"Possession is nine-tenths of the law"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_is_nine-tenths_of_th...
Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law
51–60 of 94 posts
Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law
#52Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law
#53I'm curious why libertarians around here and Tea Party followers elsewhere do not make more noise over this issue. It's an honest question; my hypothesis: It's because the intrusion is from the right and not from the left.
We do. When we make noise over this and other issues, people either accuse us of tinfoil hattery, or they tell us we should move to Somalia if we don't want to surrender ever-increasing amounts of sovereignty over our lives to the state. The conversation usually goes downhill from there.
Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law
#54I'm curious why libertarians around here and Tea Party followers elsewhere do not make more noise over this issue. It's an honest question; my hypothesis: It's because the intrusion is from the right and not from the left.
That is because people tend to make noise only when "one of our own" has been unjustly treated. I am left of centre politically, and this is not limited to the right or left but everyone. I am pretty sure Aaron Swartz was not the first reasonably well-known person forced to take his own life, but no one cares unless they feel threatened. For example, there is so much "outrage" here based on discussions about Silk Road, but no one discussed the countless families destroyed everyday due to the war on drugs.
Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law
#55I heard of an older Asian lady (first generation immigrant) who lost her 3-bed house somewhat this way.
She divorced from her husband and she ended up with the house. To make extra income, she rented her room to someone. That person happened to be a drug dealer or something like it and when that person was convicted, the house was also dragged into the case and she ended up losing the house to police.
I couldn't believe it and thought she may have been exaggerating but hearing this news, maybe she was telling the truth...
Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law
#56Similar NYTimes article posted yesterday with a bit more substance: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/us/police-use-department-w... I'm not really sure why civil forfeiture places the burden on owners. Kind of defies the logic of innocent until proven guilty.
The burden is actually still on the government, but it's a lower burden than criminal cases.
What burden? The burden is on the owner, because he has all his assets being seized, making it much harder to defend himself now. That should never happen - certainly not in a "innocent until proven guilty" system (if that's still the case).
Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law
#57What surprises me is that this hasn't been declared unconstitutional. I thought you couldn't be deprived of property without due process? I know it has survived numerous court cases so I'm baffled.
You do get due process. If the police take your property, you file a notice with them that it is your property. They either give it back or file a civil suit against the property. That civil suit will have a trial, which is the due process.
I think the issue mark-r was talking about is that the property is seized before any sort of due process has concluded. Also, if the government doesn't bring a case against you you have to actively fight to get your property back. So if your car is seized and neither party takes any further action the default behavior is the government now owns your car. [someone correct me if I'm wrong about this]
Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law
#58The incentives for police in this country are all wrong. It should be illegal for police to profit in any way off of the people they're tasked with protecting. They should be paid using tax money based on how well they're doing their actual job.
Police aren't actually required to protect anyone (see Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005)), but just to generally maintain social order.
what happened to the "to protect and to serve" motto then?
Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's almost as if the original american political ideals are corrupt enough to afford chattel property rights over human beings and aren't actually built on ethical grounds
I think "it's almost as if" is an unduly passive-aggressive way to begin a comment, but I agree that the thought you are expressing warrants discussion in this thread.
thanks, your tone policing is an obviously valuable contribution to human development example that deserves to exist, our progress will continue to extend thanks to people like you
Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law
#60I'm curious why libertarians around here and Tea Party followers elsewhere do not make more noise over this issue. It's an honest question; my hypothesis: It's because the intrusion is from the right and not from the left.
That is because people tend to make noise only when "one of our own" has been unjustly treated. I am left of centre politically, and this is not limited to the right or left but everyone. I am pretty sure Aaron Swartz was not the first reasonably well-known person forced to take his own life, but no one cares unless they feel threatened. For example, there is so much "outrage" here based on discussions about Silk Roa…
> the countless families destroyed everyday due to the war on drugs.
This is possibly the single most frequent topic of discussion on HN (along with performance optimization :-)).
Perhaps there was a post or two about Silk Road in which it wasn't discussed, but it doesn't take much to get it going around here.