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How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

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Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#241

Post by dragontamer »

imroot wrote: post #10

While civil forfeiture is scary, my (very very brief) stint doing criminal law as a public defender showed me that there's also a bigger side of this -- seizing the assets of individuals who are charged with a crime so that they cannot attain private counsel, make bail, or receive any creature comforts while incarcerated. What will generally happen is that after sitting in jail for 120+ days, they'll jump at any oppo…

    We've moved away from a society where the police were
    there to truly protect and serve the community (think
    1950's/60's beat cop walking the blocks during his
    shift) to a totalitarian police state (constant erosion
    of the 4th amendment, nexus centers, sweeping
    overreaches of the third party doctrine, stingrays, and
    mass deployment of license plate scanners). Big Brother
    would be proud.
Erm... a little bit of revisionist history there.

You do realize that Martin Luther King Jr. was under watch by FBI Plants his entire public life, and warrantlessly spied upon under COINTELPRO?

You do realize that Fred Hampton was drugged by an FBI Plant, before 40+ Police raided his home and shot him dead with automatic weapons as he slept? (also part of COINTELPRO program)

The problems of policing are the same problems that have occurred for years. There were _always_ good cops who did their business correctly, there have _always_ been bad cops who have abused the system. As for the system... obviously it is constantly under flux, but I do think we're making improvements over the long run.

I argue that today's system is superior to the 1950s. Anyone who disagrees with me is welcome to offer the first blow in a debate here and now. But mind you, good luck beating out COINTELPRO... which was not only warrantless spying on innocent Americans... but also was involved in direct assassinations in broad daylight.

Its as if people have _completely_ forgotten about 1950s history. Red Scare? COINTELPRO? Civil Rights? Black Panthers getting assassinated by police? Lynching in the streets? McCarthyism? House Un-American Activities Committee? The Office of Censorship?

These American institutions were shut down as the civil rights movement gained steam in the 1960s.

Good gosh people. Life is better today. Not perfect... but better by all measurements. Learn some history, and stop pretending that the 1950s were a peaceful time. In the 1950s, you'd lose your job if

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#242

Post by jqgatsby »

Frondo wrote: post #216
itistoday2 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't help if all other countries both severely restrict entry and/or force a tax upon you. I'd just end up in the same exact situation. > And the "threat of prison" is some of the dumbest hyperbole... It's not hyperbole. If you willfully fail to file that's grounds for imprisonment: http://www.businessinsider.com/terrible-things-that-could-ha... You're probably thinking of cases when people "forget" or make "mi…

Fine, you're not antitax. You're just engaging in a lengthy thread debate using their common arguments. I stand by my statement w.r.t. the antitax crowd. And again, whether all other countries do not meet your preference or requirement does not free you from your obligations to this one, as long as you live here. Whether other countries don't allow you in, don't allow you to stay, don't govern the way you like, or wh…

My hat is off to Frondo and notahacker. I've occasionally (regrettably, foolishly) tried to argue it out with the "taxation is theft" folks, and this is the first time I've seen one of them actually give up from exhaustion. I'm sure he'll recharge and come back tomorrow once he looks up the next argument in his playbook, but even temporary victories must be savored.

Sorry, itistoday2, I'm sure you're a nice person in person, but the argument you're making is obnoxious. Have you noticed how people get really annoyed when you make it? It's not because it's a good argument!

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#243

Post by vijayr »

imroot wrote: post #10

While civil forfeiture is scary, my (very very brief) stint doing criminal law as a public defender showed me that there's also a bigger side of this -- seizing the assets of individuals who are charged with a crime so that they cannot attain private counsel, make bail, or receive any creature comforts while incarcerated. What will generally happen is that after sitting in jail for 120+ days, they'll jump at any oppo…

With some states banning civil forfeiture and many states legalizing marijuana etc, there still seems to be some tiny hope. On the whole though, yeah, it does seem bad.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#244

Post by jessaustin »

tsotha wrote: post #132
adventured wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scale of the civil forfeitures industry has increased drastically in the last 15 to 20 years. Most Americans are not yet aware of how large it has become, because it affects a relatively small percentage of people, and only in the last few years have the major news outlets begun to write about it (eg NY Times or Washington Post). When you have a country of 330 million people as large geographically as the US, it'…

Civil asset forfeitures are like those towns in BFE that operate on ticket revenue - the situation rarely gets dealt with because the number of people getting tickets is an insignificant proportion of the voting population.

