Nevada court shuts down police use of federal loophole for civil forfeiture
(ij.org)463 points by greyface- 4 days ago
463 points by greyface- 4 days ago
One of the more insidious versions of this is the static thresholds for things like "a suspiciously large amount of cash", which are not inflation adjusted, causing them to effectively shrink over time. A $10K cash travel limit established by the Bank Secrecy Act in 1970 would be over $80K in 2025 dollars. The law is structured so that the net is constantly tightening by default.
> When most money exists in digital form in a database somewhere, over time, the concept of real paper money gets that assumption of wrong doing.
It's already happening, and it probably just depends on the teller you get. I have no idea if it's policy or not, but I've been questioned pretty intrusively for cash transactions even under the reporting limit of 10k (see: BSA, CTR).
That limit was reduced to $500 and then back up to $2000. It's a multifaceted thing, now, that triggers a SAR.
https://www.fincen.gov/fact-sheet-industry-msb-suspicious-ac...
Over 10k in a day of cumulative deposits will automatically trigger a CTR (currency transaction report). Amounts over 3k can trigger a SAR (suspicious activity report) but those are typically at teller discretion unless its a very specific circumstance like a customer buying $2500 in traveller cheques but has a typical average balance under some low threshold.
All those reports go to the banks AML (Anti Money Laundering) group who have to follow specific reporting guidlines from big brother. Lots of data is used to determine your risk level, which gets assigned tonyou when you open an account, especially a business account. Depending on the sic codes you choose determines how heavily you are scrutinized by the banks interal risk structure.
I could go on but you get the gist.
Source: too many decades in financial services orgs
> At some point, civil forfeiture laws will lay the foundation for having any amount of cash being a sort of assumption of criminality.
Already true in Brazil where I live.
It's just the financial arm of global warrantless mass surveillance. I highly recommend not allowing them to do this to you.
Brazilian central bank developed a digital centralized money transfer system called pix. You already know where this is going, right? At first it was great: instant, zero fees, no taxes. Right now the entire nation is angry about the fact our IRS equivalent will start using the pix transaction data to cross reference and audit citizens. If you move more than ~800 USD your financial data gets sent to the government automatically.
I like to believe that Brazil is some kind of test bed for dystopian nonsense like this.
> At some point, civil forfeiture laws will lay the foundation for having any amount of cash being a sort of assumption of criminality.
Although we don't have civil forfeiture, this is already true in The Netherlands.
Are you sure the "any amount" generalization is true? I know in Switzerland of money confiscated at border control for simple suspicion, but we are talking (tens of) thousands. Although there's a certain obligation of declaration those people always "forget", that situation stays shitty, but in any case it's a very very far cry from "any amount".
One Dutch party in the previous government tried to outlaw carrying more than €2000 in the street. As far as I know, that law didn't pass. Plus you can keep as many cash reserves at home as you want (but good luck getting any back if that gets stolen).
However, there are rules that make cash less useful for large payments. Cash payments over €10000 (€3000 starting in March) are outright banned without involving the government.
There are more practical problems than "I just really want to buy a car without giving out my bank account", though: more and more Dutch stores have stopped taking cash to reduce the risk and losses of robberies. You can still carry cash, but spending it may require some research ahead of time, and not every business is interested in the overhead of going through the money laundering prevention system when normal people usually just buy >€3000 stuff through their bank accounts.
If anything, the Dutch government has been telling people to have cash available in case of emergencies after "geopolitical tension" (read: the Russian invasion into Ukraine). Not that anyone seems to listen, but they encourage having cash reserves. They're still working out an exact amount to recommend, but a couple hundred euros seems to be most likely.
If it were really 'any' in the philosophical sense, cash would be outlawed. So no, it is not 'any', it is anywhere between more than a couple of hundred to a couple of thousands, depending on what the police or prosecutor feels is reasonable.
What is wrong with a (couple of) thousand euros?
> I know in Switzerland of money confiscated at border control
You are describing smuggling, I was talking about normal domestic use.
While I don't disagree with the general statement, I do want to add the nuance that this isn't true for small amounts of cash money. Recently, the government even recommended people to keep more cash on hand in case of emergency / large scale disruptions to the financial system.
