[HN Gopher] Cops still take more stuff from people than burglars...
___________________________________________________________________
Cops still take more stuff from people than burglars do (2021)
Author : wahnfrieden
Score : 377 points
Date : 2023-08-02 18:43 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thewhyaxis.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thewhyaxis.substack.com)
| joker_minmax wrote:
| I'd like to get more into cash budgeting (i.e., withdraw a set
| amount at the beginning of the month so I have to physically
| analyze my spending, in-person at least) but this kind of thing
| has always made me nervous to do it. I can only feel like civil
| forfeiture will be used as a part of the broader attack on cash
| in coming years.
| XxCincinnatusxX wrote:
| They used this law against me in East Texas. Cost me $8000 to get
| my car back. They threatened me into signing a confession note.
| There police station looked like a pawn shop on steroids.
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| My brother had his phone stolen when he was in middle school.
|
| He and everyone suspected one classmate. Cops searched him and
| found the phone and other stolen phones. They were all taken into
| "evidence" and refused to give it back no matter how many times
| we asked.
|
| We had to buy a new phone.
|
| Fuckers.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| There's a process for recovering property from the police. Did
| you do more than ask some beat cop who's first instinct is
| likely to be unhelpful because they're an untouchable mafia?
|
| https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/criminal/criminal-law-bas...
| ajmurmann wrote:
| It's completely astonishing how low the ethics standards are
| for police officers in the US! Even if this is the standard
| procedure, you'd expect that a decent person tries to work the
| system in favor of kids whose phone was stolen. But what do we
| expect from police officers who typically require less training
| to become an officer than is needed to get a license as a
| cosmetician?! I dream of a US where it takes 1.5 to 2 years of
| schooling to become a police officer. Where officers take
| hundreds of hours in law, ethics and de-escalation classes. I
| want police officers who have book clubs in which they have
| heated discussions about Kant's and Foucault. I want police
| officers who are passionate and knowledgeable about justice,
| are true experts in law enforcement and improving our society
| and hold each other accountable! I don't think that's
| unreasonable, given this is equivalent to the professionalism I
| expect from other people who are good at their profession.
| elcritch wrote:
| Everytime this comes up I'm utterly shocked how such blatant
| violation of the fourth amendment hasn't been struck down by the
| supreme court. Especially for conservatives it should be a clear
| case of governmental overreach. For the liberal side what about
| defunding the police stuff? Its clear niether political party
| actually cares about following the constitution, which is just a
| let down.
|
| Maybe we need a "NRA" for money, property, and encryption.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| its been upheld by the courts in a variety of ways:
|
| one that the 4th amendment doesn't apply because you haven't
| proved its yours. the text says "The right of the people to be
| secure in _their_ " so it applies after you prove it is
| something you have the right to be secure of to begin with! and
| if there is something illegal you incriminate yourself in the
| process and it switches to a criminal charge against you and
| the associated criminal asset forfeiture.
|
| but our new supreme court will re-examine it more decisively,
| lets wait till next year and see what happens!
| yieldcrv wrote:
| The rationale for civil asset forfeiture should be applied to
| random bank branches, and the practice will meet its natural
| conclusion extremely quickly.
|
| but that is the clearest depiction of this caste system. people
| that can obviously fight do not have their cash and effects
| seized.
| brewdad wrote:
| Ah, see, the cash that was stolen? That was your cash. We, the
| bank, only hold onto your cash for safekeeping. Your balance
| has been reduced appropriately.
| taeric wrote:
| I can hope that the numbers "seized" don't include things that
| are returned after verification of ownership or any other
| exonerating circumstances. Is that tracked?
|
| That is, this is much less concerning if the numbers are such
| that 90%, say, is proven illicit.
| hgsgm wrote:
| The number also includes funds that were seized after criminal
| conviction.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Houses too? In that case the numbers don't say much.
| taeric wrote:
| Do you have a breakdown that distinguishes that?
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Well the $100k story was determined to not have any
| evidence/proof beyond police suspicion (you can find more
| details that were released after this was written - the cops
| didn't like that her eyes darted once during questioning, that
| she said the luggage was gray not black, the cops said they
| smelled weed even though there was none found, etc - that was
| sufficient justification to seize the cash and close the case
| without filing any charges) and the money was not returned
|
| To get the money back, it must be fought in court. Legal fees
| are not returned if the case is won, and if lost, you must
| cover the defense fees. In Illinois the median forfeiture was
| about $1k, with many <$100 forfeitures clustered in the poorest
| neighborhoods, while lawyer fees are ~$3k for state/local
| police cases. Federal seizures are much more expensive to
| fight.
|
| There's no process where the police further verify the
| provenance of the cash they seize and return it without it
| being fought for in court. It's taken and they celebrate it and
| move on. So as with most police oversight, the numbers you're
| asking for don't exist.
| taeric wrote:
| That is infuriating, to say the least. :(
| toss1 wrote:
| >>a cash-sniffing dog with the Dallas Police Department alerted
| on a suitcase that had been checked in at Love Field for a
| domestic flight to Chicago. Officers subsequently searched the
| bag and found over $100,000 in cash inside.
|
| Likely alerted to the scent of drug residues on the bills, which
| is supposedly on essentially every bill in circulation.
|
| So, perhaps the owner of the cash might have been better off by
| first putting it in a washing machine with soap, i.e. physically
| laundering the money?
| tristor wrote:
| No. They actually train dogs to alert on cash, specifically.
| The scent they train on is the scent of the special ink used to
| print US currency. They do this because large amounts of cash
| moving between cities/states is often a hallmark of organized
| crime.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| Cash sniffing dogs for the express purpose of robbing
| citizens without any reasonable suspicion, much less probable
| cause.
|
| If contraband or other crimes were involved, then I say seize
| property, but the police shouldn't be the Sheriff of
| Nottingham looking for citizens to rob.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| And because they can freely take cash for personal use when
| they find it.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Civil asset forfeiture is disgusting and ought to be ruled
| unconstitutional. However, most of the stuff they seize really is
| crime-related.
| aqme28 wrote:
| > However, most of the stuff they seize really is crime-
| related.
|
| I don't really see how that matters. Most people tried for
| murder are guilty, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have
| their day in court.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| It's relevant to the claim that cops are taking more stuff
| than burglars. Most of the stuff the cops are taking is crime
| proceeds!
| lamontcg wrote:
| So, prove it.
| test098 wrote:
| > Most of the stuff the cops are taking is crime proceeds!
|
| you keep saying this but you have no data whatsoever to
| support this claim.
| phyllistine wrote:
| [Citation Needed]
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Source? Or did you make that up
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| It doesn't pass the smell test that it could be false. Call
| that "made up" if you like.
| fnordfnordfnord wrote:
| Hand waving a reasonable question away.
| Finnucane wrote:
| Sure, but penalties for crimes have limits and civil forfeiture
| doesn't, which raises constitutional issues itself.
| standardUser wrote:
| That's because there's too many crimes, mostly relating to
| drugs. If we were to make caffeine illegal tomorrow then there
| would be a lot of "crime-related" money seized from the coffee
| industry, but it's only "crime-related" because we're dumb
| enough to consider a victimless act a crime.
| 221qqwe wrote:
| Technically indiscriminately selling literal poison with a
| very low LD50 to people with "somewhat" poor impulse control
| is a victimless crime, sure.
|
| Of course, I guess, fentanyl et al. are a thing because more
| benign drugs were criminalized for so long. However in no way
| does that make hard drugs comparable to caffeine though... Do
| you believe that all substances must be legalized and widely
| available?
| standardUser wrote:
| I believe the current system is an abject failure that has
| seriously curtailed civil liberties, costs an endless
| fortune of taxpayer money, completely fails to help people
| who do have serious addiction problems and ruins lives,
| mostly of more vulnerable people, with fines and criminal
| records and jail time. It also force people to buy impure
| drugs, directly resulting in many deaths and accidental
| overdoses, including a huge part of the fentanyl death
| toll.
|
| I think most of the popular drugs should be legalized with
| various levels of access and greater restrictions for the
| drugs we known are most prone to serious abuse, such as
| opioids and speed (along with nicotine and alcohol).
| There's simply no reason a grown adult shouldn't be able to
| smoke a joint or eat some mushrooms or do some lines of
| coke in their own home - and buy them safely and legally
| without undue fear of impurities.
