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TSA’s “See cash, seize cash” policy

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Re: TSA’s “See cash, seize cash” policy

#121

Post by SkipperCat »

Why would you carry that much cash? I know he has every right to do so, but there are a lot of bad players out there (TSA included) and I would not want to risk it.

You could deposit the money in a national bank (JPM, BoA, etc), call ahead and plan the withdraw from a local branch. I'm sure there are other players in this marker who would only charge a few grand to provide you the cash on site if you had the money in a trusted escrow. To me, that is cheap insurance, but also to me it's worth the $70 bucks to have my bank wire the money instantly to any bank account in the US.

Not saying this guy did wrong, just saying you can't trust anyone to be on their best behavior when they see $115K.

Re: TSA’s “See cash, seize cash” policy

#122

Post by hapless »

q1w2 wrote: post #118
hapless wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the incident described in the local news story, an officer of the law demanded the money extra-legally, and only resorted to civil asset forfeiture after the victim refused to play along. I think it's important to note that it began with an extra-legal demand, no matter the legal substance of the procedure that followed. Civil asset forfeiture proceeds in the USA are already a larger amount than substantially all…

> it began with an extra-legal demand That's not what happened. The quote from FoxNews reporter was: "Then offers the man a way out: surrender his cash & no investigation" This does not mean the officer was planning on pocketing the money personally. This likely still would have been considered a seizure under asset forfeiture. I agree that it should be entirely legal to carry around hundreds of thousands in cash, bu…

"Surrender your cash & no investigation" is pretty plainly an extra-legal demand -- a civil asset forfeiture process was the threat in that discussion! The officer's preferred option was that the money was seized without any investigation, without any process at all, via the victim "voluntarily" surrendering it.

I don't care who was planning to pocket the money, specifically. The end beneficiary is not the primary problem in this clusterfuck. The fact that officers and departments, generally, can benefit from arbitrary harassment of citizens is the main problem. The final disposition of the stolen money is secondary.

Re: TSA’s “See cash, seize cash” policy

#123

Post by dragonwriter »

hapless wrote: post #99
gamblor956 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civil asset forfeiture is an extralegal action. This is categorically wrong . CAF is outside of the criminal legal system, but is very much part of the civil legal system, and the governments loses CAF cases more often than they win them in CAF cases preceding or not involving related criminal cases. (But conversely, the governments almost always win CAF cases that occur after succesful criminal cases involving drugs…

In the incident described in the local news story, an officer of the law demanded the money extra-legally, and only resorted to civil asset forfeiture after the victim refused to play along. I think it's important to note that it began with an extra-legal demand, no matter the legal substance of the procedure that followed. Civil asset forfeiture proceeds in the USA are already a larger amount than substantially all…

> In the incident described in the local news story, an officer of the law demanded the money extra-legally, and only resorted to civil asset forfeiture after the victim refused to play along.

No, it doesn't say that.

It says that the funds were seized with the explicitly stated intent to pursue forfeiture, and also a drug and money laundering investigation was threatened, with surrendering the funds (presumably, meaning not fighting CAF) given as an alternative to the investigation being pursued.

This isn't “CAF is an extra-legal process” this is the very-legal criminal process being used as a stick to threaten with to undermine the integrity of the equally-legal civil asset forfeiture process, because federal rules allow local law enforcement agencies to keep a share of federal-law seizures the local agency participated in (while most state forfeiture laws dedicate funds to the State general fund and not to the seizing agency), exacerbated by the use of cross-sworn local officers in airports, the chokepoint nature of airports on travel, etc.

Re: TSA’s “See cash, seize cash” policy

#125

Post by dmitrygr »

shartacct wrote: post #109
mywittyname wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until the time they go buy a $5000 used car. Also, it's not just cash they go after. There are plenty of "State v. Diamond Necklace" or "State v. Various Electronics Valued at Approx. $1000" cases out there.

> Until the time they go buy a $5000 used car. Who buys a car with cash, except for trashy/unscrupulous people? In my adult life I've never bought a used car with cash, usually it's cashiers check or wire transfer or more recently ACH after funds in my account were verified. While it's undoubtedly an overreach to just seize all large sums of money that pass through an airport, there's zero doubt in my mind that anyon…

> Who buys a car with cash?

I did once. Why? Because I damn well wanted to, that's why! I am allegedly a free man living in the "free-est country on earth" so I gave my bank the required one week notice, came in with a bag, and walked out with the amount of cash necessary to buy my shiny new corvette. I then peacefully made my way to the dealership, where I signed the papers and handed them the money. No eyelashes were batted.

> there's zero doubt in my mind that anyone doing it is doing so for good reason

> in this case is almost certainly involved in drug or human trafficking.

