Stop and Seize • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop and Seize

#111

Post by baddox » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 4:42 PM UTC

vfclists wrote: post #56

lettergram wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging from the 5 or 6 cops I know personally (neighbors and what not), there's basically nothing you can do if they want something from you. They will lie or provoke you into doing something, even worse, one of the cops I know had a story about how someone said, "no, you cannot search my vehicle." The cop then asked if he wanted to be arrested for resisting arrest, and the guy gave in because he has no idea what hi…

Don't you Americans feel ashamed of your country? Your country is beginning to stink. In many respects it is worse than third world countries. How is this different from some third world country where police stop cars to collect bribes from drivers? Well I'll tell you. In America the whole administration, the judiciary, the legal profession, the government at federal,state and county level are in on it. It seems that…

Disgusted by it? Yes. Ashamed? No. "Ashamed" implies that I expect better, or that I am responsible, neither of which are the case.

Re: Stop and Seize

#112

Post by avz » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 4:42 PM UTC

shin_lao wrote: post #74

clamprecht wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying because you, shin_lao, doesn't prefer cash, that it's ok for the government to go around seizing cash from people who do prefer it? What of the seller only accepts cash? What if the buyer (someone other than you) prefers cash?

It's illegal for the seller to accept cash beyond 3,000 € (see the law above). Important point: checks and wire transfers are free.

I used checks and wire transfers and had to pay a fee for both. I've never been charged for making a cash payment.

Re: Stop and Seize

#113

Post by jschwartzi » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 4:43 PM UTC

kghose wrote: post #69

lostcolony wrote: post #10

'“9/11 caused a lot of officers to realize they should be out there looking for those kind of people,” said David Frye, a part-time Nebraska county deputy sheriff who serves as chief instructor at Desert Snow and was operations director of Black Asphalt. “When money is taken from an organization, it hurts them more than when they lose the drugs.”' Wait, what? I was unaware that 9/11 was perpetrated by drug trafficker…

A lot of money laundering operations is related to terrorist financing. Also, many terrorist organizations finance themselves via drug sales.

Why was this voted down? It strikes me as something requiring some citations or rebuttal, but not a simple downvote.

Re: Stop and Seize

#114

Post by ObviousScience » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 4:45 PM UTC

kordless wrote: post #85

vfclists wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you Americans feel ashamed of your country? Your country is beginning to stink. In many respects it is worse than third world countries. How is this different from some third world country where police stop cars to collect bribes from drivers? Well I'll tell you. In America the whole administration, the judiciary, the legal profession, the government at federal,state and county level are in on it. It seems that…

First off, you are using a TON of blaming statements (which are mostly ad hominem) and are using a trolling technique to attempt poll others for feelings. It's a nasty habit and your comments only serve to make someone angry. I believe you are aware of your intent and only use it to illicit fear. We still have enough liberty here that this article can run in the newspaper freely. That is evidence enough America is fa…

Wait, an article balances out the police seizing private assets without a crime for 3 decades to the tune of a hundred million dollars a year?

There's something wrong when police have been funding themselves with $30 billion in essentially stolen money.

Re: Stop and Seize

#115

Post by kelseyfrancis » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 4:46 PM UTC

kghose wrote: post #70

jjoonathan wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money orders typically have limits of a few hundred dollars, far under $18k (the example in the article). Bank-certified checks suffer from forgery problems and take 1-3 days to clear at my local bank. Both of these cost money, sometimes significant amounts of money. For instance the money order fee on $18k, assuming you structured the transaction to get around the limit, would come out to ~$150 at the place I last u…

Why not personal check when you make the payment? Why not a credit card?

The state literally prints currency to facilitate commerce, so it is beyond unjust to then seize it from people who use it to conduct commerce regardless of whether there exist other means of doing so.

I sold a car to someone on craigslist for a few thousand dollars. The person who bought it paid in cash, still in a bank envelope. This transaction was not criminal, and it's exceedingly unlikely that the money had illicit origins. I promptly deposited the cash into a checking account. The amount certainly prompted a Suspicious Activity Report to FinCEN, which I made no attempt to avoid, as doing so would have indeed been criminal.

Cash is just by far the most trustworthy form of payment to accept from strangers (other than perhaps cryptocurrency or physically going to the bank with them), which is why craigslist warns against money orders or checks of any kind.

