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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

#401

Post by pbhjpbhj »

zaroth wrote: post #389
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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)

... and attorneys that do win seem to find it hard to get their money, http://brendagrantland.com/truthjustice/tag/english-rule/.

Personally I think the American Rule is terrible in general, now I understand more why USA has [an appearance of having] so much litigation.

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

#402

Post by Frondo »

yellowapple wrote: post #392
Frondo wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do give consent by continuing to live here past the age of maturity. When you're a child, and your parents have custody of you, they make that choice for you--you're a citizen here, here's where you'll live, be politically involved, and pay taxes. When you're old enough to make that choice for yourself, that's when you can stay--with all that entails--or go.

Assuming you can afford to move, renounce citizenship, etc. Moving just within the United States can end up being an expensive endeavor as is. Moving out of it isn't any more affordable, meaning that your argument basically amounts to "tough luck, poor people". Not that I believe taxes are inherently bad, but the implication that "you can always leave if you don't like it" is misleading at best (and realistically out…

Whether you can afford to leave--and free yourself from the obligation of paying taxes here--does not change your basic obligation to paying a share of the government of the land you inhabit.

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

#404

Post by jrs235 »

imroot wrote: post #10

While civil forfeiture is scary, my (very very brief) stint doing criminal law as a public defender showed me that there's also a bigger side of this -- seizing the assets of individuals who are charged with a crime so that they cannot attain private counsel, make bail, or receive any creature comforts while incarcerated. What will generally happen is that after sitting in jail for 120+ days, they'll jump at any oppo…

Here's another example of how dreadful civil forfeiture is:

https://mises.org/blog/war-cash-destroys-small-entrepreneur

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

#405

Post by strictnein »

Zigurd wrote: post #398
strictnein wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I'm overseas I try to watch whatever local news is available, plus channels like BBC and Russia Today (yes, I know, not great, but RT is entertaining). The portrayal of the US on the news is so out of whack with reality that it's really kind of depressing. Reporting bad news out of the US seems to be a hobby of the world's media, as does misreporting our politics and social issues. I've worked for foreign co…

Your viewpoint is just very difficult to understand. You can't build a great nation on parks. The US has slid to mediocre rankings by many measures. We're #1 at hardly anything anymore. Except maybe the use of big foam fingers that claim we are. That degreades the quality of life here. If we don't fix that stuff, it will be China's world sooner, while they are still a one-party authoritarian state, rather than later,…

There weren't three copies of my post. Maybe your browser puked on itself?

I wasn't talking about how great the nation is. I was discussing how it's a nice place to visit. It's like you read some other post, because I was simply saying the most interesting places to visit in the US may be the least populated.

Not in the mood to discuss various rankings and their issues. Completely unrelated to anything I wrote.

Have a good one.

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

#406

Post by Zigurd »

strictnein wrote: post #405
Zigurd wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your viewpoint is just very difficult to understand. You can't build a great nation on parks. The US has slid to mediocre rankings by many measures. We're #1 at hardly anything anymore. Except maybe the use of big foam fingers that claim we are. That degreades the quality of life here. If we don't fix that stuff, it will be China's world sooner, while they are still a one-party authoritarian state, rather than later,…

There weren't three copies of my post. Maybe your browser puked on itself? I wasn't talking about how great the nation is. I was discussing how it's a nice place to visit. It's like you read some other post, because I was simply saying the most interesting places to visit in the US may be the least populated. Not in the mood to discuss various rankings and their issues. Completely unrelated to anything I wrote. Have…

No, that was me before I deleted them.

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

#407

Post by hippich »

ndespres wrote: post #16
hippich wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

race-card popular lately, but civil forfeiture is a problem here. More race you bring - less efficient you get with fighting real issue at hands. If you do little research - people of all races and sexes were hurt by that, and local/federal police benefitted from it.

