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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

#441

Post by mortenlarsen »

protomyth wrote: post #264
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or a well off white guy had to deal with the police in a negative context for the first time in his life and that changed his opinion of them and the power they do or don't deserve

I think calling someone racist just because of their skin color and economic position is wrong and adds to the level of hate in society.

I read "well off white guy" as implying privilege. I am not sure that is the same as accusing someone of being a racist. The benefits of that privilege can help make your life easier, whether you asked for the privilege or not. And also regardless off whether you actively or consciously try to benefit from said privilege. I guess it does at least affect the way you experience life and the world around you.

Note: I am from Denmark and maybe I have a different perspective, even though racism is a problem here as well, but maybe in a different way. I was having an internal debate with myself about whether to jump in on this conversation just because it is a topic that can cause a lot of controversy. But I decided that self censorship, is a bad thing for society as a whole in the long run.

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

#442

Post by cornchips »

killbrad wrote: post #425
cornchips wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

Just a minor note, he is not from Chicago - it's not even in the same county as Chicago.

Yeah, people outside of Chicago tend to associate themselves with the big city... What they should really be saying is the "uncultured area of Bumblefuck around Chicago".

That ERAD won't be of any use in Austin or Englewood at 2am...

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

#443

Post by imtringued »

Loughla wrote: post #101
WDCDev wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police unions want large busybody departments and they don't care who pays. They just know that once a new police officer is hired SOMEONE will pay.

No, people want large, busybody departments. It makes them feel safe. They don't want to increase their taxes, though, especially in conservative states such as Oklahoma.

I don't think robbery makes anyone feel safe.

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

#444

Post by thaumasiotes »

voidz wrote: post #436
Gibbon1 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among the friends I knew the body count is Prescription Drugs: 2 Alcohol: 3 Heroin: 0 Methamphetamine: 0 Cannabis: 0 Two people I know. Their brothers both died from Oxycontin(tm). Specifically pulmonary talcosis. You get pulmonary talcosis from the talc government made the manufacturer add specifically to kill junkies.

Mhm. I'll bite. Got a source? Government wants kill people who use a lot of Oxycontin to kill the people who snort it or something?

I could not verify this particular claim in under an hour of online searching. Relevant facts:

Oxycontin used to contain talc, and this came with prominent health warnings. Shooting up dissolved oxycontin pills containing talc is dangerous. See http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2008/020... ("with parenteral abuse, the [inactive ingredients], especially talc, can be expected to result in [many bad things]").

As of some time in 2014, oxycontin no longer contains talc -- it has been replaced by magnesium stearate. However, that health warning that parenteral abuse causes many bad things has not been altered except to remove the phrase "especially talc". Pulmonary granulomas are still specifically called out as something bad that will happen to you if you inject oxycontin. See the current usage information at http://app.purduepharma.com/xmlpublishing/pi.aspx?id=o .

SPECULATIVELY: this means that while talc is no longer present, oxycontin might still contain legally-mandated adulteration. I found no evidence for a legal mandate, but this was not a comprehensive investigation.

It has long been the explicit policy of the United States that people who abuse otherwise legal chemicals deserve to be poisoned to death, and we have had and do have laws to this effect. See http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa... .

It's that last point that makes me hesitate to slam your parent comment for fearmongering.

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

#445

Post by cornchips »

downandout wrote: post #385
cornchips wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

From [1].... “All of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine,” Deputy Ron Hain of Kane County, Ill., wrote in a self-published book under a pseudonym. Hain is a marketing specialist for Desert Snow, a leading interdiction training firm based in Guthrie, Okla., whose founders also created Black Asphalt. Desert Snow created civil forfeiture training seminars for law enforcement. Black Asphalt is a syst…

Owning a business related and supposedly selling to law enforcement while being employed by the force... Conflict of interest, anyone?

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

#446

Post by cronjobber »

tajen wrote: post #278
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…

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?

Extricate yourselves from the EU, which desperately wants to become a single central government and will relentlessly pull in that direction as long it is allowed to exist, and go back to smaller, more manageable units of government.

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

#447

Post by arca_vorago »

freditup wrote: post #432
Unklejoe wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally knew 5 people who have died from a drug overdose, and that drug was heroin in all 5 cases. They all actually started off by abusing prescription opiates, but moved to heroin after they ran out of money. However, my area is known for being a heroin hot spot. I live in a decent middle class town about 15 minutes away from Camden, NJ. My high school was known as "heroin high". The problem with heroin is tha…

I was in downtown Camden, NJ once a couple years ago, being given a tour by a black pastor who's focus was on helping the poor of Camden turn away from drug addictions. (Point being, he knew the city very well, and knew its drug problem very well.) It was an absolutely astonishing time. Camden literally felt like it had just been through a war: desolate buildings, so many people homeless on the streets, people desper…

If you haven't seen any of his work, Chris Hedges has written and spoken pretty extensively on Camden and Camdenesque cities. Heartbreaking stuff.

You know, it always stuck in my craw that so much of the heroin in the new epidemic came/comes from Afghanistan... Shades of Vietnam.

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

#448

Post by emkman »

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.

Actually, they aren't the same. Payroll debit cards are protected by certain provisions that don't apply to GPR (general purpose reloadable) debit cards. Thankfully they have fewer predatory fees and it's required that 100% of the pay amount is put on the card. They can still be subject to very high ATM fees, and possibly inactivity fees (since the provider doesn't earn any interchange fees if the card isn't swiped. I can't recall all the details but I looked into implementing both versions at a previous job.

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

#449

Post by Spoom »

tremon wrote: post #328
tajen wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot: the TSA, the "warning shots in the chest" (it's a meme), the 6% of black people currently in prison, the 1% of all population currently in prison, the freedom you export (another meme - yes I'm talking about the drone-based assinations outsourced to private companies), and the NSA patently ignoring any interpretation-by-a-reasonable-man of the constitution. But it really cheers my heart that there are so…

Let's hope that if your country falls into that trap, there will be an even bigger country to come and save you, like you did for us in 1944. That would be Russia, China, or Canada.

Historically, Canada has always been a release valve of sorts for abuses of the US. Just look at the Vietnam war or (in a much larger sense) the underground railroad.

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

#450

Post by DanielBMarkham »

rdtsc wrote: post #405
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #72

As a libertarian, I've seen a long line of articles that make me go Holy Cow! It's gotten so I feel bad about it. I even apologize. Each time, I think "Well that's it, there's nothing that could go beyond this." Holy cow! Several years ago I sold a small lot which had an office on it. The guy who bought it paid cash. Cash is kinda unusual for this kind of transaction, so I asked him where he got it. He told me that h…

> There has been a long tradition in the states of assuming the best when dealing with the local constable. Heh! I came from a country where police torture people routinely. Any suspect who lands in police custody has a good chance of being tortured. They know how to do it, so it causes psychological distress but doesn't leave huge marks on the body. My friend and I once caught a pickpocket and took him to a police s…

Yes, I understand that. Every system has good folks and bad folks. But at some point, systems reach a state where the people trying to do good in the world are actually part of the problem, not part of the solution. At that point, the system itself is bad.

In the states it matters whether you torture people. Sure, bad folks get away with it, but if you get caught, you can be assured that the system will work against you. Same goes, mostly, for killing people without reason. Several public incidents over the last few years have shown this. I think the trick is to have video footage handy.

False arrest? Not so much. Police harassment? I'm sure there are cases brought to trial, but it's really rare. Taking your money when you didn't do anything? As we can see, that's already part of the system.

So over time, the system slips into being, for lack of a better word, "evil". More and more stuff that was out of bounds becomes normal. Sadly, I honestly think the reason for this is just officers trying to do a good job. Maybe cutting a corner here or there. No evil intent required.

This is going to sound weird, but if you'd like a good example of how the US traditionally felt about Law Enforcement, watch a few episodes of the old TV show "The Andy Griffith Show" with Don Knotts in there. Perhaps follow that up with a couple of episodes of "Dragnet"

These are highly-sanitized 60s shows, but it's clear that for a population who had most men return from armed combat in WWII or Vietnam, over-zealous macho policemen were a cause of great amusement. When real crimes did occur, the cops were considered just part of the population, perhaps with more analytical skills and with a job most people wouldn't like, but not that different from anybody else.

I believe that attitude started turning in the mid 70s with the Dirty Harry movies. Crime was considered a terrible problem, and the courts were considered to be advocating letting criminals rampage. Then we had the organized crime mania. Then drugs. With each public fear-fest, legislators gave the police more and more power -- just to use against the terrible threat of the current day, of course. It didn't work out that way. Now we have cops using organized crime and drug laws against some yokel growing 3 pot plants in his basement.

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