Stop and Seize • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop and Seize

#161

Post by dllthomas » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 6:09 PM UTC

allegory wrote: post #149

nagrom wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That last paragraph is fascinating! How did you react to their request to pay cash? How did you count the money to ensure that it was all there - did you sit there and do it when they arrived, or employ someone or did you visit the bank together?

It's pretty normal. No surprise. You weigh the cash with kitchen scales and check it's not paper blanks. That's about it. You have already exchanged contact details and IDs etc so it's all above board plus there is a solicitor present to hand over keys and act as immediate escrow. If there is a miscount of a few notes, ignore it and put it down to an accounting error. Then you go down the bank, tell them you have a t…

Note that the bank will probably be filing an SAR, but also that that probably doesn't matter.

Re: Stop and Seize

#162

Post by VexXtreme » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 6:12 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…

> we are Americans and aren't going to allow our liberties to being eroded by a bunch of fear mongering asshats

I can't count how many times I've heard this comment along the lines of "hurr durr this is Murica and no one is taking muh freedom away". No, your freedoms are already gone and it looks like you haven't woken up to it yet.

Re: Stop and Seize

#163

Post by ejr » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 6:14 PM UTC

panarky wrote: post #151

ejr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because resistance is futile. The machinery of government explicitly favours authority and that very authority was given to them willingly by the voting - or non voting - masses. It is the authority that everyone, including the plundered, believe they must have in order to keep them safe. Resistance takes courage and a willingness to lose everything you care about, such as your prideful opinion, free time or an hour…

>> Why doesn't your society resist? > Because resistance is futile. Resistance is not futile. We are far bigger and stronger than they are. An organized and determined resistance could dismantle the police state. But the vast majority of the population is uneducated, uninformed and unmotivated. They're unwilling to turn off TV and talk radio and participate in their community. And the few who are educated, informed a…

I appreciate what you're saying, but that just goes to show how large the barrier is to entry in governance. I fear you may be right that it may need to get worse before that resistance gains momentum. Which saddens me even more as I don't want to see any more lives destroyed.

Re: Stop and Seize

#164

Post by Zigurd » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 6:16 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.

"A lot of money laundering operations is related to terrorist financing."

Really? Aren't most terrorist/guerrilla groups proxies for nation states? Do you seriously think cops have any chance of interdicting that kind of backing?

Re: Stop and Seize

#165

Post by PeterisP » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 6:18 PM UTC

zorrb wrote: post #137

Reading through these comments, I see quite a bit of ignorance. A lot along the lines of, "Why would you ever carry cash!?" Which fortunately a lot of cogent comment have successfully answered. Another is, "Why would you carry that much cash it's so RISKY?" As someone whose had to carry around five figure sums around quite a bit in the past because of my profession (hint: it rhymes with "rambling") my far and away, i…

Are you speaking about the seizure process described in the article or just plain old theft?

Re: Stop and Seize

#166

Post by solutionviatech » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 6:24 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #157

solutionviatech wrote: post #133

--------Can we solve part of this problem through a smartphone app? ----------------- Here are my initial thoughts on how it would work, feel free to comment on better ways to implement it / other features 1) If you get pulled over by a cop, you start up the smart phone app and place the phone in the windshield mount (the mount should have power so the phone battery doesn't die) 2) When the app starts, it immediately…

Isn't step 2 illegal in some states? I think, but I could he wrong, that Illinous prevents audio recording without permission.

Regarding Illinois: - From this article [1], it looks like Illinois used to have laws prevents audio recording, but the Illinois Supreme Court recently overturned those laws. The court ruled you're not only within your rights to record law enforcement, but also to record public officials and private citizens when they do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a loud argument on the street or yelling fans at an athletic event.

Regarding illegal in some states:

- For any state where it is illegal to record a police officer, the app could just relay the audio/video signal to the lawyer without recording. The important part is that the driver has representation and the lawyer can still witness what takes place.

[1] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140320/11095226634/il-ov...

Re: Stop and Seize

#167

Post by Zigurd » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 6:26 PM UTC

agwa wrote: post #154

kohanz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see how one might come to the assumption that the victims here are "poor", and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them are, but I didn't see any suggestion of that in the article. I would presume that the less well-off victims did not have the legal resources (as these men did) to challenge the police's actions. Of the three victims that were profiled, 2 were business owners, all 3 (presumably) owned vehicles,…

Don't read too much into the fact that they own restaurants. They are probably very small businesses and don't make much money. They're likely sole proprietorships or general partnerships so they aren't a separate legal entity and might not even have bank accounts, so their owners would not be used to dealing with bank transactions. You can actually be much poorer owning a business than having a steady job. And ownin…

Also, many restaurant owners are immigrants. I speak passable German and fluent Latvian and it would still be a bear to slog through multi-page legal documents in either of those languages, and I could easily make a mistake for not knowing local norms.

Re: Stop and Seize

#168

Post by solutionviatech » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 6:33 PM UTC

lsc wrote: post #152

javajosh wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good idea, but it hinges entirely on streaming at least audio, as it hinges on getting real-time help of a lawyer. It also assumes that there are lots of lawyers out there sitting at a computer and willing to listen to police convos, and step in, for free. Perhaps lawyers would want to be involved as a loss leader for new business? I don't know.

>Perhaps lawyers would want to be involved as a loss leader for new business? I don't know. There are a bunch of business models. I mean, you could price it like insurance. I pay a monthly fee and you guarantee someone is there to get my ass out of a sling if required. Heck, you could price it like insurance, too; charge me based on perceived risk, and raise my rates if I actually use it. I mean, I carry liability in…

- Great idea about pricing it like insurance and charging based on perceived risk! I wonder if people that carry large amounts of cash around with them sometimes (i.e. restaurateurs) would want to use the app - and they could deduct the monthly fee as a business expense.

- Another market would be people who may feel like they get pulled over by the police more often than normal. In this use case, maybe the ACLU would be willing to pay for access to the data/statistics from the phone calls.

Re: Stop and Seize

#169

Post by maxxxxx » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 6:35 PM UTC

DominikR wrote: post #117

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 surpri…

This will stop immediately as soon as they start going after white, wealthy people. As long as they stick to poor non-white people who can't afford a lawyer or simply don't have the legal knowledge to fight back, nothing will happen.

Re: Stop and Seize

#170

Post by briandh » Sun, Sep 07, 2014, 6:36 PM UTC

People upset by this (as I am) may be interested in EndForfeiture.com, a very slick brochure-style site you can send to your friends.

The organization behind it is the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that has performed ample pro bono litigation against civil asset forfeiture abuse.

If you choose to donate to them (which I encourage), note that they do legal work in other areas that you may or may not agree with, so you should take a look at that first.

(Note: I am not affiliated with IJ, I just admire their work.)