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The FBI Seized This Woman's Life Savings–Without Telling Her Why

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Re: The FBI Seized This Woman's Life Savings–Without Telling Her Why

#111

Post by h2zizzle »

potato3732842 wrote: post #100
Izkata wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That narrative was created by the journalists Gamergate was against, to deflect against their criticisms. It was never actually true.

And the real Grade A irony is that the same is true for the tea party and he took the post-hoc media spin hook line and sinker. If you take a step back you'll see that while tea-party, occupy wall street, Maga 1, mostly peaceful 2020/BLM and Maga 2 all take aim at different points in the establishment they're all firmly rooted in the discontent that every day people have with the amount the powers that be are lighten…

My initial description was correct. Unfortunately, people like yourself subscribe to the outcome of years of commiseration that commenced with the aim of rationalizing what was clearly bigotry to even contemporary observers (I was one of those).

It is correct that the grassroots movement that you mentioned had a core of righteous discontent. As mentioned, the right portions were co-opted quickly and refashioned into an arm of neoconservatism. The left was popularly (though not ideologically) discredited or otherwise neutered by reliance on reluctant liberal "allies". The proof is in the rightward march of American policy in the interim.

Re: The FBI Seized This Woman's Life Savings–Without Telling Her Why

#112

Post by hw-guy »

potato3732842 wrote: post #8
ajb wrote: post #6

Seizures allowed to be kept by the organisation doing the seizing is a terrible incentive. In other countries, seizures go to general revenue, which means that the incentive to do it is diluted enormously. This is especially a problem with small police forces, or small polities where fines become a large proportion of revenue. You'd think that for the FBI the incentive would be diluted, given how huge they are, but m…

General revenue is barely better. It's probably worse in many cases becase the elected part of the government can ask the thugs to seize harder to keep money coming in and then kick it back to them in the form of resource allocation or preferential treatment. That's how every speed trap town operates The only solution is to let the petty drug dealers get away with their cars and let the mob bosses get away with their…

Seized property should be held in a neutral escrow account until the case is adjudicated, and then automatically returned to the victim if they are not convicted of a crime within a reasonable time.

Re: The FBI Seized This Woman's Life Savings–Without Telling Her Why

#113

Post by _DeadFred_ »

hiatus wrote: post #13

The warrant explicitly limited the search and forbade a search of the deposit boxes. They not only ignored that but seized items in boxes they were specifically told not to search. How are these agents free from criminal charges?

Because the rules aren't really the rules, they are window dressing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good-faith_exception

Search Lexus/Nexus for 'Good faith'. A lot of searches, failure to protect chain of custody, etc just get allowed because 'good faith'.

Re: The FBI Seized This Woman's Life Savings–Without Telling Her Why

#114

Post by ck2 »

Could be worse.

You could be kidnapped to a foreign torture prison and your head shaved by the federal government.

Just because you have a tattoo they insist is gang related but is actually just a disability symbol.

No hearing, no representation, just disappeared into another country you have no association with.

Those 250 people they sold to that infamous El Salvador prison? Yeah they've been going through them and they keep finding people that had no gang association.

Re: The FBI Seized This Woman's Life Savings–Without Telling Her Why

#115

Post by exe34 »

potato3732842 wrote: post #26
exe34 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when you assert that something exists, it is generally expected that you would point at documented examples. for example, consumer protection organisations, or petrol lobbies, etc might have an interest in documenting those things. do those documents exist?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Rome,_Ohio# The south catches a bad rap for speed trap towns but seems like every 10yr or so some town in the midwest abolishes its police department or something because of that sort of behavior.

once every ten years doesn't sound as bad as the others have been making it out to be.

Re: The FBI Seized This Woman's Life Savings–Without Telling Her Why

#116

Post by thunderfork »

Izkata wrote: post #95
h2zizzle wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Tea Party was like Gamergate in that it was ostensibly about [overtaxation|ethics in gaming journalism], but was actually driven by [sexism against female games journalists|racism against President Obama], and swiftly co-opted by [the conservative establishment|the conservative establishment] as the right face of the post-OWS idpol wedge. (It would be foolish to think that the divided state of this country was a…

That narrative was created by the journalists Gamergate was against, to deflect against their criticisms. It was never actually true.

[dead]

Re: The FBI Seized This Woman's Life Savings–Without Telling Her Why

#117

Post by kdmtctl »

usefulcat wrote: post #96
_heimdall wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that's why, though the government would then have an incentive to seize as much as it can legally seize. It'd be one thing if the bitcoin was just thrown in a hole or destroyed. A strategic reserve is a financial asset though, the government will want to grow that fund to help fund pet projects while running a ridiculous deficit.

The government effectively prints money at will; it doesn't need bitcoin. This is an attempt by the current administration to curry favor with people who like bitcoin.

Actually, this fund is THE money printer. Ever increasing in value, not directly usable but great for accounting. It can be used to balance real spending.

Re: The FBI Seized This Woman's Life Savings–Without Telling Her Why

#118

Post by andirk »

_heimdall wrote: post #93
hustlejuice wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imo people who understand bitcoin and its purpose don’t want government to buy it for strategic reserve. That said if you hold your own keys then bitcoin protects you from this type of abuse of power

Holding your own keys would help avoid seizure, but assuming the state already has enough access to reliably track the current owner of any btc they could still come after you regardless of where the keys are. They also could prevent you from using the btc in any non-private transaction. Companies are required to know their customers, it wouldn't be hard for them to be forced to block specific bitcoin hashes. You cou…

Interesting scenario. If a government can tie a specific person to a specific wallet, they don't need the keys to go forward with whatever they want to do with that info.

I wonder if the FBI can proclaim a certain wallet is yours and you did some bad thing so you have to surrender those coins. Without the private key, they can't forcefully confiscate your coins. But I wonder if they can say "If any coins leave that wallet, we'll take retaliatory action!".

Re: The FBI Seized This Woman's Life Savings–Without Telling Her Why

#119

Post by _heimdall »

andirk wrote: post #118
_heimdall wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holding your own keys would help avoid seizure, but assuming the state already has enough access to reliably track the current owner of any btc they could still come after you regardless of where the keys are. They also could prevent you from using the btc in any non-private transaction. Companies are required to know their customers, it wouldn't be hard for them to be forced to block specific bitcoin hashes. You cou…

Interesting scenario. If a government can tie a specific person to a specific wallet, they don't need the keys to go forward with whatever they want to do with that info. I wonder if the FBI can proclaim a certain wallet is yours and you did some bad thing so you have to surrender those coins. Without the private key, they can't forcefully confiscate your coins. But I wonder if they can say "If any coins leave that w…

I would expect that a scenario where they could legally confiscate your coins is also a scenario where they could legally arrest and charge you with a crime. Confiscation of money is likely the least of your concerns there.

The government could gain valuable intel from bitcoin addresses all the way back to the Mt Gox scandal. They would have only gotten more access since then, especially with legitimate businesses operating as exchanges that follow KYC regulations.

Re: The FBI Seized This Woman's Life Savings–Without Telling Her Why

#120

Post by BirAdam »

hiatus wrote: post #103
UncleEntity wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The states? In the early days of the U.S., the first federal criminal code, the Crimes Act of 1790, enumerated 23 federal offenses and established punishments for each.

The states can't be compelled to enforce federal laws though can they? Isn't that how like sanctuary cities work? Or how weed is legal in some states but illegal federally? States can decline to assist federal law enforcement.

Well, today, they can refuse.

Historically, they couldn’t. George Washington was willing to use military force to enforce law.

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