Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him • Hacker News Board

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#61

Post by eldavido » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 4:49 PM UTC

Civil asset forfeiture is horrible and we should get rid of it.

On a different note, my takeaway from this story: pick your battles.

Sure, you can go into an airport with $11k in cash. Maybe you're a Sikh and you want to carry a kirpan [0] into the airport, or you're a high school kid working on a science project and you have a bunch of C-cell batteries taped together with wires hanging out the ends of them (experience talking).

You're probably increasing your odds of getting stopped. Sometimes it's worth it, maybe for strong religious beliefs, or you feel strongly about the exercise of your democratic rights. But fighting the collective weight of "normal", shared perception, culture, etc. is costly. You'll be delayed, people will ask lots of annoying questions, in general you'll expend a lot of energy on stuff that is in some sense, entirely avoidable.

I felt this way recently when trying to get a loan for a house from Wells Fargo. Quit my W2 a few months ago for a large contract. I couldn't convince the bank my income was solid even though the payment was about 1/8th of my taxable income and I had almost the entire mortgage balance in semi-liquid retirement accounts. Sometimes the message the world sends is, "conform".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirpan

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#62

Post by adebtlawyer » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 4:53 PM UTC

steveax wrote: post #36

hoffspot wrote: post #5

I'm not saying the police are right, the whole seizure thing is ridiculous, but this story is so shady. You have 11 grand in cash and want to move it from A to B. The obvious and safe way is to deposit it in a bank and get a cashier's check or do an ACH transfer. Who in their right mind would carry it with them or even worse, put it in a checked bag that airlines notoriously lose? The point of the story is valid, but…

Shady? How have we gotten to a place where carrying a modest amount of cash like $11k is "shady"? I suspect you're not familiar with how many unbanked people there are in this country, or what kind of predatory fees for banking services are levied upon folks with non-existent or low credit ratings.

Yeah with only $11,000 he'd probably get hit with all kinds of fees if he tried to open a bank account. And forget about checks, you can't even write a check that big.

I'm not saying the cash was evidence of wrongdoing, but the elaborate excuses this thread is making for this guy's behavior are only highlighting how absurd it was.

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#63

Post by imaginenore » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 4:57 PM UTC

eldavido wrote: post #61

Civil asset forfeiture is horrible and we should get rid of it. On a different note, my takeaway from this story: pick your battles. Sure, you can go into an airport with $11k in cash. Maybe you're a Sikh and you want to carry a kirpan [0] into the airport, or you're a high school kid working on a science project and you have a bunch of C-cell batteries taped together with wires hanging out the ends of them (experien…

Civil asset forfeiture is fine if you're convicted, and the law says it's ok for a given crime. The current situation is ridiculous, and I'm surprised nobody brought a case all the way to The Supreme Court (I mean a case when a person was not charged and/or not found guilty).

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#64

Post by eldavido » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:03 PM UTC

imaginenore wrote: post #63

eldavido wrote: post #61

Civil asset forfeiture is horrible and we should get rid of it. On a different note, my takeaway from this story: pick your battles. Sure, you can go into an airport with $11k in cash. Maybe you're a Sikh and you want to carry a kirpan [0] into the airport, or you're a high school kid working on a science project and you have a bunch of C-cell batteries taped together with wires hanging out the ends of them (experien…

Civil asset forfeiture is fine if you're convicted, and the law says it's ok for a given crime. The current situation is ridiculous, and I'm surprised nobody brought a case all the way to The Supreme Court (I mean a case when a person was not charged and/or not found guilty).

Small nitpick, the word "civil" is important here. If you're convicted of a crime, there is nothing "civil" about it, you're tried opposing a public official (district attorney -- not a private party) and convicted of a criminal offense. I don't think anyone here is arguing that asset forfeiture isn't appropriate for convicted criminals.

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#65

Post by ddingus » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:03 PM UTC

eldavido wrote: post #61

Civil asset forfeiture is horrible and we should get rid of it. On a different note, my takeaway from this story: pick your battles. Sure, you can go into an airport with $11k in cash. Maybe you're a Sikh and you want to carry a kirpan [0] into the airport, or you're a high school kid working on a science project and you have a bunch of C-cell batteries taped together with wires hanging out the ends of them (experien…

I've had similar experiences when taking electronics along on business travel. When it's me and a boring hotel room for the week, why not? Lots of fun, and I enjoy low level programming.

