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

351–360 of 517 posts

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

#351

Post by adrr »

downandout wrote: post #350
adrr wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it works on payroll cards that many low income people get in lieu of a traditional payday check. They are very similar to prepaid debit cards.

In almost cases, payroll cards are just prepaid cards that an employer has setup with a given prepaid card company for employees that don't have bank accounts, so yes.

Scary. These prepaid debit cards are being used everywhere in lieu of traditional checks from unemployment benefits, short term disability(maternity benefits) etc.

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

#352

Post by opo »

mangeletti wrote: post #346
molecule wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's referring to plain-old civil asset forfeiture.

Edit: After feedback, I deleted my snarky comment, which I wrote based on misunderstanding the use of "plain-old".

>99.999% of everyone who knows what asset forfeiture is knows it because of John Oliver.

Asset forfeiture has been controversial since it started being used much more frequently in the 1980s. I really doubt most of the people commenting on it here first heard of it on John Oliver's show.

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

#354

Post by dang »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #319

They took a whole Christian band? Are they going to be shackled and forced to play county fairs and police fund raisers for the rest of their lives?

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11862874 and marked it off-topic.

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

#355

Post by dang »

fapjacks wrote: post #247

This is the crux here. The "rule of law" is equivalent to "rule of men in black with automatic weapons". If you call the police, you are just outsourcing your violence to the men in black uniforms with automatic weapons. Because at the end of the day, they will use force. The "rule of law" is not "let's have a reasonable conversation about the issues".

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11864417 and marked it off-topic.

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

#356

Post by harryh »

incongruity wrote: post #284
harryh wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the police catch a person running away from a recently robbed bank holding a bag of money do you think they should have to convict the person before taking back the money? If there is reason to believe that someone is in possession of property that doesn't belong to them it seems perfectly reasonable for the police to confiscate said property.

In that case, wouldn't it be evidence ? I genuinely don't know all the details of how this works, but I do find it disturbing that the police turn around and spend the forfeited cash. Should they be allowed to do that with the sack of money from the bank, in your example?

Sure, if it's clear who the property is owned by it goes back to the rightful owner. But in cases where that is unclear or nonsensical (like money obtained by selling illegal drugs) it goes to the state. Where else would it go?

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

#357

Post by harryh »

facetube wrote: post #344
harryh wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the police catch a person running away from a recently robbed bank holding a bag of money do you think they should have to convict the person before taking back the money? If there is reason to believe that someone is in possession of property that doesn't belong to them it seems perfectly reasonable for the police to confiscate said property.

How do you propose to detect when the reason is fabricated? Legal systems need to be able to detect insider attacks on themselves.

This is why someone who has assets confiscated can make a claim (with a very low burden of proof) to get them back. People here are making it sound like that doing this is incredibly difficult or expensive but it's really not.

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

#358

Post by Sacho »

BrittTheIsh wrote: post #303

Isn't there a limit to what police can ask you to provide during a traffic stop? How is it legal that they can ask to see your debit / credit cards?

Yes, there is - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_stop

Consider, however, that the law in theory differs very much from its practice. In a Terry stop, just like most encounters with the police, the officer holds all the cards. Non-compliance can be met with force, and there's always the threat of being charged for obstruction or whatever else the policeman thinks up, based on their word alone(which has more weight than yours in court). Policemen are given a wide latitude to act, and a good faith presumption to all their actions, so they can get away with stretching any applicable law to its breaking point.

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

#359

Post by cornchips »

downandout wrote: post #313

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 balanc…

Yes, evil. As is Sergeant Rob Hain (of Chicago) who uploaded this...

"Sheriff's Deputy Ron Hain improperly detained Marsh after issuing him a warning and continued questioning him when he should have been free to leave, Barsanti ruled. The questioning led to Marsh's admission he was carrying a gun, which prompted further searches of his truck, phones, GPS and eventually the storage lockers."

"The discovery was made by exploiting the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights," Barsanti said. "He was illegally detained in a second seizure without cause." [1]

"Seized over 4,000 lbs of cannabis, over 50 kilograms of cocaine, over 50 kilograms of heroin, and over $1,000,000 of drug-related currency." [2]

1 https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20160406/news/160409204/

2 https://archive.is/Bf1ss

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

#360

Post by harryh »

tremon wrote: post #290
harryh wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the police catch a person running away from a recently robbed bank holding a bag of money do you think they should have to convict the person before taking back the money? If there is reason to believe that someone is in possession of property that doesn't belong to them it seems perfectly reasonable for the police to confiscate said property.

If the police catch a person running away from a recently robbed bank holding a bag of money do you think they should have to convict the person before taking back the money? Yes. The money may be held in escrow pending the trial, but appropration by police is unjust -- and should be illegal if the person is not charged and arrested.

So if it's clear that a person is in possession of illegally obtained property, but it's a mystery exactly how they got it so law enforcement can't indict them for a crime, they should just get to keep it?
Post reply on HN