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How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

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Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#381

Post by PaulAJ »

dba7dba wrote: post #347
Houshalter wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George Orwell wrote a fantastic essay on this that is worth reading: >In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the profes…

dropping of the atom bombs on Japan I respectfully disagree that it's indefensible. It was either 100,000 Japanese civilians in those 2 cities OR million or more American casualties. AND if the invasion had taken place, millions and millions of Japanese civilians would've died also. I agree, with proper PR language, anything can be made look half decent and therefore tolerable.

No, he said that these things "can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties."

That is not the same thing as saying that they are indefensible.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#382

Post by greendata »

task_queue wrote: post #130
greendata wrote: post #35

If the police continue to allow asset seizure eventually an enterprising politician and banker will find a way to seize police pensions. There will be no public outcry. Once you institutionalize theft at this level it doesn't stay put--it grows.

The banker or politician will never be affected by this, why would they try to upset the police unions?

Many US cities are near bankrupt and probably a lot more will be in the next ten years. There will be enormous political pressure to cut costs. One way to cut costs is to reduce pensions or fail to fulfill pension promises. I don't advocate this and in fact I think the police are being setup in some ways. By allowing some police to engage in what looks like theft the general public will be amenable to pension cuts in the future.

Just see Detroit as an example of our possible future.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#383

Post by washadjeffmad »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #337
patcon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxation today is theft. You say "theft" like it's the typical "take" act that the word normally implies. It's more like someone stealing $200 and giving you a bicycle you didn't ask for, but you're likely still going to use it anyhow. ie. it's complicated, so it gets a new word :)

The problem is when you agree to give them $10,000 for a new car but get a bicycle instead.

Don't forget they'll need a new tax for driving a vehicle with fewer than four wheels to subsidize the car industry, emissions testing for the bicycles, new vehicle registration fees still based on the value of the car you were supposed to receive, mandatory cycle insurance, tax to create a Department of Cyclist Services, tax for re-equipping the police to handle the change in criminal defenses (purchase of helmet-piercing rounds), tax for the creation of the position City Bicycle Inspector, tax to create the new lanes and parking areas for the bicycles, and the creation of bicycle dealerships that prevent you from buying bicycles and their parts directly from manufacturers.

Several million dollars later, the initiative is scrapped and all bicycles are replaced at taxpayer expense with Enduros, in a move completely unrelated to the opening of the new Enduro factory and recent election of extremely popular Mayor Nathan Enduro, who ran on a platform of smaller government and the freedom to spend your money on as much gasoline and Enduro parts as you want.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#384

Post by mikeash »

bcook wrote: post #219
sumedh wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or why withdraw it in cash at all? Its my money, I can do whatever I want.

When I bought my first vehicle, friends and family told me to get a cashier's check and not carry a large sum of cash across state lines, for a few reasons. Yes, I had the right to do otherwise, but without a logical reason to do so, why? I am honestly wondering if there are any good reasons to carry cash like that. Ignorance, perhaps.

There are a lot of people who distrust banks. Maybe they've never interacted with banks at all. Maybe their only experience with banks is having their meager earnings and savings whittled away by fees.

I'd never carry around such a wad of cash. But if I ever chose to, I should only have to fear losing it to criminals or absentmindedness, not the government.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#385

Post by digler990 »

itistoday2 wrote: post #204
Frondo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You agree to pay taxes by continuing to live here. Taxes aren't theft any more than the check at the end of a restaurant meal is theft. In both cases, you agree to pay something in exchange for something (a meal, a functioning government, etc).

> You agree to pay taxes by continuing to live here. If we were free to move to a country where we agreed with the laws you might be right. That's not reality though. We are not (currently) free to choose how we pay taxes in any country and our freedom to move from one country to another is restricted. So, sorry, I never agreed to pay these taxes, I have little say in how they're used, and I have no alternatives exce…

a quick google search shows you several countries that have no income tax. So sorry, you never researched your own argument.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#386

Post by dba7dba »

PaulAJ wrote: post #381
dba7dba wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dropping of the atom bombs on Japan I respectfully disagree that it's indefensible. It was either 100,000 Japanese civilians in those 2 cities OR million or more American casualties. AND if the invasion had taken place, millions and millions of Japanese civilians would've died also. I agree, with proper PR language, anything can be made look half decent and therefore tolerable.

