Since 2007, the DEA has taken $3.2 billion in cash from people not charged with a crime

a reply to: ganjoa

That's exactly the reason for the Salem witch hunts as well, it was in reality just land grabbing from single women that had no interest in marriage or family... she must be fornicating with the devil right? Oh the excuses to use belief and paranoia of it against people never seem to end. Especially when it is just a scheme of corruption.

You don't have the education or the pad required to be a legal drug dealer... check out all this money; but no drugs? Must be from drugs... so we are just gonna take it.

Police choking a dude to death on the street from not having that states tax stamp on some cigarettes he sold someone...

Good job America!

If you were any freer no one could breathe.

a reply to: conspiracytheoristIAM

Ah, but they ARE going after cards now, too! I watched a program about it on tv not too long ago. I can't remember the name of the program or channel, but I typed "law enforcement seize cards" into my search engine and pulled up plenty of material.

Here is the first link that pulled up.

Asset forfeiture isn't going anywhere, anytime soon. You can think the brilliance of the Trump admin in tapping Jeff Sessions for A.G.

Sessions has been a staunch supporter of civil asset forfeiture, which allows police to seize property suspected of being connected to drug and other crimes, without convicting or sometimes even charging the property owner. Civil liberties groups say civil asset forfeiture lacks due process protections for property owners—who may have their cash, cars, and even houses seized—and creates perverse profit incentives for police.

At a 2015 Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing, Sessions said 95 percent of asset forfeiture cases involve people "who have done nothing in their lives but sell dope." In addition to being unhinged from reality, the comment reveals much about Sessions' antediluvian views on the drug war—he's a drug war dinosaur, as Reason's Jacob Sullum explained.

reason.com...

originally posted by: Vector99
a reply to: FamCore

Now you're that guy for providing a link that literally doesn't support your claim at all.

In fact it states in quotes

He says he would like to “look into” it

I guess that means he supports it? If you are liberal?

How about this link?

President Donald Trump invited the sheriff of a small Texas County to “destroy” the career of a state senator who sought to ban a controversial law enforcement practice by naming the lawmaker during a White House meeting.

Politico.com
That "controversial law enforcement practice" is, of coarse, asset forfeiture.
It's not hard to find if you bother to look.

Nice link to the John Oliver show btw.
Civil asset forfeiture doesn't just mean cash.

Looks as though innocent until proven guilt has also gone down the proverbial tubes.

originally posted by: Vector99
a reply to: FamCore

Now you're that guy for providing a link that literally doesn't support your claim at all.

In fact it states in quotes

He says he would like to “look into” it

I guess that means he supports it? If you are liberal?

Oh Damn, I didn't realize today was "cherry pick and quote mine out of context" on ATS.

In a meeting with county sheriffs from around the country on Tuesday, President Trump jokingly (we hope!) threatened to "destroy [the] career" of a Texas legislator who proposed requiring the government to obtain a conviction before taking property allegedly tied to crime. As Nick Gillespie noted, Trump's knee-jerk support for civil asset forfeiture is troubling, especially in light of a growing bipartisan consensus that the practice should be reformed or abolished because it hurts innocent property owners and warps law enforcement priorities. Worse, the White House transcript of the president's remarks about forfeiture shows he literally does not know what he is talking about, which suggests this "law and order" president is happy to go along with whatever cops want, even if he has no idea what it is.

reason.com...

Sorry, but when you're a sitting POTUS and you even jokingly threaten to screw with people's careers based on asinine legislation that he doesn't even understand... it's rather Un-Presidential IMO. The context is quite clear though, he is in favor of local municipalities robbing their citizens. Perhaps in his mind, every billion that local LEO's can steal from the public is a billion less the Feds have to send out to that state.

I think if you look st the states with the highest numbers for civil asset forfeiture, you will find an interesting corollary in that those states with large numbers of civil asset forfeitures also line up with the states that send the least amount of tax dollars to the Feds and get the most back from the Feds. You dot see large numbers of civil asset forfeiture in states like NY or California who are essentially supporting all of these red states like Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas etc... who all have negligible contributions to the federal tax coffers yet maximize what they receive every year.

This is about money and has nothing to do with keeping "bad guys" off the streets. Otherwise they would be filing charges against more than 19% of their victims. Luckily, Congress doesn't feel the same way about this issue.
www.aclu.org...

a reply to: FamCore

BTW I believe Trump is very pro-civil forfeiture laws

He is. Probably one of the things I disagree with him most on.

