What "consent" looks like for the DEA and TSA

Any confiscated cash needs to go into state level or even federal coffers, not to the agency or local cops that did the confiscating. That removes the immediate incentive for abuse, while retaining the tool for what it was intended for: actual criminals.

(I don’t have the sources but read years ago that states that let the cops keep the cash have ridiculous levels of abusive confiscations, whereas states that have the money go to the state coffers basically don’t)

(Most civil asset forfeiture is done by local cops stopping people on the highway and similar)

I can't load the article, so this is likely off topic, but the memory came rushing back when I read this headline.

I attended a wedding that got hit by a major flash flood that required a rescue operation by boat and helicopter. Thankfully no one was seriously injured. A half dozen people were swept away and rescued from trees. The rest of us got to higher floors of the building and they were concerned about us waiting out the flood because cars from the parking lot floated and rammed the first floor of the building. It was featured on an episode of I Do, Redo.

They brought in busses to transport the 61 people rescued to the local high school where they had activated the Red Cross and provided us dry cloths and food. I can't say enough nice things about the Red Cross volunteers and the staff at the high school, and same with the fire department and EMS.

However, when we were loaded into the busses, the police held the busses until they had a drug dog come into the busses to walk up and down the aisles, and only after that let the busses take us to the high school. While no one was seriously injured physically, people were traumatized from the flooding event and many attendees suffered from PTSD for years.

It was so cruel for the police department to do what they did with everyone in the mental state that we were in.

For reasons I do not understand, we were not free to leave the high school, and even the people that did not lose their cars to the flood were required to go to the high school on the busses. I can't recall how long they detained us at the high school, I'd guess 3 to 5 hours, and then they let us leave. The friend that came to pick me up (I did lose my vehicle to the flood) got to the high school not long after I did and had to wait in the parking lot for hours.

We wanted to feel safe once we got to dry land after the ordeal we went through. I did not feel safe until I got home.

If you want to see an example of what this looks like, the Institute has a video recorded by a passenger that knew his rights.

https://youtu.be/0XBzV0bDZdQ

The one encounter with the DEA agent reminds me of cheap, sleazy, sales tactics used at car dealerships. High pressure tactics to force an action.

Civil forfeiture is absolutely insane. The “war on drugs” needs to end. Legalize all drugs. Dissolve the DEA. Tax all drugs. Earmark part of the sales towards drug addiction treatment and mental health.

This video linked in the article (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XBzV0bDZdQ) makes me want to donate to Institute for Justice to maybe help stop this practice. But a bit of Googling shows that IfJ were also one of the legal forces behind the Citizens United decision, which is something I really don't want to support.

The average person has the same recourse to a cop’s injustice as the average slave had to a slave catcher.

Has anybody mentioned the fourth amendment? All this talk of rationale is misguided. The plain meaning of the 4th has been undermined by our corrupted court system.

I wonder what would happen if large amounts of travelers started carrying movie prop money? Could we churn out large numbers of plaintiffs with standing against the government, without losing substantial amounts of actual money?

I've seen one of these searches happen to another passenger first hand it's absurd.

Stupid question, but what happens if I carry my cash in a container that requests access to an attorney and, if not given it, calls an attorney itself? (Let's say it's a pouch that can't be opened without destroying it, with a basic android phone built into it, that will also document its own destruction as much as it can if it comes to that).

Bonus point if we give it a plaintive cute kitten voice so that the recording shows it pleading for its life.

(If you want to buy one of these, I'll gladly sell you it)

The free country where cops can mug you under threat of state backed violence, steal your money, and you won't get any due process, it's just gone. Ok.

Extreme reform is required at this point...

US borders is one of the things really dampening my enthusiasm for tourism to it.

Charlie Munger “Show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the outcome.”

If there were a law that directs confiscated money to one of: pay for medical bills of the poorest, rehabilitation of those with prison history, federal disaster relief fund, gender affirming care, phone bills in prisons, etc. None of these are my actual positions, these are just examples to remove the perverse incentive to steal.

This somehow reminds me of the TV show "Supernatural" where Angels need 'consent' of the people to possess their body. Which basically is "they said yes", and often how they get the 'yes' contains a lot of deceit (pretending to be someone else etc) misdirection and even torture...

Al Capone would blush in shame for his small-time scams compared to what the USGOV has been doing with Civil Asses Forfeiture

Yeah... They use to pay 10% of the "bounty" seized. Not sure what the going rate is with the heat now and days. The war on drugs lol.. war on peoples rights. Warrantless GPS trackers, then it was stingrays.. quite an intersting organization. They use some .. unique software. Penlink use to publish their software updates publicly was a good read. (you can probably find it on wayback machine) Interesting software to say the least.. https://www.penlink.com/digital-intelligence-original-work-2...

Seems to be hugged to death, here's archive.is:

https://archive.is/2024.07.24-000026/https://papersplease.or...

I've always thought that when they ask the questions of, "did you pack this bag? and "has this been in your possession?" that it is more about drug convictions than safety.

Halt!! On behalf of the king thy assets are forfeit!

Pttt!

[] https://archive.ph/yQhw3

Site seems to be overwhelmed - archive: https://archive.is/yQhw3

Wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20240724045202/https://papersple...

Wow, I didn't know this was a thing. Scary stuff.

Say what you will about Bitcoin and crypto, but it absolutely prevents this nonsense.