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posted by martyb on Friday October 07 2016, @08:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the legalized-theft-is-illegal-again dept.

TechDirt reports

After years of civil asset forfeiture abuse, legislators are finally fighting back. Reform bills have been offered up all over the country. Unfortunately, very few of them have made it to state governors' desks intact.

The Free Thought Project continues

California Governor Jerry Brown recently [September 29] signed into law a piece of legislation requiring police to secure an actual conviction before stealing people's stuff in drug-related offenses.

Civil asset forfeiture has been rightly likened to state-sanctioned armed robbery as it allows police to commandeer cash, vehicles, homes, or any property of value--even if the person is never charged with a crime--and then use or sell the items for profit for their departments.

Police in Oklahoma, for example, recently honed their thievery by rolling out nefarious Electronic Recovery and Access to Data machines, known as ERAD, which can scan your bank account and prepaid cards, and--if an officer believes any balances are tied to a crime--can wipe those accounts dry.

California's new law, formerly Senate Bill 443, quashes this nightmarish policing-for-profit in the exact way advocates of civil asset forfeiture (CAF) reform have been demanding for years.

[Continues...]

TechDirt also notes

Not only does the law contain a conviction requirement--something that should greatly reduce the amount of abuse--but it closes a loophole [that] law enforcement agencies love using to route around state-level restrictions.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2017, police departments in California will be largely prohibited from transferring seized property to federal agencies in order to sidestep state conviction requirements. The legislation forbids the transfer of property, like vehicles and homes, and specifically raises the threshold on cash seizures, requiring the government to obtain a conviction before permanently confiscating any amount under $40,000. (The previous cap was $25,000.) For larger cash seizures, authorities must provide "clear and convincing" evidence of a connection to criminal activity before taking the money for good.

Previous: Civil Asset Forfeiture Goes Digital [ERAD]
Albuquerque Won't Follow NM's New Asset Forfeiture Law; Gets Sued
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @10:58AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @10:58AM (#411425)
    I read that Wikipedia page shortly after writing my post and it still sounds absolutely insane. It's the sort of end-run around the letter and spirit of the Constitution that only the most diabolical of lawyers could invent. So they can stop me in the street and take the $500 in my pocket exactly the way a street mugger would, and then justify it by suing the $500 (not me!) in a civil as being illegally gotten?! Orz
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Arik on Friday October 07 2016, @02:38PM

    by Arik (4543) on Friday October 07 2016, @02:38PM (#411499) Journal
    It is absolutely ridiculous and you are right, it's so contradictory to both the letter and the spirit of the constitution it's impossible to see how it could have ever been done 'in good faith.' And yet our courts have repeatedly upheld it. The thing you may be missing is context. Virtually everything the US government does today is unconstitutional as well. The founders consciously designed the constitution as a lawful 'chain' to hold government back, well guess what the government did? They got lawyers, of course. It's relatively easy to corrupt lawyers when you get to appoint the judgeships, by the way. So we have a constitution that grants a limited number of enumerated powers to the government for the purpose of improving the 'general welfare' and they simply interpret it away. Oh, no, that's not telling us the purpose for which we have these very limited, defined and specific powers for, no, it's actually a separate grant of power itself, it says that in addition to the narrowly defined powers granted before it that the government can nonetheless have any power it wants, as long as it says the magic words 'general welfare' at some point to justify it.

    Well clearly that's bullshit. If that were the intent of the clause the section before it would not be there. That's obvious to anyone who can read. They still make the argument with a straight face, and they still get away with it, because the judges bought into it long ago, so that their careers would lead to judgeships.

    Another way they've done this is slighly less obvious, as you need to be sophisticated enough to realize that language changes over time and some of the words used then did not mean the same thing they've come to mean now. So there's a power given to "regulate commerce." After over 200 years that one word, 'regulate' has not just changed meaning a bit naturally, as words do, it's actually a word that's been completely redefined in order to slip those chains further. You see, when the constitution was written, to 'regulate' simply meant to make regular. When your shotgun barrel was old and bumpy and inaccurate and you took it to the gunsmith and had the bore reconditioned so that it was all regular and smooth again, this was called 'regulating the barrel.' Regulating commerce originally just meant that, making it regular. So if south carolina wanted to impose a tariff on imports from say connecticut, this would be where that power was originally intended to apply. The feds have authority to say 'well, no, you can't target another state with a tariff like that, that would make commerce irregular, so we're actually allowed to stop you from doing that. You could place the same tariff on all imports regardless of origin, but you can't play favorites like you're doing, we have to keep it regular."

    Well now that's been twisted and stretched to the point where they argue jurisdiction, not just on anyone involved in interstate commerce, but even people NOT involved in interstate commerce at all! They say it's enough to be involved in an activity, where that activity more broadly has some effect on interstate commerce. Again, this is obvious bullshit. If that was what was meant, there would have been no reason at all to write the constitution.

    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @07:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @07:32PM (#411584)

      Until Reactionary judges start dying (by whatever mechanism, natural or otherwise), I don't see things changing for the better.
      ...and "better" presupposes that it will be non-Reactionary judges who will succeed them.

      Now, just imagine what kinds of judges a Trump administration would nominate.

      ...and, on this topic, I don't see a Clinton45 administration to be significantly different.
      Remember that mass incarceration of non-rich people (in particular, people of color) was a Clinton notion--with Bill's Head Cheerleader, Hillary Rodham "Superpredators" Clinton, being in full support.

      ...and remember that, under Reagan, DoJ put a whole bunch of S&L criminals in jail.
      Starting with Clinton42, prosecution of white collar criminals tapered to a trickle.

      Remember also that bankruptcy law was changed on the watch of Clinton42 (such that e.g. student loans couldn't be discharged via bankruptcy).
      Again, HRC was the Head Cheerleader for Neoliberalism.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Friday October 07 2016, @08:37PM

    by sjames (2882) on Friday October 07 2016, @08:37PM (#411610) Journal

    So they can stop me in the street and take the $500 in my pocket exactly the way a street mugger would...

    Let's be fair, it's not exactly the same. If you resist the street mugger, he will be beaten and jailed. If you resist the street mugger with a badge, YOU will be beaten and jailed (if you live).