Every time I read a story of some unfortunate person getting shafted by these ridiculous loopholes it makes my blood boil. Government is the biggest entitlement program there is.

But nobody's gonna change the laws when they all benefit from it.

originally posted by: roadgravel
Looks as though innocent until proven guilt has also gone down the proverbial tubes.

Absolutely! Even though all US currency has "legal tender" printed on it, government sophistry allows them to seize it as they please. Even though it's been proved many times in many different courts that most all US currency has traces of coc aine and other drugs on it, the courts will deem it drug money.

A very sad state of affairs in this country.

originally posted by: roadgravel
Looks as though innocent until proven guilt has also gone down the proverbial tubes.

This is the F'd up part in my opinion. The proponents of this type of law enforcement are claiming that cash and property do not have constitutional rights.
They are not only seizing cash but also cars, personal items, like TVs and stereos, as well as houses. In the John Oliver show I linked he claims Philadelphia seized some 1,000 homes in a ten year period. That's 2 houses a week!
The worst part is through civil forfeiture laws most people were never convinced of a crime, some weren't even charged in the first place.
Here is a more recent video.

Vice; Dude Where's My Car?

a reply to: 727Sky

Civil asset forfeiture is a terribly tyrannical policy. I have a close friend that works inside one of the alphabet agencies that is involved in this practice.

Many people are unaware of this dirty little secret: The agents involved in the forfeiture GET A CUT!!

You heard me correctly... the officers themselves will get a portion of the confiscated funds as a bonus!! This is policing for profits at it's worst. These agencies choose which cases to focus on based on how much cash and property the target has, not how much of a threat to the public they are. This is why the feds don't even bother with low or mid level dealers, even though they can sometimes be he most dangerous, they don't have enough cash to make it worth it.

I made a couple of videos about this. The constitution is being trampled so that selfish and evil people can enrich themselves. Some of these agents are living in million dollar homes and driving Lambos. Not only are they getting full benefits and HUGE paychecks from the taxpayers, but they are also ripping people off in the streets to supplement their own income. They are nothing more than state sanctioned gangsters with badges.

Check out my videos, I go into more detail on this problem:
youtu.be...

youtu.be...


The vast majority of Federal "law enforcement" organizations need to be disbanded. All drugs need to be legalized immediately and treated as a social problem, not a criminal problem.

originally posted by: flatbush71
First of all, a person with any common sense will not move around or haul large amounts of cash for a legal business transaction. Most will not except it. Wire transfers, money orders, cashiers checks, bank drafts as well as a dozen or more other methods are available for a legitimate purpose.

In this modern age, if a seller will only except payment in a large amount of cash, you need to find someone else to do business with.

Buck

I will have to disagree.
Cash is king.
I use to buy used equipment for the mine i ran and i always got a better deal by paying cash as many used equipment dealers had been burned with fake money orders, cashiers checks, bank drafts ECT.
I have even paid for equipment in gold.

a reply to: Aliensunthat maybe the intended reason for it but every one from the dea down to locale yokeal have decided it is an easy way to get cash. i personally have been tried to be shaken down by cops in my home town because i was a white guy walking in a predominately african american communuity with 300+ dollars in twenties in my wallet. cop tried to tell me that the city had an ordinance saying in certain parts of town you could only have small amounts of cash on you to try to cut down on drug trade i told the cop i wanted him to have his supervisor come sign me a receipt with his name and badge # and the supervisors name and badge # which would then be given to my cousin the lawyer he then said well this time will just be a warning. but yes cops and towns are not going to let this go it too much of a money maker. heck one local town that has no river or pound used this money to buy a dive boat and scuba gear so they could look for evidence and or bodies under water and they bought a nice humvee to pull it using asset forfiture money. this town has population of 1000 and like i said no body of water in it. the guys on the force like to scuba dive now they got equipment to do it and get paid to do it because every time they take it out they can say they training.

Here's the points I'm trying to make gentlemen. I don't necessarily agree with the permanent seizure without due process.
(That means proof)

But you are wasting your time and energy posting in a internet thread, when you should be expelling the same effort with legal groups that are trying to change such laws. To date, there are very few organizations that are seriously trying to do just that.

As it stands now, right or wrong, good or bad, if you get stopped carrying a large amount of cash, there is a high probability that it will be seized and you won't get it back. That's the law.

Let me try and put this into a somewhat more clear prospective.
A few weeks ago, a Federal witness was murdered. That person was key to the prosecution. We know who and why, but the same laws as above, protects this murdering S.O.B. and there is nothing at this point and time, that can be done about it. This is our system of justice like it or not.

Buck