| RajT88 wrote:
| For seizures of sums of cash as little as $100 (mentioned in
| the article), I very much doubt that to be true.
|
| > In practice, however, civil forfeiture is often wielded
| against regular people who aren't doing anything wrong. In many
| states the typical cash forfeiture amount is in the hundreds of
| dollars -- $423 in Michigan, or $369 in Pennsylvania, according
| to the latest data from the Institute for Justice, a law firm
| that represents forfeiture victims and tracks the practice
| nationwide. In many cities police departments have been known
| to make seizures of less than $100 on the flimsiest pretenses,
| typically concentrated in the poorest neighborhoods.
|
| The usage of 'typical' sounds like they mean 'average', for
| such precise numbers.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| I didn't realize IJ was involved in this, but good for them.
| They do great work.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| > However, most of the stuff they seize really is crime-
| related.
|
| Torture might be an effective way to get most criminals to
| confess and getting a slam dunk conviction when going to trial
| where a jury may mistakenly exonerate them, but that doesn't
| mean that it's the _right_ or even _moral_ way to do so.
|
| Further, ask yourself this - what is a crime? Answer - it's
| whatever the legislature says it is, and as a political body
| they are influenced by what the dominant group in power wants.
| LammyL wrote:
| If it is crime related, then the courts could impose criminal
| asset forfeiture (aka a fine) after a criminal conviction.
|
| Civil asset forfeiture needs to disappear completely and
| forever.
| hgsgm wrote:
| They do and that is included in the total, as the article
| states.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| It is sometimes not as straightforward, as I think we have
| that in order to prevent people from having enough funds to
| escape courts, as in, without money it's harder to flee law.
| Now some middle class criminals might be affected, some high
| class criminals might have funds around the world in rogue
| states and might be able to flee anyway, the issue as usual
| seem to be of the randomers, always taking the biggest hit of
| any law done to prevent crime
|
| But I think in this case the issue is not the tool to freeze
| or seize assets in itself, which used pragmatically helps
| society, is the accountability of those who exploit it
|
| I have vibes regarding this like those who said ok there are
| some shitty cops who shot people, then let's defund the
| police
| test098 wrote:
| how are you able to make this claim?
|
| "Although there are accessible statistics of seizures at the
| federal level, it often happens that the totals of forfeitures
| from both criminals and innocent owners are combined; for
| example, one report was that in 2010, government seized $2.5
| billion in assets from criminals and innocent owners by
| forfeiture methods,[16] and the totals of assets seized
| incorrectly from innocent owners was not separated
| statistically. Further, since the United States is a federal
| republic with governments at both the national and state level,
| there are civil forfeiture seizures at the state level, which
| are not tracked and recorded in any central database,[12] which
| make it difficult to make assessments, since state laws and
| procedures vary widely."
|
| -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| There's just no way that they're _mostly_ seizing innocent
| people's stuff.
| test098 wrote:
| your feelings about the matter isn't actual data though
| jsight wrote:
| I see a lot of commenters pointing out that this includes
| legitimate forfeiture due to criminal activity.
|
| That is certainly true. But how do you measure legitimate vs
| illegitimate taking of property?
|
| With burglary, it is fairly trivial. But otherwise? I'm not aware
| of statistics breaking down the amount of money and assets that
| get taken without any charges.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| I seriously doubt the police ever publish stats on seized
| property they were forced to return because no crime was
| committed.
|
| Most of the time, the people who are robbed by the police can't
| afford or don't know how to get their property back.
|
| https://archive.is/o7xdQ
| SkipperCat wrote:
| Civil forfeiture should have a time boundary. If police seize
| your property, they should have 90 days to indite you with a
| crime and if they don't they should be forced to return all of
| your property.
|
| I've read articles about how some police departments are training
| their staff to engage in this behavior and using forfeiture as a
| profit center. What they are doing is wholesale theft.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| CAF shouldn't be happening. Period.
|
| The government suspects someone of committing a crime? File
| charges and bring them to court.
|
| At the very least, CAF should require a warrant. Cops should
| not be able to seize assets as part of a typical traffic stop.
|
| I just can't see how CAF has survived so long without being
| ruled a violation of our Fourth Amendment right against
| unreasonable searches and seizures.
| RhodesianHunter wrote:
| People seem to think the police exist to enforce laws and
| justice.
|
| The police exist to maintain and protect existing power
| structures, including the police themselves.
|
| A lot starts making more sense in that context.
| mulmen wrote:
| The police _should_ exist to enforce law and justice. This
| prevents mob rule. You are correct that police do not
| currently serve this purpose.
| pineaux wrote:
| Actually, that is not the reason why they should exist.
| That is the story you are told. But this story has never
| been true, the propaganda is just a bit more effective
| these days.
|
| I mean. Look at: Paw Patrol, Miami Vice, Tokyo Vice, the
| Wire, Criminal Minds, Chicago PD, Southland, Bosch, Law
| and Order: all of them, law and Order: all of them, CSI:
| all of them, Luther, The Shield, Reno 911, etc.
|
| I mean this list is just from the top of my head.
|
| We are being indoctrinated in our image of the police.
| Some rotten apples are shown, but in the end they are
| always The Good Guys.
| mulmen wrote:
| Uh. Cops are certainly not always portrayed in media as
| the good guys. The Wire and Reno 911 aren't even positive
| portrayals. On top of that media portrayals are
| irrelevant in this context.
|
| The alternative to a state monopoly on violence is mob
| rule. You can call that state entity whatever you want,
| police, militia, whatever. But some regulated construct
| needs to exist.
|
| If you can't separate that concept from the current model
| of policing it's unlikely we can have an interesting
| conversation.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| The police _do_ prevent "mob rule" today. They use
| violence to keep a minority of wealthy people atop a
| social hierarchy. When the "mob" below acts up, they
| violently quash them.
|
| Like, think of any mass social protest movement. Who is
| the primary "boots-on-the-ground" opposition? It is
| _always_ the police. It will _always be_ the police. That
| 's what they're there for.
| mulmen wrote:
| I'm describing an ideal future state. You're describing
| the suboptimal current state. This is why I emphasized
| "should".
|
| In my city the police deliberately avoid enforcing basic
| traffic laws and petty crime in a bid to get more
| funding. As that continues more and more of my neighbors
| arm themselves. At some point the scales tip and the
| people take matters into their own hands.
|
| Police can abuse their power in the short term but it
| can't continue forever.
| postalrat wrote:
| Do you think that it's actually possible to avoid having
| a group a people that feel they've been cheated somehow?
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| * * *
| nrdxp wrote:
| Well, if you are talking about the United States and the
| supposed Supreme Law of the Land that nobody seems to be
| too well educated on nowadays, actually it is the job of
| local militia to defend and enforce civil order
|
| You can not have a free society without a populace taking
| responsibility for their own. There is a reason the
| slogan "freedom isn't free", was a big thing in America
| til just a generation or two ago. The second you start
| delegating things like safety to the gov you've lost.
|
| Just look at modern America, a giant portion of folks
| cannot survive without gov assistance now, and look where
| that got us. How can you oppose a corrupt gov if you
| cannot even survive without it?
|
| Unless you are so brainwashed (as many still are) that
| you think that the total lack of privacy and agency in
| modern America is both good, and somehow fitting to the
| intent of the Constitution as written.
| krapp wrote:
| So you want to disband all police and leave police powers
| entirely in the hands of "local militias", which
| according to current definitions of the 2nd Amendment are
| (reading notes) _literally any American with a gun?_
|
| Like these jackasses[0]. You want to give _these people_
| the right to arbitrarily arrest, detain and kill because
| two centuries ago Thomas Jefferson saw the horrors of the
| French Revolution, got the biggest boner of his life and
| thought "how about that, but a whole country, all the
| time?"
|
| No thank you. I don't trust the cops but I trust my
| fellow armed Americans even less. At least the police,
| ostensibly, have a system they have to abide by other
| than a piece of parchment saying "everyone gets as many
| guns as they want, no questions asked." What you're
| advocating is essentially gang warfare.
|
| Also, "freedom isn't free" became popular as a meme from
| South Park making fun of the wave of jingoistic,
| patriotic BS songs after 9/11.
|
| It costs a buck o'five, by the way.
|
| [0]https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-53891184
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Just look at modern America, a giant portion of folks
| cannot survive without gov assistance now
|
| Boomers are more than "a generation or two ago."