Even with large amounts of money, it's not like they're knocking on doors, looking under yer bed.
What constitutes a large sum depends a bit based on the situation (or what kind of person you are!).
A 2020 study found the average seized was $1300: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
In some states, the average seized amount is in the hundreds, or even less: https://thewhyaxis.substack.com/p/cops-still-take-more-stuff...
In Chicago, they are taking amounts less than $100: https://reason.com/2017/06/13/poor-neighborhoods-hit-hardest...
"You are too poor to fairly have $100, so we're taking it" seems insane to me.
What is small and what is large is a matter of opinion.
If they are out to get you and can't find anything incriminating, cash will do. The press will happily report on this too : 'There was a police raid so and so, nothing was found but they found a (large) amount of cash'.
Furthermore, our government is planning legislation to make cash transactions > € 3000 illegal.
The US legal system (unlike some other countries) is built on the presumption of innocence. Civil forfeiture completely contravenes that principle and is therefore essentially extortion and corruption.
It's never made sense to me, but the standard explanation is that because they aren't accusing a person (the owner of the money), but only accusing an inanimate object (the money itself), constitutional protections don't apply. Pretty scary that this is accepted as normal!
>It's never made sense to me, but the standard explanation is that because they aren't accusing a person (the owner of the money), but only accusing an inanimate object
That is correct, but you need to understand the context. It originated in the 1600s as a way for maritime law to deal with pirate/smuggler ships who were operating in international waters, not flying the flag of any nation, and with no registered owner. Charging the ship and its contents with the crime rather than an unknown individual made sense in that context. Applying it to a car registered in the United States, driving down a highway in the United States, and being driven by a US citizen makes absolutely no sense because standard law can and should deal with that situation.
But when you fly people who clearly have an owner (themself) to another country and they don't have a passport, the country holds the airline accountable.
Why not hold the captain of the ship responsible for loading illegal cargo? Isn't this the whole point of a ship's manifest, to record what's on the ship? Like extend it slightly more to also record the legality.
Even then that would imply some legal personhood on the part of the vessel and it's operations, much like a registered company.
To me it's a leap too far to assign it to a specific object. It has no ongoing operations, it's not a fluid, "living" thing.
But here we are. This is where a more modern supreme court ruling would come in handy I guess.
> This is where a more modern supreme court ruling would come in handy I guess
I'd hate to see how this modern supreme court rules. Odds are likely to be in favor of keeping this policy, especially if some of that money is used to buy an RV or fund fancy vacations
It's the explanation, but it still makes no sense to me. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures..."
You really have to twist that in bizarre ways to come out saying "yeah but we can seize that guy's money."
It doesn't make sense because it's insane mental gymnastics being used to justify obviously unconstitutional conduct. The bill of rights is very, very, clear on this.
Just don't ask for a "lawyer,dawg" because they don't have one of those.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/11/02...
In general, it's pretty messed up that there's an exceptionalism about drug related crime (and some other kinds of crime).
Crime is crime. If they don't take custody of a house because some kind of crime X happened there, they shouldn't do it for drug related cases either. They can always arrest the person dealing the drugs and forgeit the drugs themselves.
>> the standard explanation is that because they aren't accusing a person (the owner of the money), but only accusing an inanimate object (the money itself), constitutional protections don't apply
That's easy to refute. By the time they take the cash, hand it to the feds, get a percentage back to locals, then a person wins in court and gets their money back... I don't think they give back the exact same physical cash that was taken as "evidence". So when they say it's evidence they are lying - it's not locked up with other evidence, it's taken to a bank and deposited.
SCOTUS is out of touch with reality. And I'm not reacting to Trump-era decisions - even under Obama, the justices were watering down the Bill of Rights in cases like Salinas v. Texas (2013).
Previously, if you refused to talk to the police, that was considered invoking your fifth amendment right against self incrimination, hence the standard advice from attorneys to keep your mouth shut until they were present. Now, you must explicitly invoke it every time the police question you or your silence can be used against you, even if that silence was in response to informal questioning on the street with no intention of arrest.
