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Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

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Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#81

Post by ProAm »

elorant wrote: post #62
diyorgasms wrote: post #27

I've seen it said before and I'll say it again. Anyone who works for companies who make products like this in any capacity should be blacklisted in the industry. The missing scruples here could fill several large containers.

Yeah, sure, let's turn that into a war between ourselves instead of demanding better legislation and more transparency from governments. Blacklisting individuals isn't going to solve any problem whatsoever and we run the risk of alienating a whole bunch of people who will then might go out and do even worst things than writing software for questionable companies. We need laws that prevent those things. That's the onl…

> let's turn that into a war between ourselves instead of demanding better legislation and more transparency from governments

The government is made up of it's constituents, we should absolutely blacklist those people to let them know we are not OK with this. You'll never get more transparency from the government, it's not in their best interest to do that, nor is it for them to implement 'better' legislation. Ideally that would be great, but we are WAY past that being a realistic possibility in America.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#82

Post by l3m0ndr0p »

This is outrageous. The police can get away with this because they have a weapon, a gun, which can kill you if you resist. Or at the very least, call other cops, arrest you and throw you in jail and ruin your life while you have to prove your you are not guilty & try to get your money back.

This defies all logic and is a clear example of the corrupt state this country is in (USA).

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#84

Post by jrowley »

zacharycohn wrote: post #63
maxaf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I've had a fraudulent charge on my account, I've contested it and had the money returned to me. I can only assume that in some cases the bank simply bites the bullet and writes this off as a cost of doing business. There's probably an upper limit to their general benevolence. Given enough fraud-like losses stemming from asset seizure, the reasonable action would be to simply block the charges before they c…

This is not a fraudulent charge, though. It's perfectly legal, under state law.

Exactly, if a bank blocked the charge it would be conceivable that they could be charged with conspiring with a criminal or some business of that sort. It would be so much easier and safer to just let the police take the money and say 'sorry, there's nothing we can do.'

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#85

Post by Roboprog »

SixSigma wrote: post #71
jobu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed: "We've seen single mom's stuff be taken, a cancer survivor his drugs taken, we saw a Christian band being taken. We've seen innocent people's stuff being taken. We've seen where the money goes and how it's been misspent," Loveless said. It boggles the mind that this doesn't violate due process.

I guess married mothers, non-sick people and secular bands would all be fair game. Shouldn't this just be "Citizens robbed by police". In India at least they have the decency to say "Do you have a gift for me?" so you know what's happening. My dad would pretend to be hard of hearing and deliberately misunderstand ad nauseum until waved on his way, this would happen about once a month while going about his lawful busi…

I'm pretty sure the speaker was trying to point out a few examples which he thought the audience would sympathize were unlikely to be threats or otherwise engaged in criminal activity.

Of course all of these forfeitures stink of illegality, regardless of the victim. Forth Amendment? Never heard of it, apparently.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#86

Post by my_username_is_ »

elorant wrote: post #62
diyorgasms wrote: post #27

I've seen it said before and I'll say it again. Anyone who works for companies who make products like this in any capacity should be blacklisted in the industry. The missing scruples here could fill several large containers.

Yeah, sure, let's turn that into a war between ourselves instead of demanding better legislation and more transparency from governments. Blacklisting individuals isn't going to solve any problem whatsoever and we run the risk of alienating a whole bunch of people who will then might go out and do even worst things than writing software for questionable companies. We need laws that prevent those things. That's the onl…

While I agree with you that this is first and foremost an issue with our government, it is also a matter of ethics.

Doing/making something because it is legal is does not make it right. As you're building a team you should hopefully be hiring only people who act ethically and can understand the implications of their work, right?

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#87

Post by gst »

Zikes wrote: post #18

So we can't carry cash, because they'll seize that directly. This device could probably do some sort of run around the new chip system in cards. Bitcoin is nearly useless in the real world. So where does that leave us? Google & Apple Pay on our phones? At least our phones can be password protected.

After I had my debit card skimmed I started to have my debit card always deactivated by default. I usually only pay by credit card anyway. In cases where I need money from the ATM I enable my debit card via my bank's mobile app, get the money, and then disable it again.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#88

Post by brbsix »

elorant wrote: post #62
diyorgasms wrote: post #27

I've seen it said before and I'll say it again. Anyone who works for companies who make products like this in any capacity should be blacklisted in the industry. The missing scruples here could fill several large containers.

Yeah, sure, let's turn that into a war between ourselves instead of demanding better legislation and more transparency from governments. Blacklisting individuals isn't going to solve any problem whatsoever and we run the risk of alienating a whole bunch of people who will then might go out and do even worst things than writing software for questionable companies. We need laws that prevent those things. That's the onl…

What sort of laws do you forsee addressing this? At what abstraction (i.e. local, state...)? We already have a Bill of Rights that AFAIK was intended to protect us against these sorts of ingresses by the state into our daily lives. They just come up with ever-fanciful word play like in rem and "executive order" to supercede it.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#89

Post by devishard »

elorant wrote: post #62
diyorgasms wrote: post #27

I've seen it said before and I'll say it again. Anyone who works for companies who make products like this in any capacity should be blacklisted in the industry. The missing scruples here could fill several large containers.

Yeah, sure, let's turn that into a war between ourselves instead of demanding better legislation and more transparency from governments. Blacklisting individuals isn't going to solve any problem whatsoever and we run the risk of alienating a whole bunch of people who will then might go out and do even worst things than writing software for questionable companies. We need laws that prevent those things. That's the onl…

The laws you're talking about will never occur if the people making those laws are non-technical. As an industry we need to self-regulate, and have our self-regulation have the weight of law behind it. This system works fairly well, for example, in the medical profession, where you can lose your license to practice medicine based on principles set forth by other doctors.
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