No, he said that these things "can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties." That is not the same thing as saying that they are indefensible.

Without nukes, it was gong to be more brutal than death of 100,000 civilian lives.

As in death of millions of Japanese civilians. A million or so US casualty was projected.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#387

Post by dba7dba »

maze-le wrote: post #212
iribe wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is no different than paying bribes to third world police.

In fact it is... I've been to Geogia, in the Caucasus-Mountains, not the southern US-State. There for example, it is common for Highway-Police to set up checkpoints, and if you are a foreigner, you can be sure to pay them some bucks, 25$, 50$, 100$ somewhere in that dimension. To be sure, this is 'illegal'... No one cares to stop the police from doing that though, but it is still illegal. It is something entireley di…

I'd say the seizure by US police is worse. In 3rd countries, you usually decide how much to give to the corrupt police.

In these seizures in US, EVERY single dollar is taken away.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#388

Post by leap_ahead »

j42 wrote: post #137
DigitalSea wrote: post #6

Civil forfeiture rules are disgusting. Sadly there are plenty of stories out there like this, people have lost their homes, cars and livelihoods because of these draconian laws around asset forfeiture. The circumstances under which your property can be taken are incredibly overreaching and unfair. There have been situations where people have had their homes taken away for ridiculous situations like this one: http://w…

Honestly we're really lucky to have these asset forfeiture programs in place; money has been given a free reign for far too long. The DEA is looking out for our safety by implementing this well-intentioned protocol... If the government didn't, who would hold our money accountable for the criminal behavior it's been involved in? Just look at the facts... almost 80% of bills have touched drugs! Appalling! And they're t…

>> The DEA is looking out for our safety by implementing this well-intentioned protocol

Criminals have a large body of very smart people working for them to develop new creative ways or hiding money flows across different legal entities and different jurisdictions. These people don't travel with cash. You won't even find out their names.

These laws don't help with serious offenders just catch some small fish on occasion and also terrorize ordinary innocent people.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#389

Post by zaroth »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #269
tsotha wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not reading about the massive backlog of forfeiture cases, mostly it seems like people don't even try. For two reasons. One, you can't afford a lawyer because the government took your money. And two, there's not a lot of point in spending $300k to get $12.5k back from the government. The DEA is using tax dollars - they can stretch out the proceedings until you run out of money.

>And two, there's not a lot of point in spending $300k to get $12.5k back from the government. // Don't injured parties receive costs from the perpetrators in USA courts? The risk may not be worth it but provided you have reasonable legal costs they get paid, surely? Also if the action is without due process or is malicious then you'd get punitive damages as well wouldn't you [which would have to be high to discourag…

The Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act (CAFRA) ammended the law specifically in civil forfeiture cases so that you should be awarded attorney fees if you "substantially prevail". Unfortunately, the courts have decided to interpret this as meaning something mystical other than simply winning the case on the merits.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/2465 -- See (b)(1)

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#390

Post by yellowapple »

DaFranker wrote: post #276
spiritplumber wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I wrap my (virtual) money in a simple script that allows it to defend itself by hiring a lawyer or, at least, contacting me?

Even if the money were sentient and capable of arguing for itself and defending its own case better than a good lawyer, here's what would happen: You can only authorize a legal person to use computer equipment. It is impossible to authorize a pile of money to use computer equipment. Therefore any computer equipment that is used by the pile of money (including that of the owner of the money) is used without consent, a…

> Since the money is not a legal person, legal responsibility would probably fall to the owner at the time of the crime (just like it falls to the "owner" of a child, their parents) and you would get punished along with your money.

Right, but at least now you've managed to get yourself involved in the case, meaning that you can now invoke things like "right to counsel", no?

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