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posted by n1 on Friday July 22 2016, @08:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the many-interpretations-to-be-had dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

A bizarre case comes out of the Texas court system -- landing squarely in the middle of a legal Bermuda Triangle where illegal searches meet civil asset forfeiture... and everything is still somehow perfectly legal. (via FourthAmendment.com)

[...] The Supreme Court of Texas examines the facts of the case, along with the applicable statutes, and -- after discarding a US Supreme Court decision that would have found in Herrera's favor -- decides there's nothing he can do to challenge the seizure. He can't even move to suppress the evidence uncovered following the illegal stop -- the same search that led to the state seizing his vehicle under civil forfeiture statutes.

[...] First, the court decides that the deterrent effect of suppressing the evidence is outweighed by the cost to society.

[...] The court moves on to dismiss the Supreme Court's 1965 decision (One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania), suggesting not only that things have changed too much over the past 50 years to consider it relevant, but also -- unbelievably -- that the seizure of a person's assets via civil forfeiture is not a form of punishment.

[...] By finding no remedy workable or worthwhile in the face of societal cost, the Texas Supreme Court has given law enforcement another way to salvage evidence obtained by illegal searches: simply seize the "container" (house, car, boat, etc.) the evidence was discovered in.

As defense attorney John Wesley Hall notes in his post on the case, this decision will also encourage more questionable asset forfeitures because the court here has declared it's unwilling to entertain notions of deterrence when dealing with "non-punitive" civil seizures.

Source: TechDirt


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 22 2016, @10:41AM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday July 22 2016, @10:41AM (#378442) Journal

    Yeah, this has rather become the Soviet Union we fought so long, hasn't it? Police state surveillance? Check. Arbitrary abuse of power? Check. Indefinite detention? Check. Extrajudicial executions of citizens? Check.

    The only reason they haven't gotten to the gulags yet is because we have a lot of guns and a lot of people who can use them.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday July 22 2016, @11:32AM

    by Thexalon (636) on Friday July 22 2016, @11:32AM (#378453)

    The only reason they haven't gotten to the gulags yet is because we have a lot of guns and a lot of people who can use them.

    No, that isn't it at all: The government has way more firepower than all the private gun owners in this country combined. I mean, let's say you had one of those citizen militias with a few hundred people that are trained and are organized enough to take orders. So they get together, and try and take something over to defend themselves from the government, the US drops one bomb on that and the rebellion is over.

    The real reason they haven't gotten to the gulags yet is that they've learned that a non-imprisoned labor force is cheaper and more productive. Dangling the false carrot of economic prosperity in front of people convinces them to work hard at their jobs more than the threat of shooting people. You even let a few people get rich and become part of the Powers That Be, to keep the rest of them motivated. That even convinces a lot of the people who are not quite dirt poor that they should hate the people who are poorer than they are (because they must be lazy or something) rather than hate the people who actually made everyone poor by running off with all the money and power.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2) by Justin Case on Friday July 22 2016, @11:50AM

      by Justin Case (4239) on Friday July 22 2016, @11:50AM (#378455) Journal

      let's say you had one of those citizen militias with a few hundred people that are trained and are organized enough to take orders. So they get together, and try and take something over to defend themselves from the government, the US drops one bomb on that and the rebellion is over.

      Some would say that's why the citizen militia needs bombs too, a right the widely disregarded Second Amendment should guarantee.

      But we don't need to go to war. (yet?) Bullies are usually cowards. An occasional reminder that if people get mad enough, they can strike back, gets the attention of thousands who would otherwise abuse their positions of authority.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 22 2016, @02:02PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday July 22 2016, @02:02PM (#378510) Journal

      No, that isn't it at all: The government has way more firepower than all the private gun owners in this country combined. I mean, let's say you had one of those citizen militias with a few hundred people that are trained and are organized enough to take orders. So they get together, and try and take something over to defend themselves from the government, the US drops one bomb on that and the rebellion is over.

      Thexalon, it's never that simple. It's not that simple when the people you are dropping bombs on are internationally despised and on the other side of the world, which is why groups like ISIS persist. Take the complexity of that situation and bump it up 2-3 orders of magnitude when the people you're talking about are your own citizens in your own country, all of whom are not islands but connected to a huge web of friends and family who will be fucking pissed if the US government drops napalm on them. That would result in a new group of rebels about 10-100 times larger than the one you just bombed out of existence. Then consider that not only are all those people well armed with actual guns, but have unlimited access to materials they could quickly improvise into all kinds of weapons. And, oh yeah, they can walk out and dynamite the pipeline leading to the NSA's data center pretty easily, drive a truck bomb down the Dan Ryan into the Loop, and do all kinds of things like that. Then consider that among those people there are a very considerable number of engineers, scientists, and other folks with very subject- and area-specific knowledge who are probably the people who built the systems the military and government rely on, so they know exactly what their weaknesses are and how to take them down.