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > actually it is the job of local militia to defend and
| enforce civil order
|
| Doesn't that encourage vigilanteism?
| justapassenger wrote:
| This is just a sound bite.
|
| Police has lots of problems in USA. But go live in the
| country without effective police force first, and then talk
| about how police isn't here to enforce laws and justice.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Not a great argument.
|
| Police here are not interested in justice, and this is
| trivial to prove based on their behavior.
|
| Courts have also ruled that police have no duty to
| protect citizens.
|
| Policing in the US is fundamentally broken. That there
| exist places with worse policing problems does not mean
| ours are not serious, foundational, and endemic.
| justapassenger wrote:
| > Police here are not interested in justice, and this is
| trivial to prove based on their behavior.
|
| Is it? There are bad stories, sure. Horrible ones, yes.
| Police officers who should be in jail for life - yes!
|
| But there's also a tons of good stories, that just don't
| get reported, because they don't generate outrage and
| clicks.
| johndhi wrote:
| Does that make sense? It doesn't to me. The phrase "power
| structures" isn't even one most people understand (I'm not
| sure I do, and I'm a lawyer) so it's hard to believe the
| hundreds of police organizations that independently exist
| across this country exist to maintain them.
|
| Police exist because they were funded by governments. They
| are the way they are because of the various incentives,
| organizational politics, their day-to-day experiences on
| the job, and the minds of the people who staff them. Rather
| than declaring them part of a fascist plot, why not just
| try to think about where improvements can be made?
| _jal wrote:
| > They are the way they are because of the various
| incentives, organizational politics
|
| Congrats, you just provided a description of "power
| structures". Now you know.
|
| > Rather than declaring them part of a fascist plot
|
| Especially as a lawyer, you should know better than to
| put words in someone else's mouth - it leads to people
| distrusting what you say. I'll certainly be more closely
| checking what you're replying to from now on...
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Because of the Police's past and ongoing actions and
| behaviors. But let's make it out that those people that
| have become jaded regarding the Police are the ones
| acting in bad faith, versus, you know, the people with
| authority whose own actions are the cause of 'needing to
| make improvements' which in the current discussion is a
| reduction a euphemism for 'the Police stealing people's
| property'.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| It makes sense that the police exist to enforce existing
| power structures, yes. The people in power (wealthy
| individuals and organizations who can buy political
| capital, and the politicians that represent them) use the
| police as a threat of and actual tool of violence to
| subdue anyone that would challenge their power.
|
| > Rather than declaring them part of a fascist plot, why
| not just try to think about where improvements can be
| made?
|
| The first step to fixing a system is to understand it.
| Taking a valid description and twisting it in to an
| accusation of a "fascist plot" is a great way to ensure
| you will never understand the system in the way which is
| required to actually improve it.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| We're all trying to frame things in a way that will
| logically lead our preferred solutions.
|
| But the description "police exist to enforce existing
| power structures" implies that the power structures are
| illegitimate, which suggests that the police are as well,
| which in turn suggests we should tear it all down and
| start over.
|
| But I've never seen anyone who 1) recommends tearing
| everything down and 2) has a realistic (or even defined)
| plan to rebuild it.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| I've seen plenty of anarchists who do recommend tearing
| everything down. Antifa has clothed themselves in the
| name of supposedly being against fascism, but they define
| fascism as any current system of government. They're
| anarchists, though the media covers them as "activists."
|
| You're right about number 2, though.
| wak90 wrote:
| Sure bud. As a semi anarchist, here is a very widely
| accepted definition of fascism.
|
| https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-
| fasci...
|
| Edit: you're also very wrong about number 2, you just
| haven't been exposed to people proposing solutions.
| krapp wrote:
| The "defund the police" movement originated with BLM, not
| Antifa. And the Wikipedia page[0] for it mentions the
| plan, in general terms supports removing
| funds from police departments and reallocating them to
| non-policing forms of public safety and community
| support, such as social services, youth services,
| housing, education, healthcare and other community
| resources. Activists who use the phrase may do so with
| varying intentions; some seek modest reductions, while
| others argue for full divestment as a step toward the
| abolition of contemporary police services. Activists who
| support the defunding of police departments often argue
| that investing in community programs could provide a
| better crime deterrent for communities; funds would go
| toward addressing social issues, like poverty,
| homelessness, and mental disorders.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defund_the_police
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| "Black Lives Matter" and "Defund the Police" are two
| pieces of evidence that show that the left is terrible at
| creating names for their movements.
|
| They'd get a lot more support if they had gone with
| "Black Lives Matter Too!" and "Reform the Police" or some
| other phrase that actually suggested their actual
| desires.
| [deleted]
| jrflowers wrote:
| > Rather than declaring them part of a fascist plot, why
| not just try to think about where improvements can be
| made?
|
| This is a good point. Fascism is made up and has never
| existed, and it certainly has never been created or
| perpetuated by police. It is a mystery why anyone would
| make a statement otherwise when the better option of
| discussing theoretical incremental change is on the
| table.
| krapp wrote:
| Yes. We must only ever effect change within the system,
| in ways that don't upset the status quo or in any way
| inconvenience those in power. Like that nice, polite
| fellow Martin Luther King Jr. Whatever happened to him?
| [deleted]
| digging wrote:
| They didn't say it was a fascist plot. And, well, it's
| factual that the origin of policing in the U.S. is in
| enforcing slavery and post-slavery racism. All it takes
| is a large number of fascist-leaning people with
| government blessing to self-perpetuate. CAF is one way
| that happens. Cops rob people and then buy fancy coffee
| makers and other things to make their jobs more
| enjoyable. Very simple incentives enforce the power
| structure.
| caconym_ wrote:
| American police are the way they are (including their
| ability to arbitrarily and indefinitely seize your
| property without charging you with a crime, as discussed
| here) because nobody with the power to put meaningful
| checks on them has chosen to do so, and in the absence of
| checks police organizations tend to evolve into state-
| sanctioned criminal gangs.
|
| That's the picture as it exists today. If you don't see
| existing power structures anywhere in that picture, you
| may need [new] glasses.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| >I'm a lawyer
|
| I'm reminded of the line about how hard it is to get
| someone to understand something when their livelihood
| depends on their NOT understanding it.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| This is the equivalent of someone saying "I'm a software
| dev, implementing X feature is difficult to impossible"
| and then getting the reply "that's because you're too
| entrenched in the current system."
| [deleted]
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Not really.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Nope, here are the rules:
| https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-4/
|
| No time limit nonsense, get a warrant. Charge them with a
| crime. That's the law no matter what the idiots running
| courthouses in this country think, your precedent has no power
| here.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| It's more like: any assets taken by civil asset forfeiture
| should fund civics classes so that the people that are having
| their property stolen know just how anti-American that is.
| pydry wrote:
| I think they know. If you polled the country a tiny
| fraction would say that they think it's a good thing.
| deprecative wrote:
| Civil forfeiture is a foundational part of the American
| way. We traded in humans at the start of our country. That
| has never stopped. Instead of being African Americans (or
| Black people generally) in current reality it's... our
| Black communities who we target and throw in prison which
| is the only exception.
|
| Then look at Capitalism. Exploiting labor to drain any
| opportunity of wealth building from the working class and
| transferring it to those with wealth.
|
| People have this twisted idea that America is a moral or
| ethical place. It's not. We live in a toxic culture and it
| has always been and it will continue to be. There is no
| escape.
| specialist wrote:
| Right. Your point is obvious and correct.
|
| But. You naively assume judicial philosophy must be bound by
| rules, logic, common sense, ethics, public interest, or
| precedent.
|
| The Bill of Rights applies to _people_ , not _property_. To
| rationalize civil forfeiture, the reactionaries created a
| legal fiction that property has agency unto itself. Further,
| property can be suspected of wrong doing, even by just by
| existing.
|
| Worse, the rules for civil forfeiture are flipped. Whereas
| people charged in criminal court are presumed innocent until
| proven guilty, somehow property must be proven innocent.
| Apparently courts can prove a negative, even if logic cannot.
