Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

TSA’s “See cash, seize cash” policy

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 200 posts

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

#171

Post by MichaelZuo »

fy20 wrote: post #154
biztos wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm building a house, and throughout the process have kept petty cash of €10k for when we receive a bill. Most people will accept a bank transfer, but you need to pay extra - suspiciously the extra amount is always equal to the amount of income tax they'd need to pay ;-) The government have tried to crack down on this by increasing ATM fees and imposing daily limits, but I don't think it will really change anything.

Do the tax authorities just accept that home building contractors pay close to zero net taxes year after year?

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

#172

Post by voldacar »

Maursault wrote: post #151
kelnos wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's... still pretty terrible. Let me see if I have this right. A man and woman marry. The woman cheats on the man and gets pregnant, but lies about it and passes the kid off as the husband's child. After the birth, husband is suspicious, gets a paternity test, finds out he's not the father, and divorces the mother. And yet the now-ex-husband is still required to pay for child support? If that's a thing that happen…

Yes, divorce based on infidelity of the female due to non-paternity is terrible. If she was just sleeping around, maybe he'd have a point, but if procreation is her goal, then she is merely exercising her evolutionary imperative to ensure genetic diversity and quality of her offspring; having higher-quality offspring could theoretically give her more and healthier grandchildren later. I don't see how non-paternity is…

a lot to unpack here

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

#173

Post by filoeleven »

standardUser wrote: post #59
snicker7 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There's a bill "in committee" for everything under the sun. It's meaningless.

And just look at the rogues gallery that makes up this committee. Very few of them would be willing to stand up for this.

https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/about/members

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

#174

Post by CogitoCogito »

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…

> The fact that most asset forfeitures go uncontested is telling that a lot of them, IMO, are probably indeed drug money (this is obviously controversial).

Is this just pure speculation? You seem to be making this claim with no evidence whatsoever. There are many reasons cases might go uncontested. For example, the individual might not have the means to pursue the case. There are innumerable other possibilities as well.

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

#176

Post by Ekaros »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #71

This isn't gonna stop until the people who get screwed start buying bulldozers and getting their own justice. It's just too lucrative for the courts to strike it down until striking it down causes less problems for them than not. Follow the incentives.

Just need to use those well-regulated militias to finally do some good in the world.

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

#177

Post by hapless »

q1w2 wrote: post #135
hapless wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

You are seriously misreading the story at hand.

https://www.fox46.com/news/investigations/government-seizes-...

The threatened "investigation" in was the civil asset forfeiture procedure. They were asking him to voluntarily surrender the money, or else they would initiate civil asset forfeiture. In other words, law enforcement officers offered the victim a choice between plans A and B.

Plan A was the extra-legal course: give us your money, and we'll forget we ever had this discussion. This was the officer's preferred outcome. Free money, minimum paperwork.

Plan B was what actually happened: the civil asset forfeiture process. The victim refused to sign the papers, so everything goes to court, and then the government has to come up with something, at least a notional reason, to take the money.

However you read the laws around civil asset forfeiture, I am pretty sure that "plan A" was not an intended part of the picture.

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

#178

Post by nate_meurer »

kragen wrote: post #157
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gee man, it sounds like you live in quite the hell hole. Move to a decent country, you’ll be happier.

Argentina definitely has its disadvantages, but there are advantages too. Healthcare access is universal. University education is free and open to everyone, and although most of the universities are not that great (and none are R1), there are two world-class universities. It's illegal to arrest people for using or having recreational drugs—not generally my thing, but it wasn't Breonna Taylor's thing either, and in th…

This is the best reply you could have given. Makes me want to visit.

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

#179

Post by lambertsimnel »

willcipriano wrote: post #43
darthvoldemort wrote: post #28

No one has explained to me how this is still legal. This "law" has persisted until Bush, Obama, Trump and now Biden. Why does no one on both sides of the aisle have the courage to stop this? Can no one mount a legal challenge against this?

The elderly men and women who run the country want it that way. After a few decades of the same people in office year after year, what other explanation holds water?

There is another plausible explanation: the policy exists because of incentives arising from the government's structures, rather than the wishes of policymakers.

Conceivably, other people in the same system might also leave the policy in place, while the same people in a different system might change the policy.

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

#180

Post by ClumsyPilot »

kragen wrote: post #18
lotsofpulp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People, generally, want to be able to pay electronically too. It is very convenient.

My experience is the opposite. I can open up my wallet and take out a $1000 bill* in about three seconds; if change is due, that typically takes about another ten seconds. Paying with a credit card takes about a minute, four to ten times less convenient, except a significant percentage of the time the time " no hay sistema " and it just doesn't work, and sooner or later your credit card number gets sold to the Russia…

Threy only know mervhant and amount, not the exact item you are buying
Post reply on HN