People do illegal stuff all the time without even knowing it, that doesn't mean the cops and courts can't still fuck you over with it at any time. And even if you just had $20 in your pocket, a cop could seize it and claim they think it was used to buy or was going to sometime in the future buy drugs, and legally that is a completely valid reason even if you have zero drugs in your system and zero on you and were inside a McDonalds waiting in line to buy a burger.
Except the robbery isn't illegal because it is legally civil forfeiture which has repeatedly been upheld.
If you want another example of things that technically should be and people think are illegal for the government to do but are not because the government decided the constitution is inconvenient, look at the 100 mile border zone around the US, of which 2/3rds of people live in, that allows the government to ignore the 4th amendment and other rights. If the feds decide they want to search you without cause, they can just claim they think you are involved with or are an illegal and search you and your property without cause or proof of anything and also setup checkpoints and stop and search everyone in it. And even outside of the external borders, airports have also on occasion been considered a border point to justify such searches and checkpoint stops.
Just because some law isn't regularly enforced over some situation doesn't mean there isn't a law somewhere on the books to do so.
> Except the robbery isn't illegal...
It depends on the particulars. Not every roadside seize stands up to actual inspection. I'd bet that MOST of them (by number of seizures performed) wouldn't. See [0] for a few examples that caught the attention of the news.
> ...the 100 mile border zone...
I live in San Francisco. I'm quite aware. However, that -too- is policy that's continually being eroded by repeated court scrutiny. It's also -in fact- limited to warrantless inspection of immigration documentation... for anything else, you need either "probable cause" or a warrant (which is true for all searches everywhere in the US). [1]
[0] https://www.npr.org/2008/06/16/91555835/cash-seizures-by-pol...
[1] https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone#are-there-...
> limited to warrantless inspection of immigration documentation
That's a pretty massive limit considering there is no form of federal citizenship ID people carry around and there is no straight forward way to prove you are a US citizen on the spot. It is essentially "Papers please!" except most people don't have papers. Even my state driver's license doesn't say "US citizen" on it, nor is it proof of citizenship since non-citizens also get state drivers licenses. So what if they claim they think im an illegal? Then detain me for not having my immigration papers? Throw me in a jail cell and the only thing that happens when im let out is "Oops, see ya next time!". What if they know im a full US citizen but decide to claim they think im hiding illegals in my vehicle? They are under no obligations to pay for damages done during a legal search and merely claiming to suspect illegals in my vehicle could result in them searching it and ripping my seats out.
At no point will be I be compensated for the disregard of my rights because it is legal. If I take monetary losses because of these stops, there is also no recourse except maybe in the most extreme examples they might pay end up paying for a repair, but only after I gamble significant amounts of money on a lawyer, that not everyone has to start with, nor does everyone win.
> People do illegal stuff all the time without even knowing it...
If using and carrying cash was illegal, I wouldn't be able to go to -say- Wal*Mart and hand them cash in exchange for goods and services.
I agree that cops in many jurisdictions are permitted to engage in consequence-free-for-the-perpetrators highway robbery whenever they encounter someone carrying cash. The thing that's illegal in that scenario is the robbery.