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

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

#451

Post by cbsmith » Fri, May 15, 2015, 8:38 PM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #351

cbsmith wrote: post #117

"Asset forfeiture is lucrative for the DEA. According to their latest notification of seized goods, updated Monday, agents have seized well over $38 million dollars' worth of cash and goods from people in the first few months of this year." Umm... $38 million in three months works out to about 5% of the DEA's operating budget. If your revenue is 5% of your burn rate, that's not exactly lucrative. This is money that,…

> This is money that, absent some form of corruption, benefits exactly no one, What does this even mean? Money gets spend by humans on things that humans want. How can you say it benefits exactly no one? Clearly it benefits the humans who stole it.

> Money gets spend by humans on things that humans want.

Sometimes it gets spent on things that humans don't want.

> How can you say it benefits exactly no one?

I meant no one at the DEA.

> Clearly it benefits the humans who stole it.

Umm... it isn't stolen, and no, it doesn't "clearly" benefit the people who executed the seizure. I doubt those guys see any upside other than perhaps keeping their jobs.

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

#452

Post by yellowapple » Fri, May 15, 2015, 10:18 PM UTC

DaFranker wrote: post #435

yellowapple wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Yes, but if you do so you become eligible for charges of Conspiracy for High Tech Fraud, and a Conspiracy charge opens up a whole other can of worms you really don't want to mess with.

True, but at least there's now a lawyer involved, so you've got that going, with is nice.

(Which, granted, may or may not be a positive depending on one's opinions of lawyers)

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

#453

Post by bcook » Sat, May 16, 2015, 5:27 AM UTC

spacemanmatt wrote: post #445

bcook wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, just report me to the police.

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

#454

Post by Houshalter » Mon, May 18, 2015, 3:08 AM UTC

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.

This thread is probably dead, but the main arguments I hear from people saying it was wrong is that Japan was extremely close to surrender and even negotiating terms before the bombs.

Also that it didn't need to be dropped on a populated city first, and that previous bombing of cities in the war proved that the tactic was relatively ineffective. And that the US had a conflict of interest; they wanted to end the war before the Russians were involved. As well as demonstrate the capability of the bomb to them.

Everything I said is debatable, and I don't blame Truman for making the decision he did. But Orwell's comment, that the arguments involved are "too brutal to bear" is definitely true. Most people can't answer the trolley problem, a hypothetical situation where you have to kill one innocent person to save 5.

Now imagine instead of 1 person it's thousands, and they aren't all just killed instantly but some horribly maimed or irradiated. And that whether it will work wasn't certain, or that the horrible alternative wasn't certain, and that there are all sorts of possible third options, etc. And so whatever you think the best choice is, the arguments involved are extremely brutal.

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

#455

Post by task_queue » Tue, May 26, 2015, 1:55 AM UTC

greendata wrote: post #382

task_queue wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've never seen police unions on the chopping block. After the most recent crisis, teacher unions and other government worker unions were paraded around as needing to be fixed.