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  1. #51
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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  2. #52
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Here in Nashville, the state legislature held hearings this week on "policing for profit," the catchy name the libertarian public interest law firm the Ins ute for Justice has given to the practice of civil asset forfeiture.



    The hearings were inspired by some terrific reporting done by local television journalist Phil Williams over the last couple of years about how the practice is used and abused in central Tennessee. Basically, if you're carrying a large amount of cash, and someone from one of these task forces pulls you over, they feel they have the authority to take your money from you. It's then up to you to prove you earned it legitimately. The stops can quickly devolve into shakedown operations, in which a motorist is told he can face arrest, or he can give the police all of his money and go free.



    Some of the exchanges between Tennessee lawmakers and personnel from the local drug task forces were downright surreal. A few excerpts from the testimony, via Newschannel 5:


    Senators especially wanted to know about a traffic stop exposed by NewsChannel 5 Investigates where an agent from the 23rd took $160,000 from a New York businessman, using federal seizure laws, even though the officer admitted on the video there was no evidence tying it to drug trafficking.

    "I don't know honestly if we can, if we can't link it to drugs, it's still a currency violation," he told a fellow officer.

    There's no such thing as "a currency violation." It isn't illegal to carry cash, even in large amounts. But of course, they took the money anyway. The head of the task force then offered a bizarre, implausible explanation for the seizure.


    "I can tell you that money had terrorist ties overseas -- I will tell you that," he told the subcommittee.

    "Then why was it returned to him?" asked Sen. Brian Kelsey, a Germantown Republican who chairs the full Senate Judiciary Committee.
    "The DEA returned it to them, we didn't," Hicks said.


    In fact, our investigation discovered that the U.S. Attorney's Office returned the man's cash more than a year later after investigators could not make any kind of a case.


    "When they were pressed on it when there was a case pending in federal court, when it was put-up-or-shut-up time, they couldn't produce a single shred of evidence to support these allegations," said the businessman's attorney, Olin J. Baker of Charlotte, N.C.


    "At this point, they are making things up that's absolutely not true."

    Not just "not true," but a preposterous, feeble attempt to justify an unjust practice by appealing to fear.



    Task force director David Hicks then conceded that because the agents are funded by the money and property they seize from motorists and drug suspects, his cops "know that if the money dries up, then they don't have job."



    It's great that Tennessee lawmakers are finally up in arms about this. But it's been going on for years. Even if you support the drug war, consider the incentives here: There's actually a greater incentive for police to target drivers leaving a large metropolitan area than the drivers entering one. Why? Because any member of a drug distribution networking entering a city is likely to be flush with drugs. Those leaving a city are likely to be flush with cash. It's better for police to wait until the drugs are sold and out on the street. And, indeed, Williams' investigations have found exactly that: A driver is much more likely to be pulled over by the task force while driving in the lanes leading out of the city than the lanes leading into it.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/1...f=the-agitator

    http://www.newschannel5.com/category...ing-for-profit

  3. #53
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Supreme Court widens forfeiture:

    At issue in Monday’s ruling in Kaley v. United States is an area of the law known as asset forfeiture. In essence, asset forfeiture is designed to help law enforcement officials seize the ill-gotten fruits of criminal activity, such as cash, cars, or homes. To that end, prosecutors are permitted to freeze the assets of criminal suspects during trial if there is probable cause to believe those assets cons ute “proceeds” of the alleged criminal activity. Notice that this freezing occurs before the suspect has been duly convicted.


    That timing matters a great deal to the plaintiffs in this case, a married couple by the name of Kaley who have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of selling stolen medical supplies. That may sound like a finding of guilt, but in fact grand jury proceedings are a non-adversarial process where the prosecution alone is permitted to call witnesses and present evidence. The suspects have no opportunity at that point to rebut anything the government alleges against them.
    In the wake of the grand jury indictments, the federal government moved to freeze the Kaleys’ assets, including their home and a $500,000 certificate of deposit the couple had recently purchased in order to cover the anticipated legal expenses arising from their trial. Put differently, the government has eliminated their ability to pay their lawyer.


    Writing for a 6-3 majority, Justice Elena Kagan sided with the government. “The question here presented,” Kagan wrote, is whether the Kaleys have a cons utional right “to contest a grand jury’s prior determination of probable cause to believe they committed the crimes charged. We hold that they have no right to relitigate that finding.”


