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TSA’s “See cash, seize cash” policy

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

#131
post #27

> Lyon arrived @RDUAirport & gave his bag to @TSA to be scanned. He says he absolutely knew TSA would see the cash, but said he also knew there is no law limiting the amount of cash one can fly with in the U.S. Here's the real problem. Civil asset forfeiture is an extralegal action. It's outside the legal system, which is why it's nearly impossible to get your money back. It's why the legality of what Lyon was doing…

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…

The civil system does not assume innocence, so as a defendant you have a to prove a negative.

CAF cases make the news because the defendant actually gets their money back, and it didn't already get spent building a new hot tub for the police station lounge

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

#132
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%?

Under law you currently get the "federal short-term rate" + 3%

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

#133
post #118
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…

Uncontested can mean two different things, either the action was right, or even if it's wrong, you won't get your stuff back.

Also, you can't skip work to go contest it because you won't be able to pay your bills.

I'd guess that one covers most cases and that police target people who can't afford to take time off to go to court

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

#134

I particularly hate it when the airport officials seize all of my cryptocurrency. :-)

It's not like they seize money out of my bank account..

Nothing is stopping them. Travelling with access to money isn't particularly different from travelling with money

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

#135
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 pr…

> "Surrender your cash & no investigation" is pretty plainly an extra-legal demand

No. Your big assumption here is that that seize wouldn't have also been done under Asset Forfeiture rules. It was used as a threat to try to get a suspect to confess to a crime.

Remember that officers can lie during interrogations.

> I don't care who was planning to pocket the money, specifically.

Well that's what makes it legal or not. If the officer pocketed it, then it's illegal. If the gov't did it using the law of asset forfeiture, then it's literally LEGAL.

You are conflating "illegal" with "immoral".

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

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially when one party seemingly champions “civil rights” or “the little guy”, and the other party champions “small government”. And yet a government employee stealing someone’s cash with no justification does not fall under any of those categories.

As mentioned in the tweets, the bipartisan FAIR act is supposed to reform civil asset forfeiture.

Reform isn't ban

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

#137
post #133
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Uncontested can mean two different things, either the action was right, or even if it's wrong, you won't get your stuff back. Also, you can't skip work to go contest it because you won't be able to pay your bills. I'd guess that one covers most cases and that police target people who can't afford to take time off to go to court

You have to show up to court to defend yourself. This is an unfortunate reality of the world. ...but poor folks working hourly jobs that cannot schedule a day off - are not usually the people having tens of thousands of dollars in cash seized.

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

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 we…

> 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.

Doubt it, considering dealers hate handling cash and filing the anti-structuring paperwork. It certainly wouldn't be a situation where 'no eyelashes were batted', at the least they would have been upset that you were wasting their time.

> 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...

So your reasoning for advocating to use cash is because some countries are unstable (even though as a result you are even more likely to robbed of your cash in them)?

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

#139
post #42

Let's step back and pretend like the TSA/police never engage in civil asset forfeiture in the first place. That issue aside, this is still a colossally stupid way to make a transaction. A thousand bad outcomes that are possibly more likely than this scenario could have happened. The bag could have been lost in the taxi, lost by the airline, stolen by a passerby, left at home, and the list goes on. Has this guy ever h…

Every normal person knows about and would use those alternatives. Even if they were ignorant they would have been coached as soon as they tried to withdraw a huge amount from the bank.

The 'victim' likely had his money seized because there is an investigation linked to him but not enough evidence to convict in court (or he was associated in an investigation with someone who was already convicted). The reason for travelling is to buy 'game machines', which just seems absurd since such business deals can be conducted entirely from email or phone anyway.

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

#140

Use Bitcoin

The guy was a class A moron.

Bitcoin would have solved his problem, sure, but so would a simple bank account.

Literally all he had to do was put the money in a bank account and then pull it out once he landed.

Traveling with that amount of cash is insanely stupid. So many things can go wrong... Someone steals the bag or it gets lost, etc.

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