Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him • Hacker News Board

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#81

Post by protomyth » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:49 PM UTC

readme wrote: post #76

protomyth wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time, yeah - I paid in cash. Financial aid wouldn't free up my money unless I paid my Business Office balance. Business Office claimed I owed $200 from the summer and wouldn't clear my balance until I paid that and the tuition ($734 if I remember correctly). So I walked $934 to the business office (Business Office had the odd policy that they didn't take checks with numbers under 2000 and I didn't write a lot…

Weighing that against the risk of being mugged and having all the money suddenly disappear? I understand the 1000. That's an acceptable risk. I've paid for college like that before. But 15k for a used truck, all cash? No thanks. I don't suppose your friend also totes a shotgun around with him just in case someone decides they want that 15k too?

The vehicle we were in did have a shotgun rack, but someone mugging him was a pretty low possibility. It was a restored truck (very nice old Ford). It would have to be some stranger from out of area. Calling some dumbass's uncle for starting trouble is still a pretty effective crime solving technique in large parts of the US.

[edit] where the heck do you live that muggings are commonplace?

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#82

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:50 PM UTC

joshuaheard wrote: post #74

hmottestad wrote: post #8

Now I'm not sure if Norway has similar laws, but I haven't heard of any. However, watching John Oliver talk about how ridiculous the civil forfeiture laws are in the US just makes me want to laugh so much. I know of all the great things happening in the US, and I'm not calling you a bad country. But it's so hard not to categorise you together with North Korea, China and the United Arab Emirates with how trigger happy…

Don't get your news from a comedian. Edit: Sorry, still on my first cup of coffee. Here it goes: the purpose of news is to objectively inform you of facts. The purpose of these comedy shows is to make you laugh, often by distorting or exaggerating the facts. By getting your news from comedy shows, you are receiving a distorted view of reality, which you seem to admit in your post. However, I see this as a greater pro…

[deleted]

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#83

Post by Roboprog » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:51 PM UTC

joshuaheard wrote: post #74

hmottestad wrote: post #8

Now I'm not sure if Norway has similar laws, but I haven't heard of any. However, watching John Oliver talk about how ridiculous the civil forfeiture laws are in the US just makes me want to laugh so much. I know of all the great things happening in the US, and I'm not calling you a bad country. But it's so hard not to categorise you together with North Korea, China and the United Arab Emirates with how trigger happy…

Don't get your news from a comedian. Edit: Sorry, still on my first cup of coffee. Here it goes: the purpose of news is to objectively inform you of facts. The purpose of these comedy shows is to make you laugh, often by distorting or exaggerating the facts. By getting your news from comedy shows, you are receiving a distorted view of reality, which you seem to admit in your post. However, I see this as a greater pro…

A good reason not to watch network newscasts. Too many clowns :-)

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#84

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:53 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #81

readme wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weighing that against the risk of being mugged and having all the money suddenly disappear? I understand the 1000. That's an acceptable risk. I've paid for college like that before. But 15k for a used truck, all cash? No thanks. I don't suppose your friend also totes a shotgun around with him just in case someone decides they want that 15k too?

The vehicle we were in did have a shotgun rack, but someone mugging him was a pretty low possibility. It was a restored truck (very nice old Ford). It would have to be some stranger from out of area. Calling some dumbass's uncle for starting trouble is still a pretty effective crime solving technique in large parts of the US. [edit] where the heck do you live that muggings are commonplace?

[deleted]

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#85

Post by rayiner » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:53 PM UTC

hmottestad wrote: post #8

Now I'm not sure if Norway has similar laws, but I haven't heard of any. However, watching John Oliver talk about how ridiculous the civil forfeiture laws are in the US just makes me want to laugh so much. I know of all the great things happening in the US, and I'm not calling you a bad country. But it's so hard not to categorise you together with North Korea, China and the United Arab Emirates with how trigger happy…

I don't know about Norway, but the other anglo countries have similar laws. It seems to be less of a problem over there because, as far as I can tell, the people are of a better moral stock. How law is carried into effect is a reflection of the virtue--or lack thereof--of the people.