It all makes sense when you consider how privileged the modern Court is: few of the justices in 2013 or today have actually worked as criminal defense attorneys, and only one has ever worked as a public defender (Ketanji Jackson, for two years; I will give Ginsburg credit for her work at the ACLU, but that is still a notable step above being a public defender). We haven't even had a justice whose read the law (became a lawyer without getting a law degree from a law school) since the death of Robert Jackson in 1954. (Robert Jackson is also the man behind the famous quote "any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect, in no uncertain terms, to make no statement to the police under any circumstances.")
Now, almost all have come from privileged backgrounds, went to Ivy League institutions, live in gated communities, are completely detached from the reality of what the average American knows about the law, and certainly aren't going to be taken advantage of by the cops. It's no surprise we've seen such an assault on our constitutional rights: they don't understand what life is like outside the ivory tower.
> Now, almost all have come from privileged backgrounds, went to Ivy League institutions, live in gated communities, are completely detached from the reality of what the average American knows about the law, and certainly aren't going to be taken advantage of by the cops. It's no surprise we've seen such an assault on our constitutional rights: they don't understand what life is like outside the ivory tower.
In Brazil we have a problem with the Judiciary too, most of it is completely detached from reality, due to these exact same reasons.
Sorry bro, qualified immunity was invented by the courts to prevent that.
> but only accusing an inanimate object (the money itself), constitutional protections don't apply.
The loophole is that money, unlike most other inanimate objects, isn't considered "property".
Any fine should have the option of a court date attached in order to follow due process, like a traffic fine. But many types of fines don't have the presumption of innocence, or the day in court prescribed. Civil forfeiture is an extension of that process, also relying on the fact that money isn't property so taking it away doesn't violate the "no person may be deprived of property without due process of law" constitutional article.
So bitcoins are safe, i assume. And, as a bonus, a dog can't smell it:)
> accusing an inanimate object (the money itself)
yeah, I know that's the argument, but it flies in the face of all reason
It comes from "we know you're guilty but we can't prove it so we're going to take your stuff away". But that's what presumption of innocence means -- if you can't be proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt then you're not guilty, period! (You might in fact be guilty, but under the law you're not guilty.) Otherwise, there is no presumption of innocence and the police can do whatever they want, just like in some countries where the police are a law to themselves.
You don’t have an expectation of privacy for the outside of your mail, because people can see the outside. The inside of the mail you do have an expectation of privacy, because someone can’t just see the inside of your mail. Unless it’s smelly, because people have noses.
Imagine if the same logic was used for a criminal defense: "Your honor, I didn't kill $VICTIM, it was the $WEAPON that killed $VICTIM".
>unlike some other countries
Like which? Presumption of innocence is pretty universal around the globe. It has made its way into Western nations and parts of Asia via Roman law and is also a principle of Islamic law. There used to be some historic outgrowths that could be called presumption of guilt in England, but even that was more similar to civil forfeiture and not an actual guilt-based legal system.
UK has this addition from the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act:
> You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court.
I don't read that as assuming someone is not innocent until proven otherwise at all.
I read that as "Holding back information that may be pertinent in an investigation will be looked upon poorly".
It's not like the US is any better here - If a charge is trumped up or has bolt-ons to get you to take a plea deal, it's exactly the same thing, if not worse.
> pretty universal around the globe
except in "rule by law" (as opposed to "rule of law") countries like China where if the police say you're guilty, you will be found guilty, 100% guaranteed
IIRC the Napoleonic Code doesn't have presumption of innocence, and countries with a legal system built on that code don't have it either -- but I haven't researched it recently so couldn't say which those are.
The Napoleonic Code was civil law, nor criminal law. It doesn't deal with these issues. And it treated the burden of evidence similarly to how modern civil procedures do. France and all other countries that emerged from it have a variation of In dubio pro reo.
Civil asset forfeiture isn't different in its principles. It's civil meaning there is no right to an attorney, the burden of proof is lower, etc. Essentially, this is an ex parte action against the asset forcing the owner to prove ownership in order to get legal standing to challenge in the court. It's a terrible system, but it utilizes the same principles found in other Civil laws. These lack of protections is why people push back on things like red flag laws and why legislatures are increasingly looking to use these to bypass things in the criminal side (see TX trying to allow actions against abortion seekers, or CA saying they'll do the same to gun owners).
