Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news9.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 517 posts

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

#311

Post by xviia »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #180
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"

Highwaymen don't go away, they just get new uniforms and tools. Particularly egregious is Lt. Vincent's take: >"If you can prove can[sic] prove[sic] 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.

In other words, "if we think you could sue us and set a precedent, we will give you your money back. But if you're poor, we won't respond to your phone calls."

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

#312

Post by dragonwriter »

jdavis703 wrote: post #299
Digit-Al wrote: post #255

As an Englishman, I have a couple of questions for you Americans on here. 1) Does anyone know who came up with these "civil asset forfeitures"? (Personally, they seem most un-civil to me.) 2) Can any of you defend America as "the land of the free" when more of the population are in prison than in almost any other country in the word and the police not only have the power to strip you of your property and assets witho…

It's never been "a land of the free." The original constitution didn't even include the bill of rights because it can't be easily reconciled with slavery. EDIT: I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. If you think it is wrong at least state why it is wrong.

> The original constitution didn't even include the bill of rights because it can't be easily reconciled with slavery.

The original Constitution expressly recognized and protected slavery, true, and did not include the bill of rights, but not because it couldn't be reconciled with slavery, but because the bill of rights was crafted to address concerns raised by critics of the original Constitution; the Bill of Rights (well, the 10 amendments popularly called that now -- the package proposed had 12, one of which still isn't ratified, and one of which took a little over 200 years to be ratified) was ratified within a few years of the original Constitution, and had no problem being reconciled with slavery, which was still around until being abolished by the 13th Amendment after the Civil War.

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

#313

Post by downandout »

Here's a fun little video from the manufacturer extolling the virtues and showing a demo of their device: https://youtu.be/XYbgnCi7NYI

These are some truly evil people. Apparently they can only target prepaid cards with this thing, which unsurprisingly will disproportionately affect people with lower incomes (the "unbanked"). According to the manufacturer's FAQ [1]:

Intel™ and ERAD-Recovery™ will only retrieve balances from open loop prepaid debit cards. Debit cards attached to a valid checking account or valid credit cards cannot be processed using the ERAD-Intel™ or ERAD-Recovery™ system.

Law enforcement already depends heavily upon lower income neighborhoods to justify their existence, and upon criminal convictions of poor people that can't defend themselves to keep up demand for prison and jail guards. Now they want to take the money of those they can't arrest, knowing that their targets cannot afford to hire lawyers to get it back.

[1] https://www.erad-group.com/faqs

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

#314

Post by morgante »

Digit-Al wrote: post #255

As an Englishman, I have a couple of questions for you Americans on here. 1) Does anyone know who came up with these "civil asset forfeitures"? (Personally, they seem most un-civil to me.) 2) Can any of you defend America as "the land of the free" when more of the population are in prison than in almost any other country in the word and the police not only have the power to strip you of your property and assets witho…

I'm not going to try to defend civil asset forfeiture (it's an abhorrent practice), but I still do think America is marginally more free than most places for a few reasons:

- I don't think the number of people in prison is the best measure of whether a country is free or not. By that logic, a backwater regime which simply dealt with undesirables via extrajudicial shootings would be more "free."

- Likewise, the notion that police can "shoot you dead and barely get a slap on the wrist" is quite hyperbolic. Yes, there are plenty of cases of police brutality and we need a better system for prosecuting police murders (ideally an independent prosecutorial office which only prosecuted police). But I'm no more afraid of getting shot by the police than I am of dying in any other unlikely way (terrorist attack, random serial killer, etc.).

- We do still have some rights which are freer than anywhere else. Free speech, for example, enjoys much better protection in the US. Trying to prosecute someone for insulting a foreign leader would get laughed out of court here, but apparently it's a crime in Germany. Our secret police are marginally less brazen than GCHQ. The prospect of a national firewall/blacklist is a lot more distant here.

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

#316

Post by lovich »

maxaf wrote: post #42
VLM wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its mostly for use against prepaid gift cards and the like. Also those cheesy pre-paid credit cards. Supposedly its already in use at borders. The news is that now if you get pulled over in OK the cops will now keep any gift cards they find. Ever wonder why there's such a push to get RFID everywhere? If they RF scan your car and find a card in the trunk now you're at minimum guilty of obstruction.

> If they RF scan your car and find a card in the trunk now you're at minimum guilty of obstruction. Errrrrr not really! 4th Amendment gives you the right to refuse a search of your person or vehicle. Even if the cops do find something illegal during a search you've clearly but politely refused, your refusal will give your defense attorney grounds to ask the court to throw out any evidence found in the trunk.

The constitution also gives you the right to a presumption of innocence based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_v._United_States but the authorities dont seem to care much about that either

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

#317

Post by _audakel »

>It shows 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.

If your cash is seized the police will go ahead and keep the full amount less the 7.7% fee. So what happens if the person is proven innocent? Does the police dept have to use its own funding to repay the 7.7% fee?

This seems unlikely to me (but that is based on no facts). Or does the company have to repay the money? It would seem like they could legally say they preformed a service and should not be required to refund the money.

Sadly it looks like if you are seen as "potential guilty" and your assets are seized, even if you are proven innocent you still lost 7.7% of your money. Then tack on legal fees associated with proving your innocent.....

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

#318

Post by honua »

tn13 wrote: post #244
linkregister wrote: post #24

From the article: State Sen. Kyle Loveless, R-Oklahoma City, said that removes due process and the belief that a suspect is presumed innocent until proven guilty. He said we've already seen cases in Oklahoma where police are abusing the system. "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 whe…

> If State Sen. Loveless's statement is accurate As someone who is closely following the topic I would say he is pretty accurate. Most of these laws are passed claiming it is meant to target hardened criminals. Good people like us think it is okay to take away any rights of people who we consider as bad. Given the choice cops will not knock down the door of Drug dealer known to have automatic rifles at his home but s…

> These problems are not a creation of police. These are created by good people like us who do not empathize with criminals, minorities and other groups which by default consider "less human".

I agree that the problem is considering others as "less human" but I wouldn't exclude the police from that!

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

#320

Post by eloisius »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #301
tajen wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bonus question: In countries that are still exempt from highway police robbery such as in Europe, what can we do to avoid gliding towards it? Isn't HPR a natural evolution of the increased number of police agents after massive terrorist attacks, like the two we've just had in France?

Simple: pay for things you need. Over the last few decades the American people have been conned into this idea that government is fundamentally too big and needs to be shrunk because of reasons. People save a few measly percentage points on taxes that help pay for the axle damage on their car after being driven over roads that are no longer repaired. Municipalities had to find ways to recoup costs from slashed state…

So police departments are largely participating in highway robbery because it's the only way they can get by? They're not spending it on margarita machines [1] or trips to Hawaii?

[1]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2014/06/05/c...

Post reply on HN