    Writing in dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts zeroed in on the dangers lurking in Kagan’s ruling. “The hearing the Kaleys seek would not be mere relitigation of the grand jury proceedings,” Roberts countered, it would be a hearing before a federal judge aimed at determining if the prosecution had indeed proved probable cause for the asset forfeitures. “And of course, the Kaleys would have the opportunity to tell their side of the story—something the grand jury never hears,” he added.
    Furthermore, “the Court’s opinion pays insufficient respect to the importance of an independent [criminal defense] bar as a check on prosecutorial abuse and government overreaching,” Roberts declared. “Granting the Government the power to take away a defendant’s chosen advocate strikes at the heart of that significant role.”
    http://reason.com/blog/2014/02/27/su...ce-power-to-se

  4. #54
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    crazy split for vs against

    crazy dangerous

    grand jury indictment often means you're convicted, at least totally screwed, before your day in court

  5. #55
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    How A Grand Jury's Indictment Is Indistinguishable From Being Found Guilty

    from the there's-a-reason-no-other-countries-use-this-system dept


    http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...d-guilty.shtml

  6. #56
    Rising above the Fray spursncowboys's Avatar
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    Scary. All in the name of protection.

    Kind of similar situation: My first apartment, my roommate had a ak-47. When police came in from a noise complaint, they took it and gave us a claim number.

  7. #57
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    DHS enforcing EPA regs?


  8. #58
    🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 ElNono's Avatar
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    CBC Warns Canadians of "US Law Enforcement Money Extortion Program"

    The CBC is warning Canadians about a U.S. program where America law enforcement officers — from federal agents to state troopers right down to sheriffs in one-street backwaters — are operating a vast, co-ordinated scheme to grab as much of the public's cash as they can through seizure laws. "So, for any law-abiding Canadian thinking about an American road trip, here’s some non-official advice: Avoid long chats if you’re pulled over. Answer questions politely and concisely, then persistently ask if you are free to go. Don’t leave litter on the vehicle floor, especially energy drink cans. Don’t use air or breath fresheners; they could be interpreted as an attempt to mask the smell of drugs. Don’t be too talkative. Don’t be too quiet. Try not to wear expensive designer clothes. Don’t have tinted windows. And for heaven’s sake, don’t consent to a search if you are carrying a big roll of legitimate cash.

  9. #59
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    The fact that police have a direct financial interest in forfeitures creates an incentive for pretextual traffic stops aimed at finding money or other property to seize. The Post found that “298 departments and 210 task forces have seized the equivalent of 20 percent or more of their annual budgets since 2008.
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsul...al-your-money/

  10. #60
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    John Oliver: Cops Legally Stealing All Your Cash And Cars Because ‘Civil Forfeiture’ (Video)

    http://wonkette.com/562513/john-oliv...rfeiture-video

    Johnny O. would enjoy Spurstalk. It takes an Englishman to really trash the corruption and insanity of USA. Thanks, HBO!






  11. #61
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    NYPD cop takes $1,300 from man, pepper-sprays him in the face when he complains

    A Brief cell phone video shows a New York City police officer use pepper spray on a man and his sister after they complained the cop had taken more than $1,000 during a stop-and-frisk search.

    Lamard Joye was stopped by police Sept. 16 in Coney Island after confronting officers who roughed up a young man nearby, said the man’s attorney.


    “Is that necessary?” Joye and some friends asked police, according to the attorney.


    One of Joye’s friends begins recording video, posted online by the New York Daily News, that shows an officer standing face-to-face with Joye, who oustretches his arms and says, “You see this?”

    The officer then reaches into Joye’s pocket and pulls out a handful of cash, and smacks his face and calls him an “asshole” when Joye asks him to return the money.


    The video shows the officer squirt pepper spray at Joye, who retreats as onlookers accuse the cop of stealing his money.


    Joye’s sister confronts the officer as bystanders accuse him of robbery, and the cop blasts her with pepper spray when she identified two numbers on his badge.


    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/n...e+Raw+Story%29



  12. #62
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    ^^^off topic. that's theft, boutons.

  13. #63
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.



    The do ents offer a sweeping look at how police departments and drug task forces across the country are benefiting from laws that allow them to take cash and property without proving a crime has occurred. The law was meant to decimate drug organizations, but The Post found that it has been used as a routine source of funding for law enforcement at every level.


    “In tight budget periods, and even in times of budget surpluses, using asset forfeiture dollars to purchase equipment and training to stay current with the ever-changing trends in crime fighting helps serve and protect the citizens,” said Prince George’s County, Md., police spokeswoman Julie Parker.


    Brad Cates, a former director of asset forfeiture programs at the Justice Department, said the spending identified by The Post suggests police are using Equitable Sharing as “a free floating slush fund.” Cates, who oversaw the program while at Justice from 1985 to 1989, said it has enabled police to sidestep the traditional budget process, in which elected leaders create law enforcement spending priorities.
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/inv...lice-spending/

  14. #64
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    ^^^off topic. that's theft, boutons.
    forfeiture is often theft, according to your own sacred thread

  15. #65
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    the distinction between forcible theft and theft under the color of legal procedure -- civil forfeiture -- is a meaningful one, not least because the latter leaves the victim with less chance to be made whole. the law casts a veil over corruption.