      That's a 20-second, off the top of my head read on it, but if you were to take 20 minutes on a deeper dive you'd quickly unfold many more dimensions to why that would be a very bad thing for the government to do.

      Why else do you think they're trying to boil the frog slowly?

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 22 2016, @04:59PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 22 2016, @04:59PM (#378643)

        And, oh yeah, they can walk out and dynamite the pipeline leading to the NSA's data center

        Well now I think I know why L-3 is crawling the site.

    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday July 22 2016, @02:09PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Friday July 22 2016, @02:09PM (#378513)

      No, that isn't it at all: The government has way more firepower than all the private gun owners in this country combined. I mean, let's say you had one of those citizen militias with a few hundred people that are trained and are organized enough to take orders. So they get together, and try and take something over to defend themselves from the government, the US drops one bomb on that and the rebellion is over.

      We're not talking about fighting a war, dude. If They come to take a guy away to the gulag, and he's a suspicious* gun owner already, they might have an interesting time when they knock on his front door. Multiply by however many people they want to get rid of, times fraction of gun owners.

      Except of course they wouldn't bother knocking :P

      *less charitable people can say "paranoid"

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Friday July 22 2016, @02:28PM

      by LoRdTAW (3755) on Friday July 22 2016, @02:28PM (#378524) Journal

      The real reason they haven't gotten to the gulags yet is that they've learned that a non-imprisoned labor force is cheaper and more productive.

      In other words, we are already imprisoned through labor devaluation, inflation, and high cost of living.

      The end game of extreme capitalism isn't much different from extreme socialism/communism. Everyone is equally poor, works for and worships a minority elite. The methods to get to those goals are just different. At least communism is honest about its intent. They just take all your shit away up front instead of slowly fooling you into thinking you just need to work harder for that carrot.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday July 22 2016, @02:34PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Friday July 22 2016, @02:34PM (#378529)

        John Kenneth Galbraith said it perfectly: "Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite."

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday July 22 2016, @02:47PM

          by LoRdTAW (3755) on Friday July 22 2016, @02:47PM (#378541) Journal

          Thanks for that tidbit. Just did a little research on the man and found another great quote from him in 2002 (from wikipedia):

          The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by captain normal on Friday July 22 2016, @04:58PM

      by captain normal (2205) on Friday July 22 2016, @04:58PM (#378641)

      "No, that isn't it at all: The government has way more firepower than all the private gun owners in this country combined."
      That really worked to our advantage in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan didn't it.

      (if you don't grok sarcasm please don't mod or reply)

      --
      When life isn't going right, go left.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 22 2016, @11:46PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 22 2016, @11:46PM (#378844)

        False analogy. The US government knows far more about its own people than it knew about those people in faraway lands. Those foreign people were organized under their own governments before the US went to war with them. Private gun owners in the US are organized how, under the NRA? If you're not organized now, when are you going to organize, after the USG shuts down the interstates and the internet?

        Sure, you might manage to re-enact Ruby Ridge, Waco, the Bundy standoffs, Oklahoma City or Christopher Dorner's little tantrum. I don't see it getting farther than that.

        Americans are fat and contented. Keep the bread and circuses coming and they'll put up with anything.

  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday July 22 2016, @06:28PM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Friday July 22 2016, @06:28PM (#378704)

    Yeah, this has rather become the Soviet Union we fought so long, hasn't it? Police state surveillance? Check. Arbitrary abuse of power? Check. Indefinite detention? Check. Extrajudicial executions of citizens? Check.

    Well, you don't like it? Move to Texas -- no, wait, um ...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 22 2016, @09:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 22 2016, @09:38PM (#378800)

    Kellogg Brown and Root (part of Halliburton Co.) won an interesting contract in 2006 (emphasis added):

    The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to expand existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs, KBR said. The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster, the company said.

    -- https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/kbr-awarded-homeland-security-contract-worth-up-to-385m?dist=SignInArchive¶m=archive&siteid=mktw&dateid=38741.5136277662-858254656 [marketwatch.com]