Plot twist: i've never been involved in any drug/human trade, and made the money legally...

I gave you my "good reason". Feel free to call the DA in my area and tell them what to charge me with...

> In my [...] life

There's your issue. Not everyone is you. People have different situations and measuring them all against yourself is ... well ... wrong?

Eg: Have you "in your life" ever lived in a country where multiple bank runs happened during "your life", the banks ran out of money, and the government did nothing to make citizens whole? No? Cause that is one reason people would avoid banks - being bankrupted by such an event leaves a mark on you. Probably enough of a mark to keep you from banks forever, even if you move to USA...

Re: TSA’s “See cash, seize cash” policy

#126

Post by op00to »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #119
Y_Y wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have a bank account and aren't in a rush to move your money you can just overpay on your taxes and make about 4% from the IRS until you claim it back at least 45 days later.

How do you make 4%?

IRS interest rate

Re: TSA’s “See cash, seize cash” policy

#127

Post by wrycoder »

cortesoft wrote: post #67
gamblor956 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civil asset forfeiture is an extralegal action. This is categorically wrong . CAF is outside of the criminal legal system, but is very much part of the civil legal system, and the governments loses CAF cases more often than they win them in CAF cases preceding or not involving related criminal cases. (But conversely, the governments almost always win CAF cases that occur after succesful criminal cases involving drugs…

I don't think the fact that the government loses most of the CAF cases means this isn't a problem. Winning the case will cost the person money and time, and they will be without their money for that time.

Many people won't contest the action if the amount is relatively small - say $5000 - because the legal fees will eat most of it and they don't want to spend the time.

Others are simply not savvy enough with the system to follow through with legal action. Or, they are too intimidated. I've heard stories of people being stopped while driving through a small town, having the car searched, and having $1000 confiscated for no good reason.

Re: TSA’s “See cash, seize cash” policy

#128

Post by godelski »

version_five wrote: post #72
godelski wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a proposal for a new fed program that will track anything over $600 in the US now[0]. It is pretty much aimed at gig workers. Previously the IRS just didn't care about anyone below the poverty line. I'm not sure I'm even fine with the spirit of what is happening here, since these people would be getting that money back in refunds anyways. Also, I think a problem is that it is placing the burden on people who…

I think there is a sort of "war on the poor" going on (or escalating really). Not specifically organized, but pushing into areas that have an outsized impact on the poor and finding no resistance because they don't push back. Think of most consumer facing environmental laws (emissions, charge for bags, bike lanes etc), car seat laws, health stuff - like basically any covid rule, it's all super regressive. I think the…

> Not specifically organized, but pushing into areas that have an outsized impact on the poor and finding no resistance because they don't push back.

I would definitely call this emergence[0]. For example the IRS has been known to push more against poor people than rich people because it is simply easier. That isn't IRS officials taking the stance "fuck poor people" but rather that it is extremely frustrating to go after rich people who have massive amounts of wealth and are using that power to make it very difficult for auditors to track everything. We see this kind of emergence happen all over, where people aren't doing things that are actually planned but patterns emerge. I think economists would mostly agree and just point to incentive structures, but I don't think this is a common way of thinking.

Anyways, I fully agree that we shouldn't be pushing regressive systems. Even if it is easier. Maybe we should start thinking about "Not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

[0] Actually I think a lot of what people believe is "deep state" and organized actors can more easily be explained by emergence.

Re: TSA’s “See cash, seize cash” policy

#129

Post by biztos »

bserge wrote: post #7

Can't get paid more than 1500 in cash in France. 2000 Pounds is "a lot of money" to exchange in the UK. The limits are suspiciously higher if you're well dressed and stepping out of an expensive car or moving millions. Tells you how pathetically poor the poor really are.

Meanwhile, in the eastern parts of the EU, it’s totally common to transact tens of thousands of Euros in cash, with lawyers preparing the contracts and observing the counting of the cash, especially for real estate.

Less common but not exactly rare in Spain, I would assume also Greece and Portugal. Can’t comment of France but in Germany it would be really weird, though probably legal.

Re: TSA’s “See cash, seize cash” policy

#130

Post by cpursley »

anyxdf wrote: post #48
standardUser wrote: post #12

It's surreal to me how little political or public support there is for ending these kinds of egregious government overreaches.

If you make it a BLM issue, there is a small chance of something happening. That is the only chance. Though the Democrats would probably come up with some sophisticated explanation why this particular case does not fall under BLM. Remember that Biden is the guy who pushed the Clipper Chip.

And the racist crack cocaine laws that destroyed tens of thousands of African American lives.
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