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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

#361

Post by eric_h »

opo wrote: post #352
mangeletti wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Haha, indeed. I think I'd heard of it many years ago, but I didn't really understand how fucking absurd it is until a story about it appeared here on HN. A year (~ish/maybe, my memory of timelines is fucking terrible) later I saw the John Oliver episode.

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

#363

Post by duncan_bayne »

Roboprog wrote: post #79

Welcome to the post-Reagan era, kids. This stuff really took off during the 80s war on drugs. (which is about as successful as the war on alcohol was - for gangsters dealing) If only Thatcherism / Reaganism never happened... (and Laffer, Friedman and all the other related right wing propaganda that's been catapulted down our throats) I suppose things will eventually get bad enough that people will eventually realize…

Citation needed (re. Friedman).

Also, could we please stop blaming Thatcher and Reagan for undesirable political trends that started before them, and continued accelerating throughout successive left and right wing administrations in both countries?

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

#364

Post by rconti »

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".

Slow down there. First of all, the parent didn't claim to be a genius who had some pre-existing knowledge. Secondly, even if (s)he learned it from John Oliver, how does that make it less a part of parent's knowledge?

Furthermore, the use of "plain-old" was a way of indicating that this is a new method but an old process; eg, it's not legally any different from normal asset seizure.

Finally, and most importantly, I don't see any bias or why you even call it that.

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

#365

Post by rconti »

hackaflocka wrote: post #329
dragonwriter wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not a particularly surprising choice of examples for a Republican politician upset about the practice that wants to highlight targeted groups to whom his constituency is likely to be sympathetic.

I agree 100%. Still, one group (single moms) is generally despised by them, and the other is favored.

Not despised. I think they're likely sympathetic to their plight, at least on the surface.

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

#366

Post by eric_h »

gozur88 wrote: post #326
hackuser wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The objects are property, and people have property rights.

Sure, people have property rights, which, in this case, they've stripped without due process. Or indeed, any process at all. There's no way I'd carry a bank card in OK.

This comment[1] suggests that the product does not work with an actual bank card, only prepaid cards, which boggles the mind.

1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11865494

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

#367

Post by rconti »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #281
FireBeyond wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm not really sure why they compare the last 4 digits to detect a clone, that seems wrong to me." It catches lazy counterfeiting. Stamp a whole bunch of cards with the same number and info, while the magstripe is what gets read and is the real account you're stealing from, the theory being that no-one really cares about the number printed on the card. Some retailers do this too, ask or enter the last four of the ca…

I particularly enjoy when a cashier asks me to read the last 4 digits of the card, rather than following the instructions on the terminal (which say something like "Give card to cashier...").

Oh. I had no idea why they did this. That makes sense. I guess I just figured it was so easy to PROPERLY clone and stamp a card, that it didn't cross my mind..

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

#368

Post by jMyles »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #74

Symptom of a bigger problem: nobody in the criminal justice system is punished for making the wrong move. There is no law enforcement downside to civil asset forfeiture. Officer-involved shootings are discouraged from prosecution or otherwise involve highly-paid "expert" witnesses saying the officer had no other choice - at taxpayer expense. Prosecutors are valued by the number of wins, not by how many innocent peopl…

> I've said it before and I'll say it again: prevent this kind of garbage from happing without consequence by mandating docked wages/pension benefits to pay for all or part of lawsuit damages. Change the incentives and people will change themselves.

I'm less certain. It seems to me that this will only push the incentive further up the chain, such that the system refuses to ever find wrongdoing or even allow lawsuits to go forward.

A simpler and more elegant solution is to simply remove "criminal justice" as being part of the responsibility of the state. In my estimation, this will come at no cost whatsoever to safety, while also increasing quality of life for most people.

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

#369

Post by cmdrfred »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #342
cmdrfred wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last revolution was the civil war. The people at the top forgot what the people at the bottom are capable of.

That'll be bad for everyone involved. Even the victors will have a rough time of it; and from your perspective, there's a non-trivial chance they don't align with your beliefs. People advocating for this have no concept of warfare in general, nevermind in a modern setting. The people hurt the most are always the innocent non-combatant civilians.

> The people hurt the most are always the innocent non-combatant civilians.

That isn't true now anyway?

I don't advocate for anything, all I know is if the current trend continues, like every other free society that has gone down this same road, It will end very badly and then will improve for a generation or so.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it’s natural manure." - Thomas Jefferson

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

#370

Post by TDL »

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".

Radley Balko has been writing about asset forfeiture for about a decade. He has done more to bring this issue to the medias attention than John Oliver has. It is completely unfair to claim that no one knew what was going until someone famous began to popularize it more.

Not that there is anything wrong with John Oliver hopping on the band wagon, that's good thing.

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