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#86

Post by readme » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:54 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #81

readme wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weighing that against the risk of being mugged and having all the money suddenly disappear? I understand the 1000. That's an acceptable risk. I've paid for college like that before. But 15k for a used truck, all cash? No thanks. I don't suppose your friend also totes a shotgun around with him just in case someone decides they want that 15k too?

The vehicle we were in did have a shotgun rack, but someone mugging him was a pretty low possibility. It was a restored truck (very nice old Ford). It would have to be some stranger from out of area. Calling some dumbass's uncle for starting trouble is still a pretty effective crime solving technique in large parts of the US. [edit] where the heck do you live that muggings are commonplace?

Never said it was common, I'm just saying I don't think it's worth the privacy to expose yourself to that amount of risk.

Also the gov is gonna know you bought the truck when you register it, anyway.

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#87

Post by ghshephard » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:54 PM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #49

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't a false positive, he admits himself that he smoked weed on the way to the airport. That's really not the point of the article however.

That's still a false positive. Dogs are ostensibly trained to distinguish between a lingering odor (or "residue") and actual material. So the dog, we're told, indicated because of "residue," falsely giving a positive indication for material.

That would be pretty challenging, particularly as weed in transit is often double-vacuum packed and stored in boxes containing coffee beans to (try) and elude drug sniffing dogs. I can't even conceive how you could train a dog to distinguish between lingering/residue in that scenario.

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#88

Post by ghshephard » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:55 PM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #50

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just to be clear: He said he used drugs, a gate agent smelled drugs, the cops smelled drugs, and you just want to argue that if a dog also smelled drugs that that dog is unreliable even though the arrested party says the dog was correct..? I just don't understand what point you're even trying to make. Just seems like you want to talk/criticise drug-dog evidence even though it has no relation to this case at all. I…

> So just to be clear: He said he used drugs, a gate agent smelled drugs, the cops smelled drugs, and you just want to argue that if a dog also smelled drugs that that dog is unreliable even though the arrested party says the dog was correct..? There's nothing strange about this. On one the features of a drug sniffing dog is that it is supposed to be able to distinguish between a lingering odor, a passing odor, the p…

Could you provide a citation for that?

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#89

Post by ghshephard » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #25

For those who didn't RTFA, he carried his life savings with him in cash . We've seen several stories like this: person has $xx,xxx in cash on them like that's just a normal thing to do. Bad thing happens. Person is incredulous. No one thinks they have any culpability for opting to carry $10k+ in cash over vastly safer and free alternatives. That doesn't excuse the seizure, but I don't see how it's worth our time to g…

There aren't a lot of safe ways to keep cash - bank accounts can be seized for all number of reasons with zero recourse, so a bank account isn't a particularly good place either.

Re: Why police could seize a college student's life savings without charging him

#90

Post by powera » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #44

superuser2 wrote: post #25

For those who didn't RTFA, he carried his life savings with him in cash . We've seen several stories like this: person has $xx,xxx in cash on them like that's just a normal thing to do. Bad thing happens. Person is incredulous. No one thinks they have any culpability for opting to carry $10k+ in cash over vastly safer and free alternatives. That doesn't excuse the seizure, but I don't see how it's worth our time to g…

Umm, it is normal enough thing to do. Here are some other cases, found by searching just for "$15,000": "The Catholic priest took $15,000 in cash to Skid Row and doled it out to hundreds of the city's most down-and-out residents outside the Fred Jordan Missions" - http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Priest-turns-90-handin... "Dr. Berlin took $15,000 from the cash received in wedding gifts, leased an examination roo…

Honestly, the only one of these that doesn't seem weird is the Cuba trip (and carrying large amounts of cash across international borders has its own laws). Most of the rest are either "possibly criminal activity" or "likely not a giant pile of cash".