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

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

#151

Post by superuser2 »

reagency wrote: post #116
superuser2 wrote: post #25

For those who didn't RTFA, he carried his life savings with him in cash . We've seen several stories like this: person has $xx,xxx in cash on them like that's just a normal thing to do. Bad thing happens. Person is incredulous. No one thinks they have any culpability for opting to carry $10k+ in cash over vastly safer and free alternatives. That doesn't excuse the seizure, but I don't see how it's worth our time to g…

Please don't blame the victim. Would you like me to steal your car just because I can force it away from you?

Do you expect your car insurance company to cover theft when you leave the keys in the ignition?

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

#152

Post by sjackso »

rogerbinns wrote: post #139
hectormalot wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reasons are probably regulation and effort/difficulty to serve. Assuming you are a US citizen, I highly invite you to come over to Switzerland and try and open a (savings) account if you wish to experience it in person. I'm currently living here, and talking to my US colleagues, I've found that it is near impossible for them to open an account, even though they would bring money to the banks here. Reasoning?…

This is not a Swiss specific thing. The US is one of the few countries that taxes citizens (and permanent residents) while the they don't live in the US. Consequently citizens have to self report their foreign income and foreign taxes. There are various tax treaties, but the US person will essentially have to pay the difference between the foreign taxes and the US taxes on that money (that at no point went anywhere n…

To make the situation even weirder, "giving up citizenship" to avoid these complications is difficult and expensive for US expats.

Renunciation of US citizenship was free until July 2010, the same year that FACTA went into effect. At that time US embassies started charging a $450 fee to renounce citizenship. In September 2014, this fee was raised to $2,350.

So an American family of four, living abroad, who wants to renounce their US citizenship needs to come up with $9400 to do so.

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

#153

Post by jMyles »

pandaman wrote: post #149
jMyles wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radley Balko writes that he learned this from Gene Papet, a professional trainer of K9 unit dogs. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley-balko/supreme-court-con...

The article you have referred talks about numerous cases where dogs actually detect remaining odors and then alleges that dogs could be trained to ignore weak odors.

True.

I suppose in these (and many) cases, it's simply that this feature is turned off; probably regarded as a bug by the user.

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

#154

Post by thephyber »

sjackso wrote: post #152
rogerbinns wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a Swiss specific thing. The US is one of the few countries that taxes citizens (and permanent residents) while the they don't live in the US. Consequently citizens have to self report their foreign income and foreign taxes. There are various tax treaties, but the US person will essentially have to pay the difference between the foreign taxes and the US taxes on that money (that at no point went anywhere n…

To make the situation even weirder, "giving up citizenship" to avoid these complications is difficult and expensive for US expats. Renunciation of US citizenship was free until July 2010, the same year that FACTA went into effect. At that time US embassies started charging a $450 fee to renounce citizenship. In September 2014, this fee was raised to $2,350. So an American family of four, living abroad, who wants to r…

Not to mention potentially MUCH higher fees to the IRS for becoming an expat:

https://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Expa...

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

#155

Post by rdtsc »

sjackso wrote: post #152
rogerbinns wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a Swiss specific thing. The US is one of the few countries that taxes citizens (and permanent residents) while the they don't live in the US. Consequently citizens have to self report their foreign income and foreign taxes. There are various tax treaties, but the US person will essentially have to pay the difference between the foreign taxes and the US taxes on that money (that at no point went anywhere n…

To make the situation even weirder, "giving up citizenship" to avoid these complications is difficult and expensive for US expats. Renunciation of US citizenship was free until July 2010, the same year that FACTA went into effect. At that time US embassies started charging a $450 fee to renounce citizenship. In September 2014, this fee was raised to $2,350. So an American family of four, living abroad, who wants to r…

I have seen other countries do that -- force citizens to pay a hefty fee to renounce their citizenship. It is like they see this as a last chance to extract any money from them, so they make it their worth.

You know, people in US laugh at opressive regimes who they don't allow people to leave the country to travel. Yet US is doing the same in a way with respect to citizenship.

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

#156

Post by rdtsc »

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).

> 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).

Well Congress could just pass a law and get it down with quicker. No need to wait for any convenient case to go to Supreme Court. But Congress, and guessing local state legistators, are not putting this on the top of their agenda.

Police usually seize things from minorities, those who perceived do not have the power or resources to fight back. You don't see cops pulling Trump or Gates on their way to a fundraiser and confiscating their cash. They probably don't hang out in multi-million dollar home neighbourhoods doing it. Because in that case, shit will hit the fan very fast. But nobody cares if a black kid with $11k gets his money taken. Look at him, he smoked pot, most people 50 and older see a druggy criminal type alread, mix in some deep seated racism, and you are close to "good, he deserved it" mentality.

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

#157

Post by pandaman »

jMyles wrote: post #153
pandaman wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article you have referred talks about numerous cases where dogs actually detect remaining odors and then alleges that dogs could be trained to ignore weak odors.

True. I suppose in these (and many) cases, it's simply that this feature is turned off; probably regarded as a bug by the user.

Or this feature simply does not exist, contrary to your belief.

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

#158

Post by blackoil »

davismwfl wrote: post #120
douche wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really curious, how do you not qualify for a savings account? I've never seen a bank that wouldn't take money, especially when they can charge account maintenance fees.

There are a few checks banks make that can make it so they won't open any type of account for you. 1. Credit check, poor credit makes you a risk and they don't like it, but this can sometimes be overcome more easily then the others. 2. If you had a prior account and it was closed forcibly or your SS# still shows up in the checking system as risky. There are a few national clearing houses that track your checks to see…

I am not from USA so curious, with ATMs, debit cards what is the use of check. In my 10 years of banking had to get money out of check only once, when I had lost my card.

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

#159

Post by Symbiote »

dalke wrote: post #124
powera wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the only one of these that doesn't seem weird is the Cuba trip (and carrying large amounts of cash across international borders has its own laws). Most of the rest are either "possibly criminal activity" or "likely not a giant pile of cash".

"Weird" is an odd word. Should we penalize the weird? Should we be encouraging more conformity? Or is it merely that only the unusual makes the news? The doctor received $15K in cash from wedding gifts. How is that weird? Is it because your baseline doesn't include people with rich relatives? The "Baltimore Woman [who] Posted a Stranger’s $15,000 Cash Bail" was because of a judge's order: > But in addition to crimina…

Would the bail really be paid on physical cash?

I'd expect them to take an electronic transfer, or a cheque in the name of the bank.

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

#160

Post by Riseed »

blackoil wrote: post #158
davismwfl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few checks banks make that can make it so they won't open any type of account for you. 1. Credit check, poor credit makes you a risk and they don't like it, but this can sometimes be overcome more easily then the others. 2. If you had a prior account and it was closed forcibly or your SS# still shows up in the checking system as risky. There are a few national clearing houses that track your checks to see…

I am not from USA so curious, with ATMs, debit cards what is the use of check. In my 10 years of banking had to get money out of check only once, when I had lost my card.

I pay rent every month with a check, and this still seems common. Only one of my previous four landlords has accepted another form of payment (a large rental company who accepted credit/debit cards).
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