I don't know. I heard about the idea of the similar law being stated by one of the politicians there. I didn't think it was actually passed. I thought the TX law was invalidated pretty quickly, likely before CA could even pass their own version for guns. It seemed like more of a political statement than a real law, which makes sense if they have an auto-repeal clause in it.
Either way, my point was that civil laws seem to be increasing in favor when the politicians and interest groups haven't been able to achieve what they want through the criminal side. Abortion and guns tend to showcase this most as they are the most contentious issues.
Forfeiture is different from seizure. Seizure is perfectly legal, and even ought to be required pending completion of a court case.
Forfeiture is the end means of seizure.. usually. Forfeiture does not require a court case. Forfeiture can, in some circumstances, be determined without a court case. Most often and fairly universally means when no one offers a claim on seized property.
I have read on this a many times myself and have conflict with it. I started off with naturally believing it is violation of 5th + 14th amendments. I only hold now that it is likely a violation of the 14th, but its quite complicated.
Seizure in this sense ought to be illegal given no due process. However, SC has opinions that property itself can be ruled against. Further, has ruled in many instances that innocent owner defense is not sufficient, thus innocent owner must prove that the entrusted party acted out of consent/contract.
I recommend reading 983 article guidelines for asset forfeiture/seizure: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/983
It is not simple, at all. Most guidelines really are in favor returning property. IMO, timelines could be adjusted so they are a bit harsher on government considering speedy trials are not so speedy anymore.
I'm not a lawyer of course
As you note it's not built into other legal systems. In which case, those other legal systems aren't automatically corrupt or based on extortion.
A legal system is designed to advance a purpose: justice, the protection of citizens, etc.
Assumptions of guilt or innocence aren't immutable laws of the universe. They likely simply reflect prejudices held at the time of creation, or inherited from even older systems, like Roman justice.
This story doesn't hint at corruption or extortion: a plausibly innocent man was swept into a forfeiture system that didn't work as it should.
> a forfeiture system that didn't work as it should
And I'm arguing that the forfeiture system itself contravenes the principles of justice on which the US is founded.
Have you lived in countries where the police can just take away your stuff without recourse because they are a law unto themselves? I have. Trust me, it's no fun.
The history of civil forfeiture is maritime law, which has special conditions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
If you are an innocent person carrying the suspected proceeds of crime, and can prove it's not from a crime, you should not be impacted.
Recourse is built into the civil forfeiture process, afaict. This article is, as I read it, a case of a man using the channels of recourse successfully.
Your portrayal of the police as an arbitrary force that seizes things without recourse is, I think, incorrect.
I'm afraid that this happened, where it is so plainly and fundamentally wrong, expresses that something is fundamentally wrong with the police, and I think it is across the USA? as this behaviour is I think widespread?
We have it here in the UK as well, although it's not quite as harsh (except for large amounts of cash, which the police don't consider normal). The seized items were either being actively used in the crime or it can be shown could only have been purchased through proceeds of crime (eg admin assistant earning 20k who was drug dealing) has a million pound house with no other explanation)
It's a very US thing that for every fine principle such as presumption of innocence, there is an equal and opposite "loophole" or way to bend the rules, that is allowed to make that principle far less effective.
I disagree; the gap is way wider in the US than the countries that the US would like to compare itself to. It's easy to say "they're all as bad as each other", but it's usually inaccurate, and always dismissive.
Correct, it's a 'human' thing - nothing peculiar to US.
Another example would be the fine principle of democracy, and the loopholes of gerrymandering and selective voter suppression.
It makes more sense when you ask "Who bears the burden of these loopholes?" and the answer is always "They disadvantage people of colour".
> The US legal system (unlike some other countries) is built on the presumption of innocence.
In theory yes, but in practice, I had to plead guilty to get out of jail after spending 6 months in jail, otherwise I would have had to spend another 6 months in jail just waiting for my trial.
So you are presumed innocent but they don't mind keeping you in jail anyways.
Sorry, but civil forfeiture is 'civil' not legal. The US Justice system has completely bypassed all kind of US Level systems controls/protections simply by reclassifying them as 'civil' not 'criminal' because our protections only apply to 'criminal' law, such as the huge differences in the standards for a finding of guilt between civil and criminal law.
> Civil forfeiture completely contravenes that principle and is therefore essentially extortion and corruption
I hate civil forefeiture, but let’s not get lost in hyperbole. It facilitates extortion and corruption, but so can almost any police power. The problem is in its conflicts of interest and abridgement of due process, particularly, that of elevating probable cause to grounds for the public taking of private goods without compensation.
>It facilitates extortion and corruption, but so can almost any police power.
I'll add taxes to the list.
Letting police forces retain any of the proceeds of their activities seems like a really bad idea.
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” ― Frédéric Bastiat, French economist http://crn.hopto.org/media/#government
>http://crn.hopto.org/media/#government
Nice cartoon on the government.
I wonder what happened. Traffic stop, seizure of "life savings," something about the drug enforcement agency.
I can guess what happened, but it would be nice to know the story behind the lawsuit. Like... cop did a search, found a ton of cash, took it as if it were drug money, gave the money to feds, never charged anybody with a crime, feds give most of the money to the cop's precinct. But I just made that up.
On the other hand, the point of the post is to explain the legal argument that won, and its implications for upholding the right against unreasonable search and seizure. And it did that.
It's written in a referenced article (https://ij.org/case/nevada-civil-forfeiture/):
> On his drive from Texas to California, a Nevada Highway Patrol officer engineered a reason to pull him over, saying that he passed too closely to a tanker truck. The officer who pulled Stephen over complimented his driving but nevertheless prolonged the stop and asked a series of questions about Stephen’s life and travels. Stephen told the officer that his life savings was in the trunk. Another group of officers arrived, and Stephen gave them permission to search his car. They found a backpack with Stephen’s money, just where he said it would be, along with receipts showing all his bank withdrawals. After a debate amongst the officers, which was recorded on body camera footage, they decided to seize his life savings.
> After that, months passed, and the DEA missed the deadlines set by federal law for it to either return the money or file a case explaining what the government believes Stephen did wrong. So Stephen teamed up with the Institute for Justice to get his money back. It was only after IJ brought a lawsuit against the DEA to return Stephen’s money, and his story garnered national press attention, that the federal government agreed to return his money. In fact, they did so just a day after he filed his lawsuit, showing that they had no basis to hold it.
The part about the receipts I had missed.
Although volunteering information about anything seems suspect.
And it also seems to be a matter of DEA dropping the ball, but perhaps they foot drag knowing that anyone with illegal money isn't going to ask for it back, as they'd have to explain why they had it.
I wonder if Elon is going to suggest we defund the DEA as part of his "DOGE"?
While you are legally allowed to refuse search of your vehicle, in practice people get brutalized for standing up for their rights all the time. The exact boundaries of your legal rights are also not clear to most people (even many lawyers) so you risk refusing an actually legal order and ending up in even more trouble.
Plus, a cop can just call for a canine squad and then get the canine to signal and then use that as probable cause for a search if they really want to fuck your day up in a way that is totally legal.
This makes the idea that you should just confidently advocate for your 4th amendment rights actually pretty unappealing.
>I wonder if Elon is going to suggest we defund the DEA as part of his "DOGE"?
I hope. Bespoke single police agencies only serve the purpose of sucking up resources to enforce stuff that a broad police agency (like the FBI) would never or could not justify allocating so many resources toward.
You get these agencies like the DEA that build up this headcount and budget and then go justify it by engaging in all sorts of bad crap. The FBI would rarely (I'm not gonna say never) waste time going after college kids for making "more than personal use" amounts of acid. If they want to waste man hours on petty things to justify their budget they have a whole laundry list of more legitimate petty things to enforce first.
Well, with all due respect to the heroic efforts of the vast majority of the DEA, if we judge them by their total success or failure, I'd have to go with "failure" as far as the US is concerned.
Being a massive drug market with people dying from drugs on a daily basis is not exactly a shining indicator of success.
That said, for the DEA to succeed we'd need a massive amount of coordination - which is to say real leadership on this issue, I think which may be beyond the DEA by itself.
> Although volunteering information about anything seems suspect.
I don't live in the USA, but to my understanding, it’s common for individuals from minority groups to be taught by their families specific behaviors for interacting with police, such as how to position their hands. I wouldn’t be surprised if this also includes notifying the police about personal belongings that could potentially raise suspicion.
As a minority, you are taught where to hold your hands. But we taught our sons - “don’t talk to the police when questioned”.
We also taught them in case they did have to call the police in case of something like a home break-in, describe themselves. We lived in a city that was less than 4% Black and was a famous “sundown town” as late as the mid 80s
It might be naive, but I don't think it's suspicious to be forthright with the police
Don't hold your breath for the next step where they pass laws criminalizing any attempt to find or use such loopholes, so cops can be jailed for trying to use civil asset forfeiture in any way.
> laws criminalizing any attempt to find or use such loopholes
Loopholes aren’t illegal, they’re a problem with the law. Using the law to criminalise loopholes is Kafkaesque.
In some sense a large amount of law is closing loopholes in earlier law. You're right that my wording was a bit loose, but what I'm saying is Nevada could pass a state law saying "Any attempt by law enforcement to carry out civil asset forfeiture in any way is a felony."
> Nevada could pass a state law saying "Any attempt by law enforcement to carry out civil asset forfeiture in any way is a felony.”
Given felonies require prosecution, this gives prosecutors draconian enforcement powers over police. Maybe that’s okay. I suspect it would facilitate corruption.
Better: remove qualified immunity for asset forfeitures.
That would make legitimate civil asset forfeiture impossible to execute.
Better, I think, would be to pass a law that says "civil asset forfeiture is no longer a thing." The problem then would be "so what do we do with property that should be seized by the state?"
The fire department gets called to an exploded meth lab containing a few dead bodies and a safe containing $200,000. What do?
>"Any attempt by law enforcement to carry out civil asset forfeiture in any way is a felony."
Civil asset forfeiture means a lot more than what you think it does.
Do you remember a story a couple of years ago about a couple who foreclosed on a local Bank of America branch after Bank of America wrongfully started foreclosure proceedings on their home? That's civil asset forfeiture.
The sheriff's deputies who went with them to enforce the foreclosure are not criminals.
If you are a freelancer and your client doesn't pay you and you get a court order to collect what you are owed: civil asset forfeiture.
A clerk filing the paperwork to get you your money is not a criminal.
Even the ACLU is fighting civil asset forfeiture ABUSE because as actual lawyers they understand what it means.
I think the best way to defend against this type of abuse is to make it law that any assets collected by police are not allowed to directly benefit the police or the government they represent.
Maybe just have it all go into an evenly distributed tax rebate, or a giant pizza party for the town. Basically, remove the incentive.
The police should not be financially incentivized to enforce any aspect of the law, because it leads directly to corruption. CMV?
I have never seen anyone abbreviate it like that before. Let's not do that.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=CMV says 'Change My View', though 'Catch My Vibe' also works here.
If your SRE gets a bonus every time they fix an issue in production, you would start incentivizing them to make sure production has lots of issues they can easily fix and get their bonus.
If you de-incentivize them every time there is a problem, they will instead try to hide problems.
How do you come up with fair incentivization?
Not sure where you saw that few people recommend that. In a company, managers are routinely incentivised based on specific metrics (good or bad, typically budget plus some softer metrics). It's the norm, not the exception.
It was even the case in communist russia by the way. With horribly designed metrics, like maximising tonnage of a factory output, which lead factory managers to ditch better product for lesser, heavier products. I think it was described in the book Red Plenty.
Again the problem isn't incentives, it is badly designed incentives.
Depends on the definition of the financial incentive. If it means bonus, then this doesn't handle cases of incompetence or malice, they will still get their salary. If that includes salary too e.g. financial penalties, then you'll get police doing things specifically to preserve their salary and instead of focusing on their core responsibilities.
Just carrots, whatever the definition, won't fix everything, there are assholes in every profession, you need sticks too.
How has civil forfeiture not been ruled illegal at this point? It’s one of the most disgusting corrupt things I’ve seen in my lifetime any I can’t believe both parties support this.
Everyone viewed as legitimate in the eyes of the state has stopped using cash, so leaving this in place as an additional risk to carrying or using cash is a nice bonus in the war against financial privacy and freedom.
One more nail in the coffin of being able to transact in ways either unknown to or unapproved by the state.
In 2011 I spoke at the CCC about why it’s essential to have free and censorship-resistant payments that the state cannot veto:
https://media.ccc.de/v/cccamp11-4591-financing_the_revolutio...
Always use and carry cash. Always tip in cash. Don’t do business with places that don’t accept cash. Store some cash in your home and your car (hidden) for emergencies.
I can believe it. Both parties are pretty "law and order" and rely on relationships with the police. Why piss off an important group of people for an issue that isn't going to sway any votes.
Reform here is something which would presumably have a large amount of support but that's enough to get a law passed or the US would look very different, there are tons of popular things that will never be laws.
Same reason it took half a century for every other rights violation to get in front of a court that matters. The agencies and governments violating people's rights play all sorts of games to prevent it so that they can keep the gravy train rolling.
First party who would propose it would lose support for cops/justice system workers.
> How has civil forfeiture not been ruled illegal at this point?
Isn’t part of the problem prosecutors dropping cases before they make it through appeals? I’m almost ready to PAC an elected prosecutor who commits to taking a test case to SCOTUS.
> Isn’t part of the problem prosecutors dropping cases before they make it through appeals?
Not really, cases on civil forfeiture do make it to the US Supreme Court, the most recent case being decided in 2024.
Cases the prosecutors think they can win make it. But OPs statement is valid, prosecutors can just drop any case they fear will set a precedent and under our system that is the end of the discussion. OPs point is it gives prosecutors an additional thumb on the scale when it come to court oversight.
The Wire is about the War on Drugs. The War on Drugs is responsible for probably 75% of the shockingly oppressive laws still on the books, with most of the balance being the War on Terror.
There's a scene in which an aide for a city politician is stopped leaving known drug dealing actors and the car is found to have bag stuffed with a large amount of cash which is seized.
The point moving forward is will anybody claim the cash and offer an explanation as to where it came from.
The above "you'll know why" appears to carry an implicit "because all cash with no receipt is criminal proceeds".
The problem with that is stories abound of Police seizing cash and other assets and keeping them, spending money, auctioning goods, etc that were never criminal proceeds .. or rather never proved to be criminal proceeds.
Reminds me of the time Frontline(?) had some cameras following around the Newark drug task force (post scandal so they knew to be on their best behavior) and they couldn't hold it together long enough to make enough footage hour or so episode. They initiated a baseless stop and frisk on camera and then dogpiled the guy when he said to leave him alone.
This guy looks familiar from a video on YouTube of the traffic stop and cash seizure. If this in fact is the same guy and case from that video, I wonder what would’ve happened had this not been videotaped / posted online as I’m sure 99% of these similar scenarios are not. Civil forfeiture in the usa really is ridiculous, and I wish it would be radically changed/banned.
It seems especially ironic that this would happen in Nevada, where carrying large amounts of cash is much more normal due to the gambling industry.
18 U.S. Code § 242 - Deprivation of rights under color of law
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242John Oliver did a section on Civil Forfeiture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks
A lot of folks don't like him (politics, but he can also be a rather shrill person).
He does his homework, though, and his main stories are often apolitical.
The fact that we read about single instances like this means some important things are not that fucked. Namely reporting on police misconduct happened and finally the money was returned.
Looking at this the US is not particularly fucked. I wish I could set a higher bar for the world, but don't expect this to change fast.
This. In my country a stop for a traffic offense is more likely to be for a bribe than for a ticket and if they found the money the officers would just keep it for themselves.
On the other hand we clearly have much better banks the the USA does. Out of interest why other than crime or dodging tax would you ever carry large amounts of cash rather than just do a bank transfer?
A bank transfer requires both parties to reveal their account number. I have been told by several people in both the US and the UK that this is a risky thing to do. In fact in those countries where there is no national register of residents and identifying oneself relies on things like utility bills that show your address rather than on a unique ID (personnummer in Norway) that a bank, for instance, can verify online they might actually be right, or right-ish at least.
