Tag: civil forfeiture

The “Free” State Steals $39,000

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Armed government workers in New Hampshire – the supposed “free” state – pulled over Edward Phipps for a minor traffic violation in October of 2016. Apparently, he was driving slightly faster than the posted speed limit and may have been tailgating.

It cost him $39,000.

Phipps made the mistake of carrying an “excessive” amount of cash – a mistake he didn’t know not to make since there’s no law against carrying any amount of cash, in New Hampshire or anywhere else.

There is, however, a war on some drugs.

Which has become a kind of Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich for the United States – with the main difference being that the targeted class isn’t Jews but rather everyone.

Or at least, their money.

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“The Police Just F**ked My Life” – Alabamians Outraged As Civil Asset Forfeitures Soar

Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
Oct 20, 2017 7:20 PM

The morning of June 29, 2010, began much like any other day for Frank Ranelli, the owner of FAR Computers in Ensley, Alabama. Ranelli, who had owned his computer repair business just outside of Birmingham for more than two decades, was doing some paperwork in his windowless office when he heard loud banging on the front door.  Within a matter of moments Ranelli was placed under arrest and all of the computer equipment in his store, much of which belonged to customers, had been confiscated by Alabama police never to be returned.  Per AL.com:

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Jeff Sessions Endorses Theft

Guest Post by Ron Paul
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently ordered the Justice Department to increase the use of civil asset forfeiture, thus once again endorsing an unconstitutional, authoritarian, and increasingly unpopular policy.

Civil asset forfeiture, which should be called civil asset theft, is the practice of seizing property believed to be involved in a crime. The government keeps the property even if it never convicts, or even charges, the owner of the property.

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Policing for Profit: Jeff Sessions & Co.’s Thinly Veiled Plot to Rob Us Blind

Guest Post by John W. Whitehead

“Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner.”— H.L. Mencken

Let’s not mince words.

Jeff Sessions, the nation’s top law enforcement official, would not recognize the Constitution if he ran right smack into it.

Whether the head of the Trump Administration’s Justice Department enjoys being the architect of a police state or is just painfully, criminally clueless, Sessions has done a great job thus far of sidestepping the Constitution at every turn.

Most recently, under the guise of “fighting crime,” Sessions gave police the green light to rob, pilfer, steal, thieve, swipe, purloin, filch and liberate American taxpayers of even more of their hard-earned valuables (especially if it happens to be significant amounts of cash) using any means, fair or foul.

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Police Civil Asset Forfeitures Exceed All Burglaries in 2014

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Police-Forfeiture

Between 1989 and 2010, U.S. attorneys seized an estimated $12.6 billion in asset forfeiture cases. The growth rate during that time averaged +19.4% annually. In 2010 alone, the value of assets seized grew by +52.8% from 2009 and was six times greater than the total for 1989. Then by 2014, that number had ballooned to roughly $4.5 billion for the year, making this 35% of the entire number of assets collected from 1989 to 2010 in a single year. According to the FBI, the total amount of goods stolen by criminals in 2014 burglary offenses suffered an estimated $3.9 billion in property losses. This means that the police are now taking more assets than the criminals.

The police have been violating the laws to confiscate assets all over the country. A scathing report on California warns of pervasive abuse by police to rob the people without proving that any crime occurred. Even Eric Holder came out in January suggesting reform because of the widespread abuse of the civil asset forfeiture laws by police.

Bloomberg News has reported now that Stop-and-Seize authority is turning the Police Into Self-Funding Gangs. They are simply confiscating money all under the abuse of this civil asset forfeiture where they do not have to prove you did anything. Prosecutors are now instructing police on how to confiscate money within the grey area of the law.

A class action lawsuit was filed against Washington DC where police were robbing people for as little as having $100 in their pocket.  This is getting really out of hand and it has indeed converted police into legal criminals or “gangs” as Bloomberg News calls them.