is finding a parking spot.

> They get paid like $60k/yr

It's astounding to me that every conversation about police pay never brings up their extremely generous pensions, lifetime of healthcare provided at taxpayer expense, ability to conceal-carry a gun nationwide, PBA cards to show other cops you shouldn't get a ticket. I'm sure there are other benefits I'm not including.

> When you say criminals, who do you mean exactly - someone who very recently committed a crime? And by catching someone... catching them do what?

Are you asking a real question here?

> My biggest challenge most days is finding a parking spot.

I don't see how that justifies normalised and spread power abuse.

Yeah what on earth do you mean when you say cops aren't interested in catching people who broke the law, but are interested in catching "someone". That makes no sense.

Where did I say anything about justifying power abuse?

> That makes no sense.

It makes sense to anyone who has dealt with the police.

> Where did I say anything about justifying power abuse?

In your previous comment. Where you say job is hard, pay is low, so imply that we should be understanding.

Funny you mentioned the “4th” there

it is better that 10 guilty people go free than one innocent person suffer. you are arguing for a legal standard of 'guilty until proven innocent'. while, yes, that would allow the dea to catch more drug traffickers, other seriously bad effects would ensue, effects that are much worse than the addiction epidemic

i mean we've tried this hundreds of times in different countries; it's not a new idea. we know what the results look like

closing your bank account and withdrawing the contents in cash is not only legal; it's the foundation on which the trust of the banking system rests. a colombian doing that would presumably not want to hang around in a potentially dangerous foreign country any longer than necessary

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