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

31–40 of 200 posts

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

#31

Post by jjoonathan »

snicker7 wrote: post #23
lotsofpulp wrote: post #16

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.

> @RepWalberg filed legislation in Congress (FAIR Act) that could end these seizures. The bill’s stuck in committee since April.

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

#33

Post by xboxnolifes »

andrewmg wrote: post #25

Here's more information on the Institute for Justice class action (mentioned in the Twitter thread) that's challenging TSA airport forfeitures: https://ij.org/case/dea-tsa-forfeitures/ IJ is the leader on this issue, and if you oppose civil-forfeiture abuse, you might consider supporting IJ's work. (Disclosure: the IJ attorney pictured in the thread is a friend whom I admire greatly.)

I've only somewhat recently heard of IJ, but it's one of the first orgs that I've ever actually felt compelled to support. Their marketing is really good at both being informative and persuasive. I really hope that their goals are as good as I read them to be.

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

#34

Post by dogleash »

lisper wrote: post #17
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.

That's because there is a widespread perception that if someone is engaging in a large scale cash transaction then there must be something shady going on even if there is no direct evidence of it (because legitimate business is transacted using checks or wire transfers). This is especially true if the person carrying the cash has dark skin. (Having a criminal record didn't help either in this case.)

>a widespread perception that if someone is engaging in a large scale cash transaction then there must be something shady going on

People who've never carried a sum of cash on their person are often terrified of the prospect and assume everyone is as frighted of as they are.

I used to walk cash from a retail store safe to the bank as part of the morning routine. I've had so many lectures about why I should have never done it. I should have forgone my paid leisurely stroll and "just" arranged an armored truck. Or I should have quit over principal, like it was some sort of uniquely risky job compared to all the risky jobs out there and no owner should ever put on an employee. It wasn't even that much money. One day's worth of cash transactions from a small store in the age of credit cards.

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

#35

Post by vkou »

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?

> Why does no one on both sides of the aisle have the courage to stop this?

Because the other side of the aisle will crap on you for doing it, and why burn political capital on a minor problem, when you have more pressing issues, like waging a war, digging through fallout of the largest economic disaster since the Great Depression, getting a crappy single-payer healthcare system through, filling three supreme court seats, dealing with a global pandemic, or keeping the wealthy and powerful happy.

The only people who actually ground their elections on this kind of platform are anti-authoritarian contrarians, which have a rolling average of two seats in Congress and one in the Senate. Constituents, frankly, don't care about this.

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

#37

Post by ivanmontillam »

cvak wrote: post #26
kragen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why would paying with a credit card take a minute? It's 3s with contactless, and since covid it doesn't require a pin code.

Because mainframes in South America aren't that fast. Specially in Venezuela and Argentina.

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

#38

Post by rablackburn »

clipradiowallet wrote: post #32

I'd bet this type of behavior from the government is what causes "domestic terrorism"...not just the "radicals" mentioned in headlines.

I’m not aware of any domestic terror attacks (shootings?) where asset forfeiture has even been raised as a contributing factor.

The Las Vegas shooter is kinda-money related in that he was a problem gambler. That’s the closest I can think of.

Do you have any citation where this has happened? Because if not, that’s probably a pretty poor “bet” you’re making…

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

#39

Post by whywhywhywhy »

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?

Because once these things are in place they’re there forever. The government and its institutions will never hand back power they have been granted.

Remember the patriot act when the next round of powers come in because of covid.

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

#40

Post by gamblor956 »

aazaa wrote: 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, racketeering, fraud, or financial crimes.)

CAF cases make the news when the victim doesn't get their money back in a timely fashion, for the same reason that fires and earthquakes do: because that's not the normal state of things.

CAF is problematic, especially the way it is run in the South and Midwest, but don't make it out to be something that it isn't.

EDIT: The OP asserted that CAF was extralegal, and it absolutely is not. CAF is specifically authorized by the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, a federal law.

The OP asserted that the "terrorists won" even though CAF predates 9/11 and was created to combat organize crime. (CAF laws in the U.S. date back to the 1700s, but were infrequently used until roughly 1920 when they were used to target organized crime during Prohibition. The modern federal CAF law was passed in the 1984, to fight the "war on drugs", specifically referring to the drug cartels, and were modeled on the Prohibition Era CAF laws.)

Post reply on HN