  16. #66
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    the law needs to be changed.

  17. #67
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    the law needs to be changed.
    Repugs will block any law changing

  18. #68
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    the equities are screwed up ridiculously in favor of LE. they can just take your money and your car and never give them back.

  19. #69
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    all they have to say is, "drug related"

  20. #70
    Get Refuel! FromWayDowntown's Avatar
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    all they have to say is, "drug related"
    The point, too, is the fact that they just have to say that, with scant obligation to prove that assertion.

  21. #71
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Do Federal prosecutors and the IRS still use super seals to take money from suspects secretly?

    Calling their conduct “cons utionally abhorrent,” a federal judge recently chided government prosecutors for working in secret to keep millions of dollars in cash and assets seized from a Las Vegas gambler and his family in a decadelong bookmaking investigation.


    In his 31-page opinion, U.S. Magistrate Judge Cam Ferenbach cast light on the little-known court process that allowed the government to file civil forfeiture actions against Glen Cobb, his 82-year-old parents and his stepdaughter under “super seal” with no notice to anyone — not even the family it targeted.


    Government do ents filed under super seal, a procedure overseen by the federal clerk’s office, are stored in the court’s vault and not loaded into the electronic case management system. The do ents remain secret from the public and opposing parties.


    Ferenbach said prosecutors sought a level of secrecy normally reserved for cases that threaten public safety or national security.


    “This is unacceptable,” Ferenbach wrote in court papers only recently made public. “Relying on various sealed and super-sealed filings, the government asks the court to rule against private citizens, allow the deprivation of their property and deny them a process to redress possible violations of their cons utional rights through a secret government action that provides no notice or opportunity to be heard.


    “Saying that this would offend the Cons ution is an understatement. It is cons utionally abhorrent.”
    Between them, the IRS and Secret Service attempted to secretly seize more than $13 million from the family under the civil asset forfeiture law.
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/t...lly-abhorrent/

  22. #72
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    they can just take your money and your car and never give them back.
    they can take your life and never give it back.

    all they have to say is, "I thought I was in danger"


  23. #73
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    Police Use Department Wish List When Deciding Which Assets to Seize

    The seminars offered police officers some useful tips on seizing property from suspected criminals. Don’t bother with jewelry (too hard to dispose of) and computers (“everybody’s got one already”), the experts counseled. Do go after flat screen TVs, cash and cars. Especially nice cars.

    In one seminar, captured on video in September, Harry S. Connelly Jr., the city attorney of Las Cruces, N.M., called them “little goodies.” And then Mr. Connelly described how officers in his jurisdiction could not wait to seize one man’s “exotic vehicle” outside a local bar.

    “A guy drives up in a 2008 Mercedes, brand new,” he explained. “Just so beautiful, I mean, the cops were undercover and they were just like ‘Ahhhh.’ And he gets out and he’s just reeking of alcohol. And it’s like, ‘Oh, my goodness, we can hardly wait.’ ”


    Mr. Connelly was talking about a practice known as civil asset forfeiture, which allows the government, without ever securing a conviction or even filing a criminal charge, to seize property suspected of having ties to crime.

    The practice, expanded during the war on drugs in the 1980s, has become a staple of law enforcement agencies because it helps finance their work. It is difficult to tell how much has been seized by state and local law enforcement, but under a Justice Department program,
    the value of assets seized has ballooned to $4.3 billion in the 2012 fiscal year from $407 million in 2001. Much of that money is shared with local police forces.

    The practice of civil forfeiture has come under fire in recent months, amid a spate of negative press reports and growing outrage among civil rights advocates, libertarians and members of Congress who have raised serious questions about the fairness of the practice, which critics say runs roughshod over due process rights. In one oft-cited case, a Philadelphia couple’s home was seized after their son made $40 worth of drug sales on the porch.

    Despite that opposition, many cities and states are moving to expand civil seizures of cars and other assets. The seminars, some of which were captured on video, raise a curtain on how law enforcement officials view the practice.


    From Orange County, N.Y., to Rio Rancho, N.M., forfeiture operations are being established or expanded. In September, Albuquerque, which has long seized the cars of suspected drunken drivers, began taking them from men suspected of trying to pick up pros utes, landing seven cars during a one-night sting. Arkansas has expanded its seizure law to allow the police to take cash and assets with suspected connections to terrorism, and Illinois moved to make boats fair game under its D.W.I. laws, in addition to cars. In Mercer County, N.J., a prosecutor preaches the “gospel” that forfeiture is not just for drug arrests — cars can be seized in shoplifting and statutory rape cases as well.


    “At the grass-roots level — cities, counties — they continue to be interested, perhaps increasingly so, in supplementing their budgets by engaging in the type of seizures that we’ve seen in Philadelphia and elsewhere,” said Lee McGrath, a lawyer for the Ins ute for Justice, a public interest law firm that has mounted a legal and public relations assault on civil forfeiture.


