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Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

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Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#261

Post by drumdance »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #77
drumdance wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you were just passing through and they hit you with a bullshit charge, the fine for which is "give us your gun?" That's the way these laws often work. They snag people who don't live in the area and don't have the resources to fight them in court (especially if you seize their money).

Which is why either they have enough to arrest you, enough to get a warrant, or they don't take your property.

But they do take your property.

"There have been 61,998 cash seizures made on highways and elsewhere since 9/11 without search warrants or indictments through the Equitable Sharing Program, totaling more than $2.5 billion. State and local authorities kept more than $1.7 billion of that while Justice, Homeland Security and other federal agencies received $800 million. Half of the seizures were below $8,800."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/st...

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#262

Post by drumdance »

tptacek wrote: post #81
drumdance wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right to unreasonable search and seizure at the Federal level supersedes all state law. This was just a bad Supreme Court decision, morally in the same "ballpark" as Plessy vs. Ferguson

Unfortunately for this argument, the word "reasonable" means pretty much the same thing now as it did in 1787, and is clearly meant to delegate most of the answer to this question to the people (in the form of the legislature), and not the philosopher-kings of the court. You will of course come up with many arguments, virtually all of which I'll agree with, that asset forfeiture is "unreasonable". The problem is that…

I'm not arguing that the Supreme Court can do whatever it wants. I'm arguing that they are morally wrong. They've been morally wrong before and in a few cases overturned the previous precedent.

But the only way they will do that again is if there is public pressure. So even if a lot of people disagree with me, the proper course of action is not to shut up and take my medicine. The proper course is to keep raising hell about it.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#263

Post by logfromblammo »

dragonwriter wrote: post #248
logfromblammo wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They become less absurd in light of other abuses against civil rights. ~The 14th Amendment just says that blacks have equal rights to vote as whites. The idea that poll taxes or literacy tests or official intimidation while in transit to the polling places are somehow unconstitutional is and always has been... absolutely correct.~ In some counties, bearing a concealed firearm requires a permit issued by the sheriff.…

> The 14th Amendment just says that blacks have equal rights to vote as whites. No, it doesn't say that at all. You are probably thinking of the 15th Amendment, section 1 of which is "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." > The idea that poll taxes or literacy tests or offi…

My errors of fact aside, reasonable restrictions may be applied unreasonably by a biased enforcer.

While it may seem reasonable to require a proficiency test to legally own a gun, what you will see in practice is that any possible ambiguity in the legal definition for such a test will be exploited to serve the political preference of the tester.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#264

Post by fineman »

gnaritas wrote: post #244
humanrebar wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am speaking strictly morally (or ethically if you prefer). Jefferson obviously had the legal right to own slaves. The fact that the laws themselves were unjust is my point.

They are unjust by modern morality, morality changes over time, it is not absolute.

It's more like morality is unchanged (Justify something other than: 'do unto others', without falling back on an obviously illogical subjective value system) but society's dirty excuses for immorality change.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#265

Post by hfourm »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #97
hfourm wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think another big negative here is just the fact that it shifts police org's focus towards crimes where they can "fund" themselves. I repeat this statistic a lot, but the solved murder rate has fallen from ~90% in the 60s to ~60% in recent years. You'd think with all our new forensic technology and lower overall murder rates it would be opposite.

That 90% figure isn't reliable given the tendency to force confessions out of "known troublemakers" that was far more rampant in the 60s.

Maybe, but I still doubt that equates to a 30% drop.

I am more a fan of the whole, increase in division between community and its police leading to lack of informants among other things, idea.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#266

Post by geggam »

the_why_of_y wrote: post #192
geggam wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a Republic not a Democracy.

The constitution says the US is both a Republic and a Democracy.

Declaration of Independence and our constitution do not even mentioned the word "democracy".

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#267

Post by jessaustin »

rayiner wrote: post #224
MCRed wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are always drugs when property is seized this way. Nope. Several years ago the FBI stole $6M in Platinum, Gold and Silver. Some of the theft was of protected political speech-- literally copper & silver pieces with Ron Paul's picture and a campaign slogan on them. No allegations of drugs was involved, and the criminality claim -- that using gold and silver as barter threatened to undermine the US dollar -- wa…

Minting your own gold currency is illegal: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/25/486 .

How is that relevant to this case? In a way that wouldn't also indict e.g. http://www.americanmint.com/?

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#268

Post by the_why_of_y »

geggam wrote: post #266
the_why_of_y wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constitution says the US is both a Republic and a Democracy.

Declaration of Independence and our constitution do not even mentioned the word "democracy".

Let's see... neither the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence explicitly use the word "republic" for the United States as a whole, so you should perhaps reconsider that argument.

Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, and Section 3, in their first paragraphs clearly define the legislative branch as a representative democracy.

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