I rarely hear of identity theft in Norway where banking relies on common ID services (BankID for instance) and the folkeregister (population register) but it seems to be a major problem in, for instance, the UK where there is no equivalent.
It's amazing how the presumption of innocence – one of the pillars of a fair justice system – has eroded away in the popular consciousness in the last few decades. I'm not sure what inspires takes like this beyond sheer callousness, to simply not wonder what happens to those wrongfully convicted/affected by prejudice. Thinking they did it isn't knowing, and it certainly isn't enough to justify ruining (or taking) someone's life.
I'm not sure that the presumption of innocence has eroded away in the popular consciousness. I suspect that it's roughly at the same place as it was in the 1980s. I suspect the big differences that shape one's contemporary perception of the topic are the conversion of most major US-based news agencies to publishing very little but "shock and outrage" stories, and the prevalence of the Internet Hate Machine that is clickbait-promoting "social media" pushing rage-and/or-sorrow-inducing stories in one's face.
But, yeah, it's deeply disappointing for people to say "Wow, what a strange thing for that guy to be doing. Clearly he's up to no good, should be stopped immediately, and have his property confiscated."... when the thing that the fellow is doing inflicts no actual harm on anyone at all.
> I'm not sure that the presumption of innocence has eroded away in the popular consciousness
I'm certain the social media and sensationalist broadcast media have over time nudged people closer to mob justice. Further to that, some of the wins of civil libertarians against draconian law enforcement has been eroded away by giving law enforcement sweeping powers via circumventions on due process such as the Patriot Act and that which is detailed in the OP
Possession of money should not be a crime. Not everyone with money is “shady”.
Exactly. And the appropriate "safeguard" is conviction of a crime. At sentencing, it would be appropriate for a court to consider whether some amount of money constitutes the proceeds of a crime, and what the appropriate disposition of that money would be to best provided restitution to those harmed by the crime. And if there is some belief that something might happen to the assets before then, we have processes like preliminary injunctions, which have a high burden of proof. Until one of those things happens, there are no grounds to justify seizure of any assets.
>Possession of money should not be a crime.
Cash has been illegal for a long time, and it's not just civil forfeiture that makes it illegal. Your bank has been deputized to spy on you if you deposit sums above a limit, at the limit, and "below the limit" (that's structuring also a crime). Other "negotiable instruments" have been outlawed, so that if you want to carry around your wealth, you have to do it in (at most) $100 increments, and they have threatened all my life to stop printing those and bump it down to $20. Meanwhile, in the last two decades we've had two major incidents where if you deposited the money anyway, it could just disappear out from under you without any real guarantees. And when none of that is enough to deter you, they inflate it away day after day until 20 years later it is worth only half of what it used to be. The strong-armed the swiss into no longer offering numbered accounts 30 years ago now. These things aren't coincidences. Money is very much illegal.
> Cash has been illegal for a long time...
Weird. I pay for nearly everything with cash.
I agree that nearly all of the rest of the stuff your comment describes is totally real and totally bullshit, but please don't ruin a good retelling of the facts with breathless hyperbole.
The movie, Rebel Ridge, does a decent job showing just how bad this can be in a small town. It's not exactly realistic for how the former Marine depicted chose to try to resolve the situation... It does give room to consider just how corrupt it can all be. Consider if you live in a town with only one bank. Clearly the bank and the police have a relationship and in a small town, odds are they all know each other quite well. Say someone withdraws money from the bank. Then the teller sort of rats you out to law enforcement or someone adjacent to law enforcement. They manufacture an excuse to pull you over just as was done in this Nevada story. The movie Rebel Ridge goes into the difficulty in even getting your money back in the first place. At one point they explain a large part of the police departments funding comes from this. Then again, it isn't just small police departments getting kick backs, it's everyone involved to run up the cost for someone who had their money stolen.
At some point, civil forfeiture laws will lay the foundation for having any amount of cash being a sort of assumption of criminality. Consider too that smaller banks and even large banks have reserve requirements but not enough to cover all of the deposits. When most money exists in digital form in a database somewhere, over time, the concept of real paper money gets that assumption of wrong doing. Almost like it is the financial equivalent of "you must have something to hide, or else you would be using your credit card".