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You may have heard of civil asset forfeiture.
That's where police can seize your property and cash without first proving you committed a crime; without a warrant and without arresting you, as long as they suspect that your property is somehow tied to a crime.
Now, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a device that also allows them to seize money in your bank account or on prepaid cards.
It's called an ERAD, or Electronic Recovery and Access to Data machine, and state police began using 16 of them last month.
Here's how it works. If a trooper suspects you may have money tied to some type of crime, the highway patrol can scan any cards you have and seize the money.
"We're gonna look for different factors in the way that you're acting," Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. John Vincent said. "We're gonna look for if there's a difference in your story. If there's some way that we can prove that you're falsifying information to us about your business."
...
News 9 obtained a copy of the contract with the state.
It shows the state is paying ERAD Group Inc., $5,000 for the software and scanners, then 7.7 percent of all the cash the highway patrol seizes.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday June 09 2016, @04:49AM
What happens is you go to your bank and dispute the transfers?
Is all FIAT reversible unless you are the police?
Banks are supposed to follow Know-your-customer laws and report suspicious activity. If the bank does not find it suspicious, why would the police have grounds to seize the funds without a court order?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2016, @04:55AM
Assuming this gets any amount of publicity, it seems likely there will be either a lawsuit or the feds will step in. Even in OK it's hard to imaging this standing for any length of time (?)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Whoever on Thursday June 09 2016, @05:56AM
What happens if you have overdraft protection and this device sucks so much money out of your account that you go overdrawn by 10s of thousands of dollars?
Unless this device can see the balance of an account, which would seem to be a huge security hole, I don't see how else it can work than just making incremental withdrawals, which have the possibility of making the victim go overdrawn.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday June 09 2016, @01:43PM
FWIW, I have an American acquaintance whose accounts were emptied by the IRS, "by mistake". When he complained, they gave his money back. The fact that lots of bills bounced, his credit rating took a hit, and he had hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees, late fees, etc? Tough, not their problem...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2016, @12:48PM
Reading between the lines, this sounds like it might only apply to stored value cards for which there is even less legal protection for disputes than even debit cards.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2016, @02:34PM
you're probably right and this is just the thinly veiled war on cash. "why would you need cash or cash cards if you're not a criminal"? "we'll just take that then". "now go get on some trackable, controllable money, slave".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2016, @03:12PM
Only terrorists use cash.
(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Friday June 10 2016, @01:40AM
This is particularly troubling, since it's legal to pay people using prepaid debit cards in some states. It disproportionately affects low income people with employers that use this scheme (with kickbacks from the debit card companies, I'm sure).
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