Please don't do a dismissive handwave over what's really an important element to this story. That the victim is a person of color is absolutely relevant to this story; it demonstrates a bias on behalf of the DEA agent, or perhaps simply a cynicism: they know what they can get away with in the eyes of the public. Of COURSE race is an important element of how law enforcement interacts with citizens. Race is part of the…

i don't think i was marginalizing it. if anyone, it was parent and article writer tried to make it look like assets forfeiture affects only some groups of people. It does not. And making it look like it is makes it only harder to fight against. As soon as you try to divide public into groups - you get less power to fight.

I am foreigner, so I can see it from different perspective than regular american person, who grew up with the notion "we, whites, are oppressing black men, and we should feel guilty". As soon as you guys realize that whites/blacks/asians/whatever word you come up with for arbitrary characteristic of a group of people, who live same life, live in the same country, has on a daily basis more or less similar issues, and, in case of assets forfeiture, all likely to get abused with it, may be then you understand that you need fight back, and not try to differentiate yourself from your neighbor.

Just a random overview from a guy without blurred picture of what is going on in your country.

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

#408

Post by nymphatacita »

Frondo wrote: post #203
itistoday2 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stereotypes and ad hominem don't help the conversation. I am not "anti-tax". I think taxation is a good idea as it helps a community re-invest in itself. I am anti-theft. Saying today's taxation is not theft won't change the reality that it is. Nor will downvoting this post change that reality. In fact, barring a change in the definition of the word, there is not a single action in this universe that can change the r…

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).

I'd happily pay taxes for a functioning government. That's what I ordered when I sat down. But I daresay that's not what I was served.

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

#409

Post by hippich »

spacemanmatt wrote: post #265
hippich wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

race-card popular lately, but civil forfeiture is a problem here. More race you bring - less efficient you get with fighting real issue at hands. If you do little research - people of all races and sexes were hurt by that, and local/federal police benefitted from it.

You say it's not about race, but let me point you to the story of a Texas freelance racist who was supported by many racist cops and citizens for a long time. I have lived in Texas all my life, and he is a household name among people who care about civil rights. I don't mention this to say civil forfeiture is necessarily racist, as much as to point out that it is a tool entirely too attractive to them. And they are u…

i bet america has racism issues, but civil forfeiture is completely different issue. and trying to bring up racism problem into it makes it only more complicated - suddenly you get "racist cops" who probably, after reading this article will not think about "wow, forfeiture rules are stupid", but rather "huh, so they caught black guy, he probably was doing narcotics" or similar bs.

Fight one problem at a time.

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

#410

Post by itistoday2 »

digler990 wrote: post #385
itistoday2 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

http://nomadcapitalist.com/2013/11/24/top-5-livable-countrie...

Of the most "livable" countries:

- United Arab Emirates: don't want to live in the middle east, no thanks. I disagree with many of the laws there and have no close family or friends anywhere nearby.

- Bahamas: gotta buy land there or pay an annual fee. This is probably the most reasonable of all options, but my work precludes me from living there.

- Bermuda: One of the world's most expensive places to live. Possible if I could afford it (can't at the moment).

- Andorra: would be awesome. Not sure what the situation is with living there as a non-citizen (it takes 20 years to become one). Since one has to be a citizen of some country one wouldn't be able to renounce their US citizenship for 20 years (at least) and therefore would still have to pay income taxes to the United States.

- Monaco: "Getting a residence permit practically requires millionaire status."

I think ebrenes framed the situation well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9540888

Copied here:

~~~~

While you can theoretically leave the U.S. whenever you want, you cannot stop paying taxes whenever you want.

You have to renounce citizenship, pay a fine for renouncing said citizenship to avoid paying taxes and possibly be audited. And you might argue that's fine, because they should be able to collect back taxes but you'll generally have to pay taxes for the next 10 years.

~~~~

10 years, 20 years, whatever.

None of this changes the fact that what is being done in the United States is theft, plain and simple. The government never came to me and asked if I agreed to any of these income taxes, they just say pay up or we'll ruin your life. No negotiation, no agreed upon exchange for goods or services, just extortion.

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