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

washingtonpost.com

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

#441

Post by spacemanmatt »

hippich wrote: post #409
spacemanmatt wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Fight one problem at a time.

Strongly disagreed. And for the reason that they don't occur in a vacuum. Racism and police abuse have a very long history.

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

#442

Post by spacemanmatt »

harryh wrote: post #419
dpark wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they are, quite frequently. That's the entire point of the article. It's also quite pretty much the definition of civil asset forfeiture. Assets are taken on simple suspicion of criminal activity, and the assets' retention by the state is not predicated on criminal guilt of the owner. In fact it is the assets themselves which are sued by the state (which makes no sense, but is nonetheless true). > Once property…

Yes, the DEA has to show evidence that the money is the result of a drug sale or some other illegal activity. They don't have to show that any given person was involved in that sale. I don't really have a problem with that.

Their assertions are taken for evidence. It's a system built for abuse.

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

#443

Post by bcook »

mikeash wrote: post #438
mikeash wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just following up on this, I heard a report on the radio about "banking deserts" where there are no local bank branches for sometimes miles around in poor parts of cities. For people without a car, that's going to make banking pretty tough. If you're effectively criminalizing large amounts of cash, and poor people are likely not to have a local bank branch, then you're almost criminalizing savings by people in poor c…

It would have been great if the man did actually have an understandable excuse like you have shared, but he did not.

Well, if he was simply igornant that his actions were uselessly risky, I might understand that, but... I am still suspicious of the man's true intent. We will never know whether he was really planning to setup a music vid company or buy a kilo of cocaine.

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

#444

Post by spacemanmatt »

meric wrote: post #82

A DEA agent boarded the train at the Albuquerque Amtrak station and began asking various passengers, including Rivers, where they were going and why. I wonder if the DEA agent followed him on the train after having found out the bank had reported a bunch of "suspicious" cash withdrawals and given up the victim's identity.

That's how parallel construction works.

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

#445

Post by spacemanmatt »

bcook wrote: post #208
yarou wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are completely missing the point of this article. This isn't about whether or not one should carry large amounts of cash with them. Rather, this is about an abuse of power by a large government entity that doesn't seem to be held accountable for its actions.

Being suspicious of someone carrying 16k in cash across the country to start a music video business seems logical to me... There need to be better examples (of which there are) of governmental abuse before people will care. I suppose we have the right to be suspicious if we want, but do not be surprised when someone mistakes you for a criminal.

So when I mistake you for a criminal, I can take your stuff? Must be a cold world.

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

#447

Post by mikeash »

bcook wrote: post #443
mikeash wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just following up on this, I heard a report on the radio about "banking deserts" where there are no local bank branches for sometimes miles around in poor parts of cities. For people without a car, that's going to make banking pretty tough. If you're effectively criminalizing large amounts of cash, and poor people are likely not to have a local bank branch, then you're almost criminalizing savings by people in poor c…

It would have been great if the man did actually have an understandable excuse like you have shared, but he did not. Well, if he was simply igornant that his actions were uselessly risky, I might understand that, but... I am still suspicious of the man's true intent. We will never know whether he was really planning to setup a music vid company or buy a kilo of cocaine.

Why do you say he did not?

"...he'd had trouble in the past withdrawing large sums of money from out-of-state banks."

Sounds like a completely understandable excuse to me.

Further, why does his true intent matter in the least? His money was stolen without due process, and that's true whether he was running drugs or making music.

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

#448

Post by dba7dba »

godzilla82 wrote: post #433
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.

>million or more American casualties ?? Isn't that PR language itself?

Look at what it cost US Marines to take away Japanese held islands.

And what if it was going to take half a million American casualties? And it still would've killed lots and lots of Japanese civilians and soldiers. Far more than 100,000 Japanese would've died.

Have you read anything about any of the campaigns by US Marines? Not accusing you of ignorance or anything. Just wondering if you know some history.

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

#449

Post by dba7dba »

awfullyjohn wrote: post #411
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.

This is disputable. Please check out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8908197 And a great book on the topic: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674022416/ref=oh_aui_detai...

It's not disputable.

Do you know how hard it was for US marines to retake the Japanese held islands?

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

#450

Post by yellowapple »

Frondo wrote: post #402
yellowapple wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which I'm fine with, because that's understandable. My point was solely in response to the assertion of "you can leave if you don't like it", since the action of "leaving" is prohibitively expensive for a lot of people.
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