It would have been entirely and unambiguously unjust if the state had seized that money from either me or the person I legally sold my car to.

Re: Stop and Seize

#116

Post by jjoonathan » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 4:47 PM UTC

kohanz wrote: post #77

jjoonathan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize what this sounds like to someone without access to enough cash on hand to smooth over the insanity of our banking process? "Screw you, I've got mine."

I certainly don't read it in that way. Carrying that amount of cash is a high-risk venture regardless of whether these questionable seizures are happening or not (e.g. the threat of theft). The other methods mentioned may cost a bit, but that cost goes towards lowering the risk of the transaction. For someone carrying 5-figures worth of cash, how can those costs be prohibitively expensive?

Easily. Bank transactions are only cheap when

1. delays have a low marginal cost

or

2. the receiving party is both wealthy and trusting enough to buffer the entire transaction

Banks operate on a principle of eventual consistency that lets transactions and accounts dangle in limbo for days to weeks. Delays cost money: lost opportunities, missed deadlines, rent. Is it really so hard to believe that the expected cost of a weeklong delay (which happen all the time) would be more than the expected cost of theft (which is rare in comparison)?

Re: Stop and Seize

#117

Post by DominikR » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 4:47 PM UTC

Why doesn't your society resist? Parts of your police is now equiped like an army on a battlefield and money can be seized without any reasoning.

And then there's NSA spying, torture and drone executions of suspected terrorists (even US citizens) without trial.

If someone would have told me 20 years ago, that the US will turn into this, I would have thought that this person must be insane.

Now it wouldn't even surprise me, if the US turns into a giant gulag in the next 10 years.

Edit: I wonder how these policemen justify their actions, after all they are going after their own people.

Re: Stop and Seize

#118

Post by baddox » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 4:48 PM UTC

kohanz wrote: post #55

This is by no means a justification for these seizures, but in reading this I can't help but wonder in what legitimate situations one would actually need to carry such large amounts of cash. Would a money-order or bank-certified check not do the job, or would those be seizable by the police as well? Again, I say this more in a "how can I avoid this type of situation" sense, rather than implying that there was any wro…

Why must the people opposing asset forfeiture come up with a "legitimate situation"? What if I simply want to carry a bunch of cash unrelated to any criminal activity?

You might as well say something like "I don't see why anyone would legitimately like death metal music." It's fine to not understand or share people's opinions and preferences, but it's ridiculous to support them being robbed simply because their preferences differ from yours.

Re: Stop and Seize

#119

Post by eplanit » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 4:48 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #113

kghose wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of money laundering operations is related to terrorist financing. Also, many terrorist organizations finance themselves via drug sales.

Why was this voted down? It strikes me as something requiring some citations or rebuttal, but not a simple downvote.

Because it's an inconvenient fact that doesn't align with the popular bias here.

Re: Stop and Seize

#120

Post by angersock » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 4:51 PM UTC

kghose wrote: post #57

kohanz wrote: post #55

This is by no means a justification for these seizures, but in reading this I can't help but wonder in what legitimate situations one would actually need to carry such large amounts of cash. Would a money-order or bank-certified check not do the job, or would those be seizable by the police as well? Again, I say this more in a "how can I avoid this type of situation" sense, rather than implying that there was any wro…

I share your sentiments. I'm more ambivalent about this process than I should be, as an admirer of the checks and balances in our constitution. I would suspect that the vast majority of such hauls is drug money laundering related. "Normal" folks would be scared of losing such cash or having it stolen. I know I would be petrified at the thought. However, there are probably a few folks who don't use banks (don't trust…

So, what is the actual harm of letting it slide?

Like, really--what is the actual harm of letting the laundering occur? What is the root cause of that harm? Why is it a large and profitable industry at all (hint: it's not because of the drugs)?

Then look at it on the other side:

What is the harm done to a citizen or person who isn't conducting illegal business but who is suddenly losing thousands or tens of thousands of dollars out of nowhere? What does that do to them, and can they recover? What is the chance of things escalating during such a seizure and in turn causing them to be punished by the state further (consider any number of padding charges a cop/DA might decide to hit them with)?

Lastly, consider the precedent being enforced: you now have your justice system interfering with legal common commerce. Where does that stop? What do we have to gain? What happens if anonymous financial transactions are disallowed?

Answer these questions, and I think you'll begin to see why this is so troubling.