|
| IANAL. Trying to grok the judicial philosophies of the
| r/iamverysmart reactionaries breaks my brain. These helped me
| kinda grasp what's happening:
|
| Bennis v. Michigan
|
| "On this week's episode of 5-4, Peter (@The_Law_Boy),
| Rhiannon (@AywaRhiannon), and Michael (@_FleerUltra) talk
| about civil forfeiture, the practice that lets police seize
| private property if it's suspected of being involved in a
| crime."
|
| https://www.fivefourpod.com/episodes/bennis-v-michigan/
|
| Civil versus criminal forfeiture
|
| "...assets are seized by police based on a suspicion of
| wrongdoing, and without having to charge a person with
| specific wrongdoing, with the case being between police and
| the thing itself, sometimes referred to by the Latin term _in
| rem_ , meaning "against the property"; the property itself is
| the defendant and no criminal charge against the owner is
| needed."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United.
| ..
| jh00ker wrote:
| If I check a suitcase full of money on my flight, or if I
| pass it through TSA security, I must consent to being
| searched (without a warrant) in order to fly.
|
| It's not like I have a suitcase of money in my trunk and I've
| been pulled over by the police without cause and I can refuse
| to give consent.
|
| Therefore I don't think the 4 amendment applies.
|
| Isn't the argument for CAF that the mere possession of the
| large sum of money is just cause to confiscate it? That's why
| a time limit would work. DUring that time period, they could
| try to get a warrant. The judge would not give a warrant if
| that is the only evidence. Then the assets would be returned.
| maxbond wrote:
| It also regularly happens that people are pulled over and
| subject to forfeiture. The first time I heard of it, it was
| an article about someone who was driving to pick up a car
| they had agreed to purchase over the internet. They had,
| iirc, something like $20k in their trunk, and the police
| seized it in a traffic stop.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| The Bill of Rights is a patchwork of conditional, wishy-
| washy broken promises, isn't it?
|
| If I sign up for an account on Facebook, then I agree to
| waive my first-amendment rights.
|
| If I walk into any number of stores or churches or
| government buildings, I agree to waive my second-amendment
| rights.
|
| Sixth amendment? Just keep redefining "speedy" and make
| enough excuses for trials delayed and justice denied.
|
| Tenth Amendment? If a state passes a law judged odious by
| the Federal Government, then kiss your funding sources bye-
| bye!
| edmundsauto wrote:
| How does signing up for an account waive my 1st amendment
| rights?
|
| > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
| of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
| abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
| right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
| petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
| quandrum wrote:
| A lot of your complaints are with the libertarian nature
| of our government.
|
| The constitution protects private dictators from
| interference by the government, not citizens from
| interference by private dictators. It's an important
| distinction to remember in the USA
| AmVess wrote:
| CAF abuse is so widespread that it should be abolished.
| mulmen wrote:
| 90 days is a long time. Imagine a recent college graduate
| moving cross country to a new city in search of work. They are
| unlikely to have resources to live for 90 days if the cops
| seize all their cash.
|
| The cops can get a warrant. If they can't convince a judge then
| they don't need to seize anything. The police serve _us_ , not
| the other way around.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Local police bar near me has a sign above the entry that says
| "brothers before others".
|
| They know who they serve. Seems to be themselves.
| chefandy wrote:
| There's also a big hierarchy once they get into the
| _others_ territory, and it 's usually in lockstep with
| socioeconomic status.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| The money is often used on personal expenditures like a new
| F-350 truck for personal use, commemorative Super Bowl badges,
| or premium salmon-jerky dogfood (actual examples from Georgia).
| Most seized money does not even get put into a general fund for
| budget-based reallocation and is left up to discretionary
| "slush fund" use.
| empyrrhicist wrote:
| Sounds like a nice incentive to charge people with crimes they
| didn't commit...
| brewdad wrote:
| That would _still_ be an improvement over today where one
| never needs to be charged with a crime at all and only the
| stack of cash has a right to defend itself in court.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Civil forfeiture should have a time boundary. If police seize
| your property, they should have 90 days to indite you with a
| crime
|
| I think you are slightly confused. Civil asset forfeiture does
| not require any crime (hence _civil_ asset forfeiture, rather
| than criminal asset forfeiture), and the government charges
| _the property itself_ , the owner is a third party claimant.
| bhelkey wrote:
| I believe 'should' is the operative word in that comment.
| They don't claim the world works that way but that it should.
| bsder wrote:
| The "proper" solution is that any property, cash, fines, etc.
| produced by the "criminal justice" system goes only to victims
| and anything extra should always go into a fund that gets
| returned directly to the citizens.
|
| It doesn't go into a budget. It doesn't fund anything else.
| Anything collected goes to victims or it goes back to the
| people.
|
| This would stop _ALL_ of the perverse incentives.
| asveikau wrote:
| Victims of crime should not be given special powers. If
| anything, their biased position makes them less able to
| understand that the accused has rights, should be evaluated
| impartially, are presumed innocent, and shouldn't be subject
| to unfair punishment if proven guilty.
|
| I'm really tired of seeing internet commentary on "tough on
| crime" attitudes where people think victims are basically
| judge and jury, possibly omniscient, and their hurt and
| revenge fantasies should decide policy for millions of
| unrelated people, supersedes the needs of everybody else,
| like our need to have an impartial justice system and prevent
| wrongful conviction.
|
| But getting back to your comment, if you want to know where
| the "perverse incentive" is in your proposal, it creates
| incentive for someone to falsely present themselves as a
| victim of a crime.
| maxbond wrote:
| Not quite all, the arbitrary exercise of power is itself an
| incentive. You can use it to intimidate people or to punish
| people you don't have the evidence to prosecute (which is to
| say, those with the presumption of innocence).
|
| That would help a ton though.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| After thinking of this exact thing for maybe 30 years I think
| all fines, etc should be turned over to the Social Security
| Administration. Advantage something like 98% of the money
| transferred to SS goes right back out the door.
| kuboble wrote:
| Where I live we have the electricity bill system that kind
| of works that way.
|
| The idea is that let us say the normal price of electricity
| would be e.g. 10c / kwH. To incentivize people to use less
| electricity we charge 20c/ but the extra 10c go to the fund
| which at the end of the year is split evenly between all
| electricity consumers.
|
| So basically everyone pays 20c x consumption -10c x
| (average consumption).
| mulmen wrote:
| So your suggestion is that the cops should seize
| _everyone's_ property then reallocate it at years end?
| unshavedyak wrote:
| The problem with that is as inefficiency grows within the
| organization that receives the money - so do incentives to
| capture more. Even if it's coming from an external
| organization (the police), they can still communicate and
| find ways to work together through this perverse incentive.
|
| This is more difficult if 100% of it goes out the door.
| Hypothetically you could still get ecosystem issues,
| though. Where an org argues for more fines so that their
| existence is justified and that they don't shrink. etc.
| mulmen wrote:
| The allocation of ill gotten gains is irrelevant. This is
| theft. These are assets that belong to honest citizens.
| It's unacceptable that they would lose their honest gains
| to the whims of a cop.
| unshavedyak wrote:
| Yea, don't think anyone (or at least myself and the
| parent) are arguing anything related to that.
|
| we're discussing the incentives that lead to police
| becoming thieves. Which is just as important as the
| police being thieves. Assuming you want to fix the root
| cause, at least.
| mulmen wrote:
| We don't need to _disincentivize_ the police from
| stealing. We need to take away their legally sanctioned
| right to steal.
| mulmen wrote:
| Nope. CAF is theft. Reallocating the ill got gains to
| something you like doesn't make it right. SSA is worth
| funding on its own. We shouldn't need to arbitrarily steal
| from people to fund it. And we certainly shouldn't leave
| SSA funding up to the police.
|
| We have fundamental concepts like equal representation and
| equal treatment under the law that clearly show CAF to be
| wrong.
| maxbond wrote:
| Still a good idea for eg parking tickets (I don't think
| they meant to offer a defence of CAF).
| legitster wrote:
| > That pattern has held true for three of the last six years,
| although numbers in 2014 and 2015 were skewed somewhat by big,
| legitimate forfeiture cases involving huge sums of cash: the
| Bernie Madoff scandal, for instance.
|
| This is a pretty big freaking caveat. If you actually look at the
| DOJ source, about $1 billion a year comes from low-level seizures
| (https://www.justice.gov/d9/pages/attachments/2020/02/09/afp_...)
