Jeff Sessions: Feds Have the Right to Seize Your Cash, Property

Posted by CircuitGuy 7 years, 5 months ago to Government
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A decade ago, only a handful of astute people realized that this confusing-sounding policy was a scam. Today that knowledge has spread, helped along by fun facts, like more money was taken through asset forfeiture in 2014 than burglary (some $5 billion total). Those startling numbers, along with the desire to see police cleaned up in general, has made forfeiture reform popular indeed, with 84 percent of Americans now saying they want to see the practice ended altogether.

Yes, a drug dealer might be carrying $15,000 in cash. So might an antiques-buyer, a car-buyer, a horse trader, a would-be business owner, or lots of other people who shouldn’t have to go to court to get their money back.
SOURCE URL: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/jeff-sessions-the-new-champion-of-civil-asset-forfeiture/


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  • Posted by term2 7 years, 4 months ago
    Asset forfeiture should be abolished IMMEDIATELY. It is outright theft. The only thing we have to protect ourselves is- what they cant find, they cant take.
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    • Posted by ewv 7 years, 4 months ago
      It's worse than theft and much more deadly. It's government force used for theft in violation of Constitutional protections of civil rights under objective law and due process.
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  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 7 years, 5 months ago
    Odd in that no mention is made of AG Loretta Lynch's enthusiasm for CAF https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgele...
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    • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
      Thanks for noting the guilt of the previous administrations.

      The people who hold power in DC are rotten to the core. Dem or GOP (or any other) alignment does not convey innocence. The record of betrayal is filled with liars and looters from both major parties. I agree that this is another example.
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      • Posted by j_IR1776wg 7 years, 5 months ago
        You're welcome and absolutely correct.

        Particularly galling was this site calls itself Conservative and contained this sentence "The controversial process in which police can not only seize property like cars and cash they suspect are connected to a crime, but profit from it too, was gently restricted at the federal level by former-Obama Attorney General Eric Holder. " "gently restricted" ??? As if Holder was John Locke reborn in his enthusiasm for Individual Rights.
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        • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 4 months ago
          Eric Holder also "gently restricted" Fast And Furious too in a botched attempt (with some oh-so collateral damage) to make American legal gun sales businesses look bad.
          Yeah, progressively fascist Gentle Eric was all about (choke! gag! ack! ack!) gently restricting stuff~
          http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2...
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          • Posted by 7 years, 4 months ago
            If your hypothesis is Holder was just a bad apple, how do you explain the policy of asset forfeiture continuing?
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            • Posted by ewv 7 years, 4 months ago
              He didn't say that Holder was no more than a bad apple. Holder was a 'bad apple' as a result of his ideology, which made him worse than average, not just mundane character and competence problems. But he obviously isn't alone in that.
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              • Posted by 7 years, 4 months ago
                "Holder was a 'bad apple' as a result of his ideology, which made him worse than average"
                I'm calling a worse-than-average ideology that makes someone support gov't takings a "bad apple". That's a glib name for it, but I can't think of a better one this moment. I think this explanation for expansion of government powers holds sway because politicians have opponents with an obvious motivation to blame other politicians and say "if we just elected the right people," the problems would go away. They have a reason to say they are running for office based on ideology.

                It seems to me that none of this is real. People in power taking other people's stuff is an emergent property that happens if there is not a system to limit it.
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                • Posted by ewv 7 years, 4 months ago
                  It is no mysterious "emergent property". It is a result of the wrong philosophy. There is no "system" to limit statism without getting rid of the prevailing ideology.
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            • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 4 months ago
              That policy has been horribly abused in the past.
              As for explaining that policy continuing, that's simple. Sessions freaking wants it.
              From what I've heard and read in the news, Sessions may not be around for long.
              It appears Trump is trying to psychological nudge him toward a voluntary resignation.
              But me dino could be wrong . . .
              By the way~speaking of bad apples?~IMO, both Holder and the former Traitor-In-Chief belong behind bars along with Lynch, Lerner, the Evil Hag and a bunch of other aiding and abetting socialist control freak jackasses.
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              • Posted by ewv 7 years, 4 months ago
                It's not exactly "a policy that has been abused", it's chronic abuse that shouldn't occur even once, all permitted by an unconstitutional, non-objective policy that shouldn't exist at all. This policy itself is abuse.
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                • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 4 months ago
                  Over the years I've read asset forfeiture horror stories but it appears it is not unconstitutional due to the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
                  What you wrote above got my old dino brain thinking and looking around. This link directed my attention to the Tenth Amendment~
                  http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/legis...
                  Please, prove me wrong. I really want you to.
                  The concept of a family losing a not hardly paid for brand new car because their sneaky teenage brat got caught by the law smoking dope in it turns my stomach.
                  I've read of entire homes being confiscated like that.
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                  • Posted by ewv 7 years, 4 months ago
                    The Tenth Amendment isn't an excuse for statism. Under that amendment the Federal government was not supposed to usurp state jurisdiction in matters not granted to it in the Constitution, which gave it only limited enumerated powers. But no state is permitted to violate civil rights under the Constitution -- including the 14th amendment and the original Bill of Rights in the first ten. With asset forfeit seizures we have both the Federal government and states trampling civil rights with arbitrary power.
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                    • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 4 months ago
                      Here it is in Section 1 of Amendment 14 in a little pocket-sized paperback I keep on my desk. Second sentence: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges of immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or PROPERTY, without the process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
                      This should also apply to federal law because this is federal law telling the states what to do.
                      Or am I wrong? I wouldn't ask King Barry that question, since he once described the Constitution as a list of negatives or something akin to that.
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    • Posted by 7 years, 4 months ago
      It is odd. If I were hired to represent Lynch's or Sessions' public image, I'd have to look for little pieces of evidence that the other is worse or that my client used this gov't power more responsibly. For public consumption at least mentioning tu quoque might be helpful. I don't work in that industry, thankfully, so I just want to find some way to limit gov't powers like this.
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      • Posted by j_IR1776wg 7 years, 4 months ago
        I can only think of four ways "to limit gov't powers like this."
        1) The ballot box
        2) An Article V convention
        3) About 12% of borrowers and taxpayers withholding payments and taxes
        4) Armed revolution

        Can you think of any other ways?
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        • Posted by 7 years, 4 months ago
          2 is the only one that sounds like it has a shot to me. I have reasons to believe all the other ones would fail.
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          • Posted by ewv 7 years, 4 months ago
            It has no more chance than the ballot box. The problem is the philosophy of altruism, collectivism an statism driving the whole culture, not the mechanism used and the how the votes are counted.
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  • Posted by GaryL 7 years, 4 months ago
    A real nice fast boat leaves Rocgester and goes out to the Canadian side of Lake Ontario. On the return the US CG stops the boat for a routine inspection. One of the gals on the boat has cocaine in her bag. The boat is confiscated for smuggling drugs and the guy is still fighting to get his $70,000 boat back.
    A relative started a good job back in the early 1970s. Every week on pay day he took a $100 bill and stuffed it in a big glass 5 gallon water jug. After 20 + years the jug was full and he decided the cash had to be in the bank. Over $100,000 and you don't want to know the crap he went through.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 7 years, 4 months ago
    Isn't this the same guy that shut down direct payment of EPA penalty monies to third parties, like solar and wind companies?

    Well, the consistent behavior of all government peoples to use power for their pet programs has been demonstrated again.
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  • Posted by starznbarz 7 years, 4 months ago
    A thief is a thief, political party - or reason for the theft does`nt matter. " A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. "
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  • Posted by Herb7734 7 years, 4 months ago
    One more example of "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." If congress understood the meaning of freedom and liberty the law would never abide.
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  • Posted by NealS 7 years, 4 months ago
    The only issue here, by constitutional authority, is whether it’s the law or not. If the law grants the authority for the feds to do it, they can do it. If we do not like the idea then we need to change the law. End of issue.

    Today our dilemmas, and arguable issues, are only compounded by ignoring the laws, ignoring the laws we don’t like. If we can do that, then we might as well not have the laws in the first place. We need to demand that the laws are enforced or change them. This is what I fought for, not for just personal opinion on our laws.
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  • Posted by chad 7 years, 4 months ago
    Governments will always look for any method to confiscate wealth, usually through 'laws' that allow them to tax because you own something, tax because you use something and tax or impound because it declares you shouldn't use something. This method doesn't even live up to the 'due process' and forces people to spend money and time to reclaim their property when the government had not right to take it. This method also removes all those costly and time consuming procedures required to 'prove' the governments rights to your property. This is a very frightening symptom that America has moved to a communist democracy where you have the right to vote for the criminal who will then tell you that you have no rights and use violence to ensure that you understand who has the right to your life. It doesn't matter who is carrying how much money and for what reason, it doesn't even matter if someone is carrying cash because they have criminal intent. Until there is a criminal action the government has no rights, if it does then the individual has no rights.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 7 years, 4 months ago
    I thought I heard it said, by the Att. Gen. that very few if any "Little People"/" innocent people" get caught up in this and it was also said that those that did, never contested....somehow...that doesn't sound right to me...I've read too many stories over the years and based just on my reading and vetting...I think that statement is utter Bull Crap!
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    • Posted by ewv 7 years, 4 months ago
      They claim that the statics are that something like 86% of those with assets seized were involved in some kind of crime. Whether or not that statistic is true it shows an enormous disregard for the ones who are innocent. They are the reason for the principle 'innocent until proven guilty'.

      And it shows enormous disregard for the principle of objective law in determining who is guilty of what and what knowledge or means they had to fight back. Who knows how many of those alleged 86% were 'guilty' of anything more than some tangential 'crime' against laws and definitions used to ensnare people (like the phony money transaction "structuring" laws or the maze of tax rules) as a way of getting who and what the government wants when it can't do it objectively.

      From those two statist premises they have rationalized the stance that they should have and use enormous arbitrary government powers because they have accumulated what they claim is an 86% hit rate against those whom the government claims are guilty, and nothing else is supposed to matter. It's the essence of circular, politically self-serving propaganda for arbitrary government power.
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  • Posted by Lauscott 7 years, 4 months ago
    It is policy like this that has caused the slippery slope into a society that will be cashless and 100% monitored. The immediate seizure of cash and property is honestly similar to income tax though. It is so ingrained in us that we find it acceptable to receive a tax "refund" more than a year after we began paying into our annual interest free loan to the government. While this is not mandated like the seizure is, since you can manually adjust how much taxes you pay, most people don't and lending the government money with the expectation that they will return what the individual did not actually owe is the norm. And frankly, this is just scratching the surface on taxes, there are much more foundational issues. Triggers that lead to seizure are set so low ($15,000) that it makes you wonder how the federal government is even managing the tracking of this and the requisite forms to avoid trouble.
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