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Civil Asset Forfeiture Goes Digital

posted by cmn32480 on Thursday June 09 2016, @04:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the legalized-theft dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

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.

http://www.news9.com/story/32168555/ohp-uses-new-device-to-seize-money-used-during-the-commission-of-a-crime

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2016, @05:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2016, @05:58PM (#357430)

    Is it time for the fourth box yet. Not that you should be shooting the police - they're mostly just foot soldiers doing what they're told. It's the politicians who approve and fund programs like this, who urgently need to discover that actions have consequences.

    I don't think it's time for the ammo box yet. The US fedgov (and thus many other levels of US gov) relies on personal income taxes for about 75% of its revenue. There are multiple ways to sharply reduce that number, some of which include: changing the number of W-4 exemptions to a high enough number that no tax withholding occurs; working less so that your net income taxation is zero; starting your own small business and simply ignoring the IRS entirely.

    Sure, ideas like the above are going to get you labelled as a criminal by criminals. However, with a little bit of forethought, the odds of there actually being a problem for any such individual go down sharply. Don't keep resources in places easily stolen from (e.g., dollars in banks, inventory in customs lockup), plan on keeping titled property until you die (vehicles, houses, etc.) or look at moving such property into trusts, and don't rely on government services (social security, etc.).

    In short, the only reason why the literally criminal insanity continues with US governments is because individual people choose to keep funding said criminal government. When government criminals start shooting/kidnapping people who are taking that last peaceful step, then it would seem time for the ammo box - and yes, such people have already been kidnapped, so keep your powder dry.