| Almost all of the rest comes from huge white-collar busts.
|
| The white collar seizures almost work the exact same way. Toyota
| was never charged with a crime over their accelerator pedal
| issue. But the government just seized 1.2 billion from them and
| kept a huge chunk of it for themselves.
| justrealist wrote:
| This conflates "Civil Asset Forfeiture" with "Asset Forfeiture",
| and any analysis which doesn't preserve that distinction is
| meaningless.
|
| Bernie Madoff had his assets seized. That's not wrong, illegal,
| or unconstitutional.
| hgsgm wrote:
| [flagged]
| phyllistine wrote:
| The rate of Forfeiture is going up [1] while the rate of
| burglary is going down. Unless you hold the position that
| dwindling number of burglars are becoming massively more
| efficient over time, it is clear that civil asset forfeiture is
| a major problem.
|
| [1] https://ij.org/report/policing-for-
| profit-3/pfp3content/forf...
|
| [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/191243/reported-
| burglary...
| coolspot wrote:
| Burglary going down after 2020 ?
|
| Nah, maybe only if people just stopped reporting (because
| Police won't do anything).
| seadan83 wrote:
| The comment with citation you are responding to shows a
| clear down line. The year over year trend is pretty strong
| and goes back a couple decades now.
|
| Perhaps you are thinking of violent crime which did go up
| in 2020. That is also down in 2021 from 2020 (and I was
| really surprised that there has been such a strong downward
| trend since 1990, I would not have guessed that the violent
| crime rate of today is almost half of 1990!)
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-
| violent-...
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| The commenters here who attempt to bring balance to the
| discussion by pointing out how scary SF is and the like
| are more afraid of visible homelessness than actual
| violence
| jokoon wrote:
| The US is such a scary country
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Civil forfeiture is a problem in Canada as well. I don't know
| much about elsewhere
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Almost everything is ugly when you look at it up close
| ortusdux wrote:
| And employers take more than both combined.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft
| robocat wrote:
| If "wage theft" is relevant, then so is time theft (employees
| getting paid for time they didn't work)
|
| * Time theft causes U.S. employers more than $400 billion per
| year lost in productivity.
|
| * In a survey done in 2015, 43% of employees admitted to
| deliberately committing time theft. And, 25% of employees
| admitted to reporting more hours than they actually worked 75%
| to 100% of the time!
| skeaker wrote:
| > If "wage theft" is relevant, then so is time theft
|
| How? Isn't this a whataboutism?
|
| And do your bullet points have sources? They sound like the
| sort of thing a corrupt business would falsely report.
| robocat wrote:
| What about that whataboutism?
|
| I am trying to parody the point that as soon as we decide
| that theft can mean whatever we wish it to (for presumably
| good reasons), then that implicitly allows everyone
| (including people you'd rather didn't) to use theft to mean
| whatever they want it to.
|
| Civil forfeiture is not theft (although it certainly feels
| like it to victims, and there are similarities between the
| two concepts).
|
| Thread root claims wage theft is a bigger problem, and I am
| balancing that with time theft.
|
| Sorry for stealing your attention.
| rightbyte wrote:
| How is "time theft" a good name for this?
|
| "Time theft" should be stealing the employees' time, by not
| paying.
|
| Pretending to work could be called "wage theft" too, as the
| employee could be comsidered stealing wage from the employer.
|
| Edit: Oh ... ye ok got it. "Time theft" works both ways too.
| cma wrote:
| I can imagine employers + landlords is a pretty big cut off the
| top.
| vlunkr wrote:
| And racoons steal your garbage. I'm not sure what either of
| those has to do with the article though.
| RhodesianHunter wrote:
| Institutionalized theft unimpeded by the government is the
| broader point.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Wage theft and civil forfeiture also receive negligible
| mainstream coverage relative to to burglary, shoplifting,
| or even raccoon nuisance
|
| edit: and evidently are topics that will get articles nuked
| off the front page here
| dheera wrote:
| Investors as well, who handshake and even sign deals without
| wiring funds.
|
| Sometimes that causes companies to abruptly shutdown and not
| meet payroll.
|
| It should be criminal to sign a term sheet and not wire funds,
| and even in the case of a handshake deal employees should have
| recourse to get their last paycheck with that investor AND
| extend their H1B validity for an additional 6 months to find a
| job.
| wnevets wrote:
| but the justice system in the US will almost always punish a
| burglar more harshly.
| dbingham wrote:
| Yep. If you are a retail worker and your boss withholds $20
| from your paycheck, it's not considered criminal theft. It's a
| civil matter. You have no recourse except civil law. In many
| states, you have to file a complaint with the Attorney
| General's office which may or may not do anything about it.
|
| If you decide to simply take $20 out of the till to pay
| yourself - that's criminal theft. You get arrested, go to jail,
| and have to fight criminal charges.
|
| It's one of the more blatant examples of how the laws of the
| United States are written to unjustly empower those with wealth
| that I am aware of.
| toolz wrote:
| What do you suggest is the alternative? To equitably empower
| the poor and the wealthy even though the poor cost more to
| empower and have less potential to give back to the country?
| If you want a wealthy country, I imagine you have strike a
| balance that favors empowering the wealthy.
| maxbond wrote:
| Not the GP, but I actually don't care at all about living
| in a "wealthy country," I'd like to live in a country where
| our resources are allocated appropriately, we're able to
| invest in ourselves and our futures, and people have access
| to what they need regardless of their wealth, influence, or
| ability.
|
| That doesn't require wealth as much as it requires equity.
| We get wealthier every year but we don't get more
| equitable, and our investment in things like education,
| health care, and infrastructure is definitely not rising
| accordingly.
|
| It has never been the case that we simply weren't wealthy
| enough to build a just society, it's that our society is
| structured to promote inequality and maximize the influence
| of the wealthy.
| toolz wrote:
| I think not caring about living in a wealthy country is a
| perfectly fine value judgement to make for yourself, but
| as someone with just a modest amount of experience living
| in poor countries, I highly value wealth.
|
| Maybe my value system that blames wealth is
| misappropriating the value to wealth when really it's
| things that correlate with wealth? That's possible of
| course, but with such consistent correlation I have to
| imagine it's hard to separate wealth from the society
| that I most prefer living in.
|
| Happy to be wrong, as equity is a lot more palatable
| emotionally.
| sobkas wrote:
| > I think not caring about living in a wealthy country is
| a perfectly fine value judgement to make for yourself,
| but as someone with just a modest amount of experience
| living in poor countries, I highly value wealth.
|
| I don't see how wealth of the nation helps someone in any
| way when their piece of it is so small that they can't
| afford food, healthcare and roof over their head. How is
| even rational to value something that is actively used to
| take what little they to enrich "nation".
| maxbond wrote:
| Well it's hard to say without knowing more precisely what
| you mean, but I can imagine any number of factors that
| might correlate with a nation's wealth, eg, people might
| have more time to engage in civil society, they have a
| stronger military and diplomatic position and so other
| counties aren't liable to meddle with them, they might
| achieve the appearance of improving conditions by
| commiting their worst abuses abroad (eg setting up a
| sweat shop in another country), etc.
|
| I certainly won't claim that wealth isn't an important
| factor in outcomes, what I really mean is that it's not a
| great terminal goal for a society. We shouldn't be
| hoarding resources, we should be using them to create a
| better world for ourselves and for future people.
| toolz wrote:
| We definitely agree on wealth not being the goal, but my
| limited understanding and experience suggests that the
| goals worth having, require wealth to achieve.
| maxbond wrote:
| Everything costs something, and maybe I'm looking at
| things through US centric politics, but in my experience
| people who are ideologically opposed to social programs
| use costs as a way to cloak their ideology in
| technocratic language and cast themselves as "the sober
| adults in the room" rather than ideologues.
|
| In truth we waste a stupendous amount of money and human
| potential by, for instance, introducing a system of
| unnecessary middle men (insurance companies) to the
| healthcare system rather than negotiating with
| pharmaceutical companies as a nation with astronomical
| buying power.
|
| Human potential, I'll note, is worthy in it's own right,
| but is also a very valuable through a strictly economic
| lens. People who meet their potential contribute
| immensely to the economy, people who aren't able to
| because their society never bothered to invest in them
| may contribute not not nearly as much as they could have.
| Eg, if we hadn't funded NASA, we wouldn't have a space
| industry (to say nothing of the many other industries
| that benefited in ancillary ways).
| toolz wrote:
| > ideologically opposed to social programs
|
| It's hard to judge someones true intent, but I don't know
| that I've ever met a person that opposes benevolent
| programs of any sort if they aren't associated with
| costs. So if people truly do oppose social programs based
| only on the cost (both direct and indirect) I do believe
| that's an ethically defensible position. It's hard for me
| to imagine a person who doesn't want programs that help
| people, though and only uses cost as a way to shroud
| their ill-intent. I hope you're wrong about these people
| existing.
| maxbond wrote:
| You've never heard someone say something like, "handouts
| make people dependent on the government" or "the
| government shouldn't have a say in our healthcare" or
| "the government shouldn't decide whether my child learns
| about X"? Because I've heard each of these ideological
| arguments used against social programs.
|
| I think the confusion here may be that you're seeing
| things through your own ideological lens (as we all do)
| and so you've classified these as "not truly benevolent?"
| (I don't mean that as a criticism, just a shot in the
| dark.)
| toolz wrote:
| I've heard people say all of these things, but I don't
| think that saying these things has any bearing on whether
| those people disagree with programs that help people.
|
| > handouts make people dependent on the government
|
| This is a judgement based on cost - you or I may disagree
| with the value of the cost, but it is a centralization
| cost which increases risk. Playing devils advocate, but
| if your livelihood becomes dependent on a government
| program and you also watch government programs risking
| collapse (such as US social security) then the risk
| becomes obvious that it exists (and each individual will
| decide for themselves how likely this risk is to
| manifest)
|
| > the government shouldn't have a say in our healthcare
|
| I think this statement doesn't really fall into the
| category of things we're talking about. There's nothing
| about governments involvement in healthcare that means
| the program is better or worse or more/less benevolent.
| It would depend on the government and their involvement.
|
| > the government shouldn't decide whether my child learns
| about X
|
| I would a similar argument as the previous for this.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Toolz, I think you're arguing for slavery.
| toolz wrote:
| Surely you don't think slavery is an attempt at striking
| a balance?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If you are a retail worker and your boss withholds $20 from
| your paycheck, it's not considered criminal theft.
|
| Yes, it is, in California, at least (and, as of this year, if
| it was over $950 instead of $20, it would be _felony_ grand
| theft of wages, rather than a misdemeanor theft.)
|
| Of course, criminal process has a higher proof bar and
| requires a public prosecutor to care enough to do something,
| doesn't improve recovery for the victim, and is usually
| slower, so actual recovery is probably going to happen
| through civil/administrative process _even if_ a crime is on
| the books and applicable.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| > Of course, criminal process has a higher proof bar and
| requires a public prosecutor to care enough to do something
|
| Wage theft really should be a strict liability crime --
| only proof necessary to convict is that it happened, not
| that it was intended.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Wage theft really should be a strict liability crime --
| only proof necessary to convict is that it happened, not
| that it was intended.
|
| It would still take a public prosecutor to care, and the
| failure to pay as required is already a strict-liability
| tort. Not sure that enabling discretionary criminal
| punishment of acts that are neither intentional,
| reckless, nor even negligent in this domain helps anyone.
| chung8123 wrote:
| I wonder how you could make that criminal. Do you charge the
| manager making the schedule?
| dbingham wrote:
| I mean, I think charging whoever executed the action that
| resulted in the theft is a reasonable starting point.
|
| You would then have to make sure to include a consideration
| of conspiracy in the case where the owners pressured the
| manager - just as you would consider conspiracy in a case
| where a thief was hired by someone else to execute a theft.
| hammock wrote:
| > Yep. If you are a retail worker and your boss withholds $20
| from your paycheck, it's not considered criminal theft. It's
| a civil matter. You have no recourse except civil law.
|
| If a contractor takes your down payment and then never
| installs the toilet is that criminal theft?
|
| If a contractor installs your toilet without advance payment
| and then you never pay her, is that criminal theft?
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Why shouldn't it be considered criminal theft?
| nitwit005 wrote:
| You're not exactly refuting them, just pointing out that
| there are other forms of effective theft not considered
| criminal.
|
| I suspect most people would be perfectly happy with people
| facing criminal punishment in large scale wage theft cases.
| The same probably isn't true for toilet installation
| disputes.
| hammock wrote:
| >You're not exactly refuting them, just pointing out that
| there are other forms of effective theft not considered
| criminal.
|
| Correct. The point was to raise the question, if that,
| why not also this?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If a contractor takes your down payment and then never
| installs the toilet is that criminal theft?
|
| To the extent that the funds were entrusted to the
| contractor on the premise they would be used to purchase
| third-party goods and services on your behalf, the crime
| would seem to me to be embezzlement, which is usually
| distinct from theft but often punished similarly and part
| of the broad family of property crimes. Advanced payment
| for services to be rendered, I'm less sure of fitting into
| that.
|
| > If a contractor installs your toilet without advance
| payment and then you never pay her, is that criminal theft?
|
| In California, the wage theft law applies to contract as
| well as W-2 employment.
|
| Note that in either case, there may be a compensable civil
| wrong without the intent requirement for crime, even if the
| general scenario described can fit a crime.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| IANAL, and I don't know how this question relates to the
| bit you quoted, but in this _incredibly vague hypothetical
| situation_ , there's probably a contract in place and
| breach of contract is usually handled in civil court. It
| could be criminal and prosecuted by the state if any fraud
| has taken place. That would depend on details not given
| though.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I believe that the typical remedy in both hypotheticals
| would be civil court -> breach of contract (written or
| implied) -> place a lien.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| > It's one of the more blatant examples of how the laws of
| the United States are written to unjustly empower those with
| wealth that I am aware of.
|
| The most blatant thing for me will always be the tax code.
|
| Alone way that W2 income vs long term capital gains is taxed
| (not to mention that losses are fully tax deductible) makes
| the message very clear.
| dontknowwhyihn wrote:
| Losses are not fully tax deductible.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| Fair enough. It's fully deductible when used to offset
| capital gains as far as I know.
|
| To offset regular income, it's only $3000 a year but
| losses can be carried forward (though it stays at the
| dollar value, no inflation is taken into account).
|
| So often largely deductible with some caveats.
|
| It still seems asinine that bad investments are
| essentially tax subsidized, but whatever.
| mindslight wrote:
| Also the deductions arbitrarily denied to individuals. Use
| a car to drive to your W2 job? That's "commuting" and thus
| not tax deductible, despite it being utterly required for
| earning that money.
| qwytw wrote:
| The higher rent you'd pay if you chose to live closer to
| where you work so that you wouldn't have to drive should
| also be tax deductible I guess.
| mindslight wrote:
| I'd say the amount of rent paid in proportion to time
| working (+supporting activities) divided by time awake
| should be fully above-the-line deductible, yes.
|
| The point is there are many such deductions that
| businesses straightforwardly take, that natural persons
| are told it's all "personal use", despite them being
| directly necessary to sustain person-as-an-economic-
| actor.
| qwytw wrote:
| I guess I somewhat agree in principle but an
| indiscriminate tax cut/deduction/universal income would
| be a much better approach. Easier to administers and much
| fairer.
| mindslight wrote:
| I'm torn on this, because on one hand I think keeping a
| record of everything you spend, sorting through it all to
| tally it up, and generally tracking one's life with
| spreadsheets is a horrible way to live. So the tax code
| de facto requiring that is oppressive.
|
| But on the second hand (and this was my main point here),
| these are deductions that businesses already get to take.
| Get routinely paid on a 1099, and see all the deductions
| you can take essentially by virtue of now "running your
| own business". It's obscene. Perhaps set up an LLC+S-corp
| for even more.
|
| But on the third hand, I get the argument that if we just
| eliminated business deductions in general, that "thin
| businesses" would be impractical.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Ya let's subsidize people making 50 mile single occupancy
| vehicle commutes in an F150 instead of one closer and a
| more efficient vehicle. /s
| mindslight wrote:
| Ya let's jump on people making a point with a completely
| different topic. If you want to increase the price of
| commuting, raise the gas (/electricity) taxes. That's
| orthogonal to my point. If you really can't fit this
| topic in your head without being distracted by OMG CAR,
| then replace "car" with "subway pass".
|
| The point is that in the business context, expenses
| required to create income are deductible. If you get paid
| on a 1099, you get treated as a business and can take
| those deductions. You can even claim a section 179
| accelerated depreciation, and immediately deduct half of
| the capital expense.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| It's totally unfair. Unfortunately, the reality is that
| capital is highly mobile while labor is not. In an ideal
| world, capital gains would be taxed much higher than income
| from labor. However, is too easy to moved the capital to a
| place where it's taxed at a lower rate.
| rurp wrote:
| A good solution would be a flat tax plus a prebate. Tax
| all income at 15% regardless of the source, with no tax
| breaks or exceptions. The first $50k or so is tax free,
| and that could be handled as a prebate where everyone
| gets paid (taxRate * floor) by the govt[0]. This would be
| much more progressive than the current system and vastly
| simpler to implement and enforce.
|
| Looking at the current capital gains rate is actually too
| rosy, since there are so many loopholes and exceptions
| that wealthy people can use to bring the rate down. The
| actual effective tax rate billionaires in the US pay is
| below 10%.
|
| I doubt something like this will ever happen given how
| many selfish interests would fight against it. It sure
| would be great though if middle class workers didn't pay
| a higher tax rate than millionaires.
|
| [0] I'm throwing out round numbers but have seen research
| that backs up figures in this ballpark.
| htss2013 wrote:
| Not necessarily. It defaults to a civil matter, but if a DA
| thinks that the employer knowingly defrauded employees, they
| could prosecute them criminally. It's pure prosecutorial
| discretion. But prosexutors have limited resources and don't
| want to get tied down with business disputes. It's not true
| that the law itself mandates this to only be in civil court.
| mattpallissard wrote:
| Agreed. Let's not forget who the real criminals are
| chayesfss wrote:
| [dead]
| umvi wrote:
| I want closure on the 25 year old woman and the $100k she was
| transporting in a suitcase. Did she go to court to get it back?
| Or is this a situation where 9 times out of 10 the cash was ill-
| gotten and so it is forfeited to avoid criminal charges?
| IshKebab wrote:
| Almost certainly. I can't think of any other reason you'd take
| $100k on a plane.
|
| But there are plenty of stories out there of people having very
| large amounts taken from them on their way to buy cars or
| whatever. The story probably picked a bad example but the
| police are definitely just taking whatever they can get without
| any regard for justice.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| Rushing to close a deal on a high value asset such as a boat,
| aircraft, or real estate where the seller insists on actual
| cash. Granted, you should probably use some form of durable
| check, but some buyers want actual cash. There are also
| cultural business habits in some ethnicity/national
| backgrounds to prefer actual cash over safer bank
| instruments.
|
| It really doesn't matter: if someone wants to carry a large
| quantity of cash on a plane, this is still an open society
| and freedom must be defended.
| highfrequency wrote:
| [flagged]
| akira2501 wrote:
| > , that's $10 per person that gets taken by police in civil
| forfeiture
|
| That's the "average civil forfeiture." No proceeding for civil
| forfeiture is for the average amount; though, it's often for
| quite a bit more, generally thousands of dollars.
|
| This is an inappropriate way to understand the impact of this
| issue.
| highfrequency wrote:
| Sure, but it is useful to compare the scale of things. This
| is about 0.0005 of the money taken by the government in tax
| revenues, concentrated in situations where crime is suspected
| sam0x17 wrote:
| I look at these same numbers and think holy crap that's a lot.
| orev wrote:
| Wow. Where to start...
|
| In the US you're innocent until proven guilty, so a 25% failure
| rate is criminally high.
|
| Also, it's not the job of police to punish anyone. That's what
| the courts are for.
|
| William Blackstone wrote,"[B]etter that ten guilty persons
| escape, than that one innocent suffer."
| [deleted]
| hgsgm wrote:
| Would you like $1M taken from you and distributed to 500K
| people? It's only $2 each.
|
| Can I buy civil forfeiture insurance?
| highfrequency wrote:
| Is there a case where the police took $1M from an innocent
| person in civil forfeiture, and that person could not get the
| money back? Based on the article, we are talking about
| confiscating $200 from a suspected drug dealer.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| How much should the cops take from you before you're
| allowed to complain about the fact that they didn't set it
| aside as evidence or property with you upon arrest and
| instead fed it into their general fund?
| highfrequency wrote:
| You're always allowed to complain. You can go to court to
| get the civil forfeiture returned.
|
| In cases of petty theft or drug dealing, it's not really
| worth either side (police or suspected criminal) to go
| through formal proceedings for $100. So either you put
| the onus on the police, in which case they'll just stop
| enforcing a lot of small crimes because it's not worth
| the hassle, or you put the onus on the suspected
| criminal, in which case you have some innocent people
| lose $100 unless they go to court.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| I think we probably come down on opposite sides of a
| divide on when the state should have to justify use of
| its power.
|
| If I had to choose, say, remake the justice system of the
| US, then the onus should be on the police to prove that
| they had the authority to do something - in this case,
| seize the $100. If the police _choose_ not to enforce the
| law as written by the legislature because they do not
| want the burden of justifying that action or because it
| is impractical for them to do so in every case then their
| abdication of duty is a choice they have made, and
| perhaps the legislature that writes the laws should
| consider removing those laws from the books.
|
| We're all adults here though, and we both know that laws
| that the police choose not to enforce are not unenforced
| evenly - there are plenty of minorities of all types that
| find that these unenforced laws in practice are in fact
| enforced against them or used to bootstrap additional
| intrusion into their lives.
|
| Let's take the case of Eric Garner. How many NYPD
| officers have turned a blind eye to people selling loose
| cigarettes on the street? Probably hundreds if not
| thousands, so it was pretty much an unenforced crime.
| Except if you're Eric Garner or in a similar situation to
| him.
|
| This is why I think that the police should constantly
| have to justify their use of authority and discretion in
| all cases, and I wish the judiciary would start striking
| down as unenforceable laws that are usually only enforced
| against minorities or people that piss off the police.
| highfrequency wrote:
| Thanks for the thoughtful discourse. I do see your point.
| I also think that there are practical questions about
| whether, broadly speaking, police are not taking enough
| actions that they should be taking or whether they are
| taking too many actions that they shouldn't be taking.
|
| Although there are several highly publicized incidents in
| the latter category (and I wholeheartedly agree it should
| be illegal for police to racially discriminate or use
| unwarranted force), it's also true that these days most
| people can't walk a few blocks in San Francisco after
| dark without worrying about their safety. Both sides of
| the coin are problematic, both should be fixed.
|
| These issues are challenging and too easily politicized;
| I think the country would be well served with less
| instinctual, black-and-white reactions and more balanced
| discourse.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| I think, in general, we spend too much time allocating
| resources to punishing people (for it is punishment - the
| prison system does not reform) rather than resolving the
| actual issues that lead them to behave the way that they
| do. Obviously, we need a balance between enforcement and
| abatement - I'm not saying we should stop enforcing laws
| - but I think the balance is way off.
|
| One of the things that I don't see discussed very often
| is how most criminals, aside from those who have mental
| illnesses that compel them to action, act rationally in
| the moment when they commit a crime while that logic is
| foreign to someone not in their situation.
| highfrequency wrote:
| I see. What do you think are low-hanging fruit projects
| to help resolve the underlying issues? I am generally
| aware of education initiatives, unemployment insurance,
| needle exchange programs etc. but the effectiveness does
| not seem great. But I think you have better understanding
| here - what should we be doing better that you think
| would actually work well?
|
| I don't think our prison system is very cost effective,
| but it does a reasonable job of creating strong negative
| incentives for a wide range of crimes in the general
| population.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| > Basically, you must prove a negative: that you did not commit a
| crime. It's a complete inversion of the "innocent until proven
| guilty" philosophy driving most of the criminal justice system.
|
| That's because it's _civil_ forfeiture. There is no presumption
| of innocence in civil law; it 's part of _criminal_ law.
| [deleted]
| pierrebai wrote:
| Calling it _civil_ forfeiture is in itself problematic. The
| assumption is that the person committed a _crime_ and profited
| from it. Kinda of a weird mix. You must prove you did not
| commit a crime in a civil case.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| It actually sounds unconstitutional when you put it like
| that... but then again, if you don't put it like that then it
| doesn't! Law is like an ass, isn't it, it goes in whatever
| direction the drover points it.
