Civil Asset Forefeiture

Eli,

The Washington Post started a series on civil asset forfeitures:

Cash seizures can be made under state or federal civil law. One of the primary ways police departments are able to seize money and share in the proceeds at the federal level is through a long-standing Justice Department civil asset forfeiture program known as Equitable Sharing. Asset forfeiture is an extraordinarily powerful law enforcement tool that allows the government to take cash and property without pressing criminal charges and then requires the owners to prove their possessions were legally acquired.

 So think of that. It turns on its head, "innocent until proven guilty." Instead, the police can seize assets, without pressing charges, and keep the assets until the owner proves they are innocent.

We asked for this. We asked for a more intrusive police state for the War on Crime, the War on Drugs and the War on Terror. In return we get militarized police forces, civil asset forfeitures and the NSA surveillance program.

The Cato Institute (founded by the Koch Brothers) has been pointing this out for many years now. Maybe with the events in Ferguson, the Washington Post series and the trampling of the 4th Amendment by the NSA, the country will start to listen.

Bill