    Much of the nuts-and-bolts how-to of civil forfeiture is passed on in continuing education seminars for local prosecutors and law enforcement officials, some of which have been captured on video. The Ins ute for Justice, which brought the videos to the attention of The Times, says they show how cynical the practice has become and how profit motives can outweigh public safety.


    In the sessions, officials share tips on maximizing profits, defeating the objections of so-called “innocent owners” who were not present when the suspected offense occurred, and keeping the proceeds in the hands of law enforcement and out of general fund budgets. The Times reviewed three sessions, one in Santa Fe, N.M., that took place in September, one in New Jersey that was undated, and one in Georgia in September that was not videotaped.

    Officials offered advice on dealing with skeptical judges, mocked Hispanics whose cars were seized, and made comments that, the Ins ute for Justice said, gave weight to the argument that civil forfeiture encourages decisions based on the value of the assets to be seized rather than public safety. In the Georgia session, the prosecutor leading the talk boasted that he had helped roll back a Republican-led effort to reform civil forfeiture in Georgia, where seized money has been used by the authorities, according to news reports, to pay for sports tickets, office parties, a home security system and a $90,000 sports car.


    In defense of the practice, Gary Bergman, a prosecutor with the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, said civil forfeiture had been distorted in news reports. “All they hear is the woman was left on the side of the road and the police drove off with her car and her money, no connection to drugs,” he told other prosecutors at the session.


    “I’m not saying that that doesn’t happen — it does. It should not. But they never hear about all the people that get stopped with the drugs in their cars, in their houses, the manufacturing operations we see, all the useful things we do with the money, the equipment, vehicles. They don’t hear about that.”

    ( TGB: civil forfeiture for drug possession is one huge reason the War on Drugs is above all business and unstoppable )

    In an interview, Mr. Connelly said that the Las Cruces ordinance does only what the State Supreme Court has said is permissible.


    Sean D. McMurtry, the chief of the forfeiture unit in the Mercer County, N.J., prosecutor’s office, said forfeiture contributes to only a small percentage of local budgets but it is a good deterrent and works especially well against repeat offenders, such as domestic violence perpetrators who repeatedly violate a restraining order. “We’re very proud of our forfeiture operation,” he said in an interview.


    But in the video, Mr. McMurtry made it clear that
    forfeitures were highly contingent on the needs of law enforcement.

    In New Jersey, the police and prosecutors are allowed to use cars, cash and other seized goods; the rest must be sold at auction. Cellphones and jewelry, Mr. McMurtry said, are not worth the bother. Flat screen televisions, however, “are very popular with the police departments,” he said.


    Prosecutors boasted in the sessions that seizure cases were rarely contested or appealed. But civil forfeiture places the burden on owners, who must pay court fees and legal costs to get their property back. Many seizures go uncontested because the property is not worth the expense.


    And often the first hearing is presided over not by a judge but by the prosecutor whose office benefits from the proceeds, and who has wide discretion in deciding whether to forfeit the property or return it, sometimes in exchange for a steep fine.


    Mr. McMurtry said his handling of a case is sometimes determined by department wish lists.

    “If you want the car, and you really want to put it in your fleet, let me know — I’ll fight for it,” Mr. McMurtry said, addressing law enforcement officials on the video. “If you don’t let me know that, I’ll try and resolve it real quick through a settlement and get cash for the car, get the tow fee paid off, get some money for it.”


    One criticism of civil forfeiture is that it results in widely varied penalties — one drunken driver could lose a $100,000 luxury car, while another forfeits a $2,000 clunker.


    In an interview, Mr. McMurtry acknowledged that he exercises a great deal of discretion. “The first offense, if it’s not anything too serious, we’ll come up with a dollar amount, depending on the value of the car and the seriousness of the offense,” he said. “I try to come up with a dollar amount that’s not so high that they can’t afford it, but not so low that it doesn’t have an impact. If it’s a second offense, they don’t get it back.”


    Prosecutors estimated that between 50 to 80 percent of the cars seized were driven by someone other than the owner, which sometimes means a parent or grandparent loses their car. In the Santa Fe video, a police officer acknowledged that the law can affect families, but expressed skepticism of owners who say they did not know their relative was running afoul of the law.


    “I can’t tell you how many people have come in and said, ‘Oh, my hijito would never do that,’ ” he said, mimicking a female voice with a Spanish accent.


    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/10...eize.html?_r=0

    America is so ed and so un able.

    Last edited by boutons_deux; 11-10-2014 at 10:35 AM.

  24. #74
    my unders, my frgn whites pgardn's Avatar
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    Really good stuff Winehole.

    Thanks.

  25. #75
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    sex stings motivated by asset forfeiture in Polk Co., Florida?

    http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/inves...ings/20802715/

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