A proposed measure would require all fines from traffic tickets and forfeiture to be donated to charity, removing the incentive for police officers to issue tickets in order to generate revenue.
The post Revolutionary Bill Will Remove Incentive for Profiteering Cops By Giving ALL Fines to Charity appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
An investigation has revealed that in several states, police are selling the firearms they have seized back to the public to generate revenue, and in some cases, those guns are being used for other crimes.
The post Cops Are Taking People’s Firearms, Selling Them to Make a Profit and It’s 100% Legal appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Are police necessary? Although this existential question often produces a knee-jerk ‘of course they are, who would protect us?’ a growing call for the abolition of police — and working examples to back it up — deserves more than scornful dismissal, particularly amid epidemic-level violence by agents of the state.
Police are under no obligation to protect the public they putatively serve — a series of state and Supreme Court decisions stretching back more than three decades indisputably establish this fact — so the lingering question, ‘who will protect us?’ is of no consequence to the case for dismantling every police department in the nation.
On the contrary, police kill, maim, intimidate, harass, and generally brutalize the citizenry with alarming frequency — and rarely face consequences beyond a paid vacation farcically termed ‘administrative leave’ for doing so.
Rather than fight and solve violent crimes, police act as little more than heavily militarized code-enforcers, or as David Graeber of the London School of Economics aptly terms, “bureaucrats with weapons” — protecting us from broken tail lights, missing front license plates, and imperfect lane changes more often than from robbery, homicide, and rape.
Give police the equipment and weapons of war under the premise of fighting terrorism, when terrorism is all but nonexistent, and predictably, they will go to war. As Abraham Maslow posited in 1966 in a concept known as the law of the instrument, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
We, the citizenry, are not nails to be forcibly and violently coerced into submission over the tiniest of nonviolent and inconsequential infractions — but, whether or not we’re inclined to admit as much, that summarizes our current situation in the eyes of an overbearