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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

#461

Post by Atwood »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #444
voidz wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

It was not simply the consolidation of our petroleum interests we were after, no? Hamid Karzai (our man) afforded us unprecedented access to humans favorite narcotic. Poof! An unprecedented alkaloid epidemic.

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

#462

Post by jpindar »

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…

And politicians are unwilling to do anything about it lest someone accuse them of being 'soft on crime'.

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

#463

Post by earlz »

adrr wrote: post #351
downandout wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep, grew up and have friends/family in Oklahoma. Disability and unemployment benefits come on prepaid cards, as well as tax refunds.

Most ATMs charge a fee to check balance, and a separate fee to withdraw money as cash. These cards do usually have a free phone number you can call to check balance, but you almost always have to pay a fee for withdrawal. And if you have, say, $19 on the card, it's effectively impossible to get that out as cash, because no ATM lets you withdraw in less than $20 increments.

Also, most blue-collar and minimum wage jobs use prepaid cards. At least companies like McDonald's as well as various factory jobs do. For McDonald's, according to friends at least, there is no option for anything else. Even if you have a bank account, you can't do direct deposit, you still get a prepaid debit card that your paycheck goes to.

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

#464

Post by sokoloff »

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?

Acetaminophen is added to many prescription opiates in part to prevent abuse. (There's some question as to whether it aids in pain reduction beyond what the opiate would provide, but it certainly has near term implications for severe abuse.)

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

#465

Post by tremon »

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…

Just as important, make sure that local governments are funded adequately from higher levels. Completely deferring tax collection from central government to local municipalities creates a distribution problem where poor areas cannot collect enough funds to maintain the same standard as wealthy areas, which causes poor areas to deteriorate even further.

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

#466

Post by freditup »

arca_vorago wrote: post #447
freditup wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not familiar with his work, I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the suggestion!

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

#467

Post by talmand »

loeg wrote: post #158
talmand wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't accusing the person of being a criminal, they are accusing the property of being obtained from alleged criminal activity. Property is not innocent until proven guilty.

That's a stupid argument and you know it. It doesn't do you much good to be "innocent" if the state just takes all of your money.

I'm not the one making the argument.

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

#468

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

tremon wrote: post #465
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Just as important, make sure that local governments are funded adequately from higher levels. Completely deferring tax collection from central government to local municipalities creates a distribution problem where poor areas cannot collect enough funds to maintain the same standard as wealthy areas, which causes poor areas to deteriorate even further.

Absolutely correct. It is the great American tragedy that in a meritocratic society, schools are paid for by local property taxes.

European countries tend to tax more at a county or even national level, which makes the distribution of resources much, much more reasonable.

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

#469

Post by hnal943 »

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.

Ridiculous. The reason the Bill of Rights was not included in the constitution proper is that the enumerated powers clause states that the federal government is assumed to have no authority other than that explicitly granted to it. The Federalists were concerned that as soon as you started listing rights that were specifically protected, people would get the idea that those were the ONLY rights protected, which was contrary to the principle on which the nation was founded.

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

#470

Post by knodi123 »

brerlapn wrote: post #248
molecule wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Right, the legislator is referring to civil asset forfeiture, which is what the devices in the OP's article does too--just now they will steal money from your bank account if you happen to have your debit card with you instead of just being able to steal the cash you have in the car.

not bank accounts, not debit cards. I'm sure the police would like to plunder that too, but that's not what this technology does.
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