That problem is not limited to BFE: egregious ticket and court revenue from those who can least afford it is the chronic offense of Ferguson MO and neighboring suburbs. The recent questionable police shooting was more of a trigger for the expression of preexisting dissatisfaction over the ticketing. It's not clear that the "proportion of the voting population" that faced this problem was "insignificant", but it's clear that race had something to do with it. (Aside: a close relative of mine got a traffic ticket in Ferguson once. Since he is a wealthy professional white dude, a single phone call to a secretary at the court was enough to get charges dropped.) Actually that's true of pretty much all unconscionable law enforcement practice in this country: it may not be race-based, but it is quite race-related.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#245

Post by Mtinie »

venomsnake wrote: post #230
bobbles wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder how the story would have gone differently if the man had refused to consent to the search. Probably taze the guy, then shoot him 7 times in the back as he runs off

This is so last year. Current trends in LE is to first shoot the guy than taze him

...and then ask if you consent to a search of your bag.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#246

Post by jessaustin »

m_mueller wrote: post #233
Frondo wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I hear this attitude all the time. I think it reflects lazy thinking, and the conflation of cynicism and "cool". Yes, money in politics is a corrupting influence, yes, neither major party gets it right on some big issues (like the size of our military and how ready we are to use it, how much wall street gets away with ripping us off, etc), but are they the same? No, of course not. Had McCain won in 2008, th…

Furthermore, look at Tesla. I think that's a pretty good win for the Obama administration, in that without them throwing some money in, the US right now wouldn't have a promising player in the new market of all-electric cars.

Thanks to Solyndra etc., I doubt we'll hear much from the Dems about that.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#247

Post by a3n »

gnaritas wrote: post #91
a3n wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the point. Of course whatever 3rd party you vote for won't make it. But it's a registered vote, and it takes a vote away from the two parties. How is voting for a Rep or Dem not a wasted vote, considering what they're doing to us? 3rd parties aren't fucking us (yet). Vote for whoever isn't fucking us, not because they might win (they won't), but to register the protest.

No he didn't miss the point, you did. You didn't read his link and your comment shows that.

> To a greater extent than many other electoral methods, the first-past-the-post system encourages tactical voting. Voters have an incentive to vote for one of the two candidates they predict are most likely to win, even if they would prefer another of the candidates to win, because a vote for any other candidate will likely be "wasted" and have no impact on the final result.

> The position is sometimes summed up, in an extreme form, as "All votes for anyone other than the second place are votes for the winner", because by voting for other candidates, they have denied those votes to the second place candidate who could have won had they received them.

With rare exceptions, chances are negligible that anyone but a Democrat or Republican are going to win. I know this. I'm not voting 3rd party because I think there's any chance at all that a 3rd party could win.

I vote 3rd party because I prefer to vote instead of not voting (exercising my right and civic duty), and because it's repugnant to me to give my vote to the Dem or Rep party. I really don't want to choose the lesser of two evils, I prefer to oppose them both, however feeble my voice may be.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#248

Post by JustSomeNobody »

imroot wrote: post #10

While civil forfeiture is scary, my (very very brief) stint doing criminal law as a public defender showed me that there's also a bigger side of this -- seizing the assets of individuals who are charged with a crime so that they cannot attain private counsel, make bail, or receive any creature comforts while incarcerated. What will generally happen is that after sitting in jail for 120+ days, they'll jump at any oppo…

Why is this? I mean, are the police forces so (money) broke that they've needed to make up the difference by becoming this way? Or are they truly corrupt (I find this unlikely)?

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#249

Post by a3n »

jkestner wrote: post #139
dankohn1 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3rd party voting is largely a wasted vote in First Pass the Post [0] systems like the US. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting

Perhaps. If a third party candidate gets 5% of the vote, they're eligible to draw public money from the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. That could be huge. And aside from that, numbers build legitimacy. If a third party is obviously not going to win, but gets 10% of the vote, we start taking it seriously, and it can build on that success over multiple elections, just like individual candidates do. The 'wasted vo…

Even if the number of 3rd party votes is so small that the message is inaudible, it's still an act of free speech.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#250

Post by pionar »

justthistime_ wrote: post #229
hackercurious wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The State of New Mexico has just banned asset forfeiture. HB 560, introduced by New Mexico Rep. Zachary Cook and passed unanimously in the legislature, replaces civil asset forfeiture with criminal forfeiture, which requires a conviction of a person as a prerequisite to losing property tied to a crime. The new law means that New Mexico now has the strongest protections against wrongful asset seizures in the country.…

Doesn't this just mean that the will rob you _and_ additionally charge you with some made-up crime and let you rot in jail until you sign the plea deal?

> additionally charge you with some made-up crime and let you rot in jail until you sign the plea deal

There are supposed to be other protections for this. The sixth amendment, for instance, says: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial...", which means that they can't just "let you rot in jail."

In practice, though, sometimes you do rot in jail. :/

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