<story><title>How Police Officers Seize Cash from Innocent Americans</title><url>http://priceonomics.com/how-police-officers-seize-cash-from-innocent/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>balls187</author><text>John Oliver had a great piece on this: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the US, where the constitution expressly prohibits it: that your property is seized w&amp;#x2F;o due process is complete and utter garbage.&lt;p&gt;By no means am I a right-wing&amp;#x2F;vigilante militia supporter, but this type of behavior from the police makes me support having a heavily armed citizenry.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>timonovici</author><text>How would heavily armed citizenry help solve the problem? Are you going to put a hole in the head of the officer who takes your cash out of your car? Won&amp;#x27;t that lead to anarchy or civil war, eventually? Maybe...consider changing the law, eh?</text></comment>
<story><title>How Police Officers Seize Cash from Innocent Americans</title><url>http://priceonomics.com/how-police-officers-seize-cash-from-innocent/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>balls187</author><text>John Oliver had a great piece on this: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the US, where the constitution expressly prohibits it: that your property is seized w&amp;#x2F;o due process is complete and utter garbage.&lt;p&gt;By no means am I a right-wing&amp;#x2F;vigilante militia supporter, but this type of behavior from the police makes me support having a heavily armed citizenry.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>manachar</author><text>It does go through a process, which at this point is considered constitutional, or more properly worded, has yet to be ruled unconstitutional in court.&lt;p&gt;Civil forfeiture was a highly successful tool to combat organized crime and grew enormously in the 80s with Reagan&amp;#x27;s odious war on drugs. It basically solves the problem of illicitly used money being able to free people the government wanted wanted to stop.&lt;p&gt;As a tool for dismantling organized crime, it was effective, useful, and generally seemed basically fair and as such seemed to survive court review.&lt;p&gt;Then came the war on drugs and a dose of right-wing anti-tax thinking.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s now possible for a drug dealer to serve time in a forfeiture-financed prison after being arrested by agents driving a forfeiture-provided automobile while working in a forfeiture-funded sting operation.&amp;quot; — Reagan attorney general Richard Thornburgh in 1989.&lt;p&gt;It was specifically designed to help fund agencies in a way that replaced tax revenue. Starting at roughly this same time period most government agencies at all levels became cash-strapped in various ways. This meant some agencies have turned to civil forfeiture to create revenue.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s clearly a bad incentive and needs to be reined in and reformulated to ensure rights are being respected.&lt;p&gt;BTW, a heavily armed citizenry is precisely why local police departments advocate for more and more militarized equipment. They&amp;#x27;ll call them gang members and drug dealers, but they are heavily armed citizenry nonetheless. Armed citizens won&amp;#x27;t solve any part of this problem.</text></comment>