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Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

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Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#161

Post by alistairSH »

rando444 wrote: post #91
alistairSH wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The officer doesn't have to know. Or care. He just takes every penny the system allows and lets you fight the DA over it at a later date. Even if the money is returned, it doesn't cost the cop anything to try. And if they keep the money, some moeny goes back to the police department.

Yes, but my statement was more of a technical one regarding how such a system might work. I am speaking about the method used to determine how much is in an account and what can be withdrawn, because they can't check your balance without a pin number, and if their system is issuing multiple repeated authorizations, what protections banks have in place that might block these sorts of transactions to prevent theft.

I believe the system is operating on pre-paid cards. I don't know the technical differences in transactions on those vs normal credit cards, but I assume there are some.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#162

Post by tim333 »

molecule wrote: post #6

> Here's how it works. If a trooper suspects you may have money tied to some type of crime, the highway patrol can scan any cards you have and seize the money. Given the low-threshold for seizure and how we've seen civil-asset forfeiture exercised by law enforcement, that's terrifying.

Yeah that's terrible. You could be completely clean and have the trooper suspect you because he thinks you look shifty or something.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#163

Post by pigpaws »

visarga wrote: post #130
viggity wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The despicable logic they use is that they're not charging the person with a crime (because people have due process rights), they're charging an inanimate object, the money, the car, etc. Property doesn't have due process rights, apparently. Seriously. If you look at the court cases for asset forfeitures, it is titled "The State of Oklahoma vs $1,534.32 in cash" or "Iowa vs 2014 Mercedes".

> Property doesn't have due process rights, Apparently, property doesn't really belong to us.

try not paying your property tax and see what happens. Deeds mean nothing. Receipts mean nothing. Registration means nothing. The State owns everything.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#164

Post by uremog »

viggity wrote: post #31
jobu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed: "We've seen single mom's stuff be taken, a cancer survivor his drugs taken, we saw a Christian band being taken. We've seen innocent people's stuff being taken. We've seen where the money goes and how it's been misspent," Loveless said. It boggles the mind that this doesn't violate due process.

The despicable logic they use is that they're not charging the person with a crime (because people have due process rights), they're charging an inanimate object, the money, the car, etc. Property doesn't have due process rights, apparently. Seriously. If you look at the court cases for asset forfeitures, it is titled "The State of Oklahoma vs $1,534.32 in cash" or "Iowa vs 2014 Mercedes".

There's a whole stack of gold bricks in Ft. Knox that's done me wrong. Where can I file?

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#165

Post by dang »

eonw wrote: post #104

From Article: "If you can prove that you have a legitimate reason to have that money it will be given back to you. And we've done that in the past," Vincent said about any money seized. Under no circumstance should i have to PROVE where my money came from nor how i got it. this is assumed guilt and utterly unamerican IMO. Where is the burden of proof that must be reached before taking my assets and forcing me to prov…

> backwoods state full of backwoods laws, and apparently backwoods people

Attacking an entire population of people like that is a nasty breach of HN's civility rule. Please don't ever post anything like this again.

It's the upvoters of such comments who should most be ashamed of themselves. The fact that people here feel angry about police seizing cash without due process can, and must, be kept distinct from cheap slurs. That takes a certain (rather tiny) degree of self-discipline, which is a minimum requirement for participating here.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#166

Post by dawnerd »

mcphage wrote: post #135
DickingAround wrote: post #2

And the scanner maker gets a 7% cut. What could go wrong: "the state is paying ERAD Group Inc., $5,000 for the software and scanners, then 7.7 percent of all the cash the highway patrol seizes"

> And the scanner maker gets a 7% cut. And if the courts decided that the asset forfeiture was incorrect and reimburse the person it was stolen from—does the scanner maker still keep their cut? Or are they still due their cut?

Wouldn't be surprised if the tax payers end up taking the hit there. Highly doubt the company would.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#167

Post by slavik81 »

devishard wrote: post #89
elorant wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, sure, let's turn that into a war between ourselves instead of demanding better legislation and more transparency from governments. Blacklisting individuals isn't going to solve any problem whatsoever and we run the risk of alienating a whole bunch of people who will then might go out and do even worst things than writing software for questionable companies. We need laws that prevent those things. That's the onl…

The laws you're talking about will never occur if the people making those laws are non-technical. As an industry we need to self-regulate, and have our self-regulation have the weight of law behind it. This system works fairly well, for example, in the medical profession, where you can lose your license to practice medicine based on principles set forth by other doctors.

I don't think a professional organization would want to wade into politics like that. At least for engineers, the principles they enforce are limited in scope. They demand that missiles designed by engineers don't veer wildly off-course. They don't demand that engineers refrain from designing missiles. The former is a matter of engineering; the latter is a matter of public policy.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#168

Post by sonthonax »

brbsix wrote: post #67
diyorgasms wrote: post #27

I've seen it said before and I'll say it again. Anyone who works for companies who make products like this in any capacity should be blacklisted in the industry. The missing scruples here could fill several large containers.

I've always wondered about the people engineering devices like this, the people at Harris Corp. creating Stingrays and other surveillance platforms, how they feel about their work. Listing individual employees might be a bit much, but we could certainly create one of companies involved. Unfortunately I fear it would be a long list.

Stingrays were used by NATO forces in Afghanistan to listen into Taliban mobile phone chatter, as they didn't use radios.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#169

Post by adventured »

Pwntastic wrote: post #160
stackus wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're never charged with a crime, the object is and it is not given representation. So there's no "innocent until proven guilty" for inanimate objects. Despicable, and akin to highway robbery in my opinion.

It is literally highway robbery, as it is the highway patrol pulling you over and stealing your money.

In thread after thread on this topic - civil asset forfeiture in its various forms - I see people do elaborate intellectual dances to describe or title what this is.

Nothing more than: highway robbery, is necessary. You're spot on, that's exactly what it is, and it's nothing more. It's robbery. Using any other names for it, just assists the police in covering up what they're doing through confusion. Everyone should begin calling it robbery by police or the equivalent, and stop referring to it as civil asset forfeiture in public forums (that's only useful in a technical/legal regard).

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