| rtkwe wrote:
| The original use case of CAF as a way to seize assets of
| unknown or absentee owners with clear connections to crimes
| makes it make more sense both legally and philosophically.
| IMO the big fix for civil asset forfeiture is that if there
| is a claimant you need to charge them with some crime to
| seize it and it has to go through the normal process.
| Arrath wrote:
| A huge part of why I think civil forfeiture as a practice
| should go away entirely. Due to the burden of proof being set
| on the party that just had their resources seized[1] _, it
| often amounts to state sponsored robbery.
|
| _ [1]And whom, even if they still had those resources, quite
| often wouldn't be able to afford the costs associated with
| proving themselves innocent to get their stuff back in the
| first place.
|
| E: Oh that's how you do italics on HN.
| hgsgm wrote:
| And the seized property isn't even frozen, destroyed, or
| donated; it is kept for profit.
| AmVess wrote:
| Or kept for themselves. One sheriff recorded himself
| driving through an upscale neighborhood and going car
| shopping. He found a car that he liked and said he was
| going to seize it and keep it for himself.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| While this is an accurate assessment of its legality, it's not
| a particularly helpful response to the _philosophy_. And
| whether intended or not, it has the effect of implying the
| distinction may justify the practice.
|
| From my perspective, "cops can take your stuff unless you prove
| your innocence _because it's not a criminal proceeding_ " is a
| distinction without a difference. Cops shouldn't be able to
| just take your stuff.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| I don't argue with that! I just explained how it was possible
| to implement it in law in the first place. But yes, it
| absolutely must have been a criminal procedure, as it is in
| some (many?) other countries.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bandyaboot wrote:
| First off all...mind blown. I had no idea the presumption of
| innocence didn't apply to civil law. Second, is slapping a
| "civil" label on there all you have to do to make it
| reasonable? "But judge, you can't put me in jail. When I took
| that guy's wallet at gunpoint, I made sure to inform him that
| it was civil-armed-robbery."
|
| Edit: rhetorical question as I don't think you're actually of
| the opinion that it's reasonable.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| As a legal idea, civil forfeiture is something the state
| specifically empowers police to do. This is on top of cops
| pretty much being able to do what they want without recourse.
| Normal civilians don't have this luxury.
| mulmen wrote:
| Since when does the state have such power? The state only
| has powers granted by the people.
| maxbond wrote:
| _Legitimacy_ stems from the consent of the governed. The
| state and the Constitution determine what powers the
| state has, eg, by passing laws and by subjecting them to
| judicial review.
|
| (Referendums notwithstanding.)
| stonogo wrote:
| A pretty sentence, but since the courts have upheld both
| qualified immunity and civil asset forfeiture, it appears
| the people have granted the power to do so.
| mulmen wrote:
| Ok but by what principle? We can change the law.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| By voting? Both sides support it
| mulmen wrote:
| The people elect representatives who make law on their
| behalf. So what legal principle needs to be legislated?
| brewdad wrote:
| Aye, there's the rub. No politician wants to be portrayed
| as "soft on crime". Until the problem becomes too large
| for the average person to ignore, the law isn't going to
| change. A smart police force stays just below that
| threshold.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Imagine you arrange some "send goods, receive payment later"
| kind of deal with someone; you send them the goods but they
| never pay you. So you bring them to court... and now you have
| to prove that they did _not_ pay you. While they claim they
| did and even gave you a signed receipt which you must have
| thrown away.
|
| So naturally, because in most civil cases its the other
| party's _in_ action that's supposed to be punished, courts
| adopt "guilty until proven otherwise" stance. Now it's the
| other party that has to show a receipt signed by _you_ , or
| to show their bank statement that says they've transfered
| money to you, etc. That's one reason why there is so much
| paper trail in business and commerce -- so that's when
| someone sues you, you could use all that paper to cover your
| ass.
| afiori wrote:
| IIUC in US constitutional terms the concept of "innocent
| until proven guilty" is actually "innocent until something
| (eg a trial) pronounces you guilty".
|
| The difference being that who needs to prove what can be
| quite flexible.
| masklinn wrote:
| Guilt in criminal contexts is assessed under the
| "reasonable doubt" standard of proof
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_doubt).
|
| In civil contexts however, the legal standard is the much
| lower "preponderance of evidence" (https://en.wikipedia.org
| /wiki/Burden_of_proof_(law)#Preponde...).
| mulmen wrote:
| If I shout "this is a civil matter!" while stabbing you in the
| chest can I dodge the murder charge?
| bigbacaloa wrote:
| How can the _state_ taking something be considered _civil_?
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Indirectly, because the idea behind it is old and pertains to
| very peculiar circumstances.
|
| Imagine that it's 1804, and a ship shows up in port carrying
| contraband. The sailors on the ship didn't know about it,
| they just make sure the boat doesn't sink. The owners are
| nowhere to be found, they live in London or Paris or Antwerp
| or something, and you'll never be able to arrest them for it
| (this is the pre-extradition world).
|
| What do you do with the contraband? You need a formal law to
| deal with seizing it. And this serves as the framework for
| our modern civil forfeiture laws. A case would be entered
| into the dockets something like "State of New York vs. 152
| Gallons of Whisky" or whatever. The whisky itself committed
| no crime, there can't be a criminal case.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Even then, maybe it's actually the crew that took a couple
| of additional crates of whiskey/cigarettes as a side-gig
| (pretty normal even today) and not on the owners' orders,
| good luck trying to prove it or anything at all, really.
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| Because the action is against the property being seized, not
| the owner of said property[0]. Property cannot commit a
| crime, and therefore cannot be the defendant in a criminal
| proceeding, but at the federal level and in almost every
| state, there are civil statutes permitting these cases to be
| litigated by the government _in rem._ [1]
|
| 0 - note that if this happens to your property, it sure will
| _feel_ like it is happening _to you_. Lawyers will be happy
| to lawsplain their BS theory[2] to you for a nominal hourly
| fee. This will not make you feel any better for having been
| robbed at gunpoint.
|
| 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_rem_jurisdiction
|
| 2 - Spoiler alert: the theory is exactly as stupid as it
| sounds.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Interestingly enough, property _used_ to be able to commit
| a crime (back when slavery was a thing) but it still could
| not be sued or be the plaintiff in a lawsuit.
| [deleted]
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| Yes, I believe the government used the "heads I win,
| tails you lose" theory of jurisprudence in those cases.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Because "civil" means "having to do with people and
| government office as opposed to the military or religion" /s
|
| Next time on the program: why "assault" in "battery and
| assault" doesn't actually mean the same as "assault" in
| colloquial speech.
| SenAnder wrote:
| [dead]
| monocasa wrote:
| And yet, so many times you ask cops to help with a crime they
| say "oh, that's a civil matter, we can't do anything".
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| It's worse than that.
|
| You have to prove the cash did not commit a crime. This sounds
| absurd, but it's easily prove, the cases are named things like
| _United States vs. $117,000 in Cash_ and _State of Missouri vs.
| Gold Jewelry Worth Approximately $1400_.
|
| But if that's not absurd enough for you, boy do I have some
| good news for you! Since the case is against the property, you
| the previous owner of that property don't automatically have
| standing. Court cases in the US are based on common law (except
| maybe Louisiana, who knows what goes on in that Bonapartist
| shithole), to appear in court at trial, you have to prove that
| you're actually a party to the case. It's automatic if you're
| the defendant in a criminal trial (or plaintiff in civil), or
| the prosecutor... but third parties are usually told to pound
| sand. And the case clearly names the property as the defendant.
|
| Don't let me overstate it... as far as I know, no one's ever
| been denied standing when petitioning this, but it's another
| hoop to jump through. One that will cost you money.
|
| If they seized less than $10,000 or so, forget it. It'll cost
| you that to get the stuff back. So they tend to target lesser
| amounts now days, knowing that no one will bother. And if it's
| a higher amount, they'll often try to settle... "hey we know it
| will cost you another $5000, so why don't you take half and we
| keep the rest?" Of course, you're still paying the lawyer a few
| grand to get that far, and it will come out of your $5000, and
| not their (using that word pains me) half.
|
| If you haven't retched in your own mouth a little, then I still
| haven't properly explained how bad this is. Go read.
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