Conform is the word of the day for travel. Wish it wasn't. I've since learned to avoid batteries. Most of the other stuff won't be at issue. There is no significant mass, and that means no significant threat. (mostly)

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#66

Post by nickff » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:09 PM UTC

imaginenore wrote: post #63

eldavido wrote: post #61

Civil asset forfeiture is horrible and we should get rid of it. On a different note, my takeaway from this story: pick your battles. Sure, you can go into an airport with $11k in cash. Maybe you're a Sikh and you want to carry a kirpan [0] into the airport, or you're a high school kid working on a science project and you have a bunch of C-cell batteries taped together with wires hanging out the ends of them (experien…

Civil asset forfeiture is fine if you're convicted, and the law says it's ok for a given crime. The current situation is ridiculous, and I'm surprised nobody brought a case all the way to The Supreme Court (I mean a case when a person was not charged and/or not found guilty).

If something is taken when you're convicted, it's usually criminal asset forfeiture. One argument in favor of civil asset forfeiture is that it is the only way to take assets from the estate of a criminal who died before being convicted.

The Supreme Court only takes cases it wants, usually because different circuit courts (the level below the Supreme Court) are at odds with one another. The Supreme Court also sometimes takes cases which they are certain will have circuit splits, ones of particular importance (Bush v. Gore), and those which are causing a body of law to be developed which the SC justices believe to be incorrect. Because of these facts, you cannot force a case on to the Supreme Court docket; they are probably waiting for the right case to take.

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#67

Post by kaybe » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:09 PM UTC

DamnYuppie wrote: post #35

1971genocide wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your conclusion - but your premise of conspiracy is wrong. Using virtual Money is obviously much better than paper money. The difference is should it be centralized or de-centralized and anonymous ? The paradoxical economic problem with decentralized money is that the govt has no control over it. Which means during bad time its going to be very difficult for the govt to enact changes. We learnt it the ha…

Unfortunately it is much easier for governments to confiscate it when it is digital and centralized.

And much easier to collect data on people's money-spending habits.

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#68

Post by chucksmash » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:10 PM UTC

steveax wrote: post #36

hoffspot wrote: post #5

I'm not saying the police are right, the whole seizure thing is ridiculous, but this story is so shady. You have 11 grand in cash and want to move it from A to B. The obvious and safe way is to deposit it in a bank and get a cashier's check or do an ACH transfer. Who in their right mind would carry it with them or even worse, put it in a checked bag that airlines notoriously lose? The point of the story is valid, but…

Shady? How have we gotten to a place where carrying a modest amount of cash like $11k is "shady"? I suspect you're not familiar with how many unbanked people there are in this country, or what kind of predatory fees for banking services are levied upon folks with non-existent or low credit ratings.

I'm curious about the predatory fees for banking services you mention.

A Wells Fargo checking account can be had for $10/mo, a fee that is waived given 10 or more transactions a month or $500 or more in direct deposit a month or a minimum balance of $1500. Would people with non-existant credit be ineligible for an account like this?

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#69

Post by chucksmash » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:14 PM UTC

adebtlawyer wrote: post #62

steveax wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shady? How have we gotten to a place where carrying a modest amount of cash like $11k is "shady"? I suspect you're not familiar with how many unbanked people there are in this country, or what kind of predatory fees for banking services are levied upon folks with non-existent or low credit ratings.

Yeah with only $11,000 he'd probably get hit with all kinds of fees if he tried to open a bank account. And forget about checks, you can't even write a check that big. I'm not saying the cash was evidence of wrongdoing, but the elaborate excuses this thread is making for this guy's behavior are only highlighting how absurd it was.

I'm seeing minimum opening deposits on checking accounts between $10-$50. I don't imagine a person walking into a bank with $11k+ to open an account is the common use case...

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#70

Post by carbide » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

hmottestad wrote: post #8

Now I'm not sure if Norway has similar laws, but I haven't heard of any. However, watching John Oliver talk about how ridiculous the civil forfeiture laws are in the US just makes me want to laugh so much. I know of all the great things happening in the US, and I'm not calling you a bad country. But it's so hard not to categorise you together with North Korea, China and the United Arab Emirates with how trigger happy…

The John Oliver bit is a good humorous overview of the issue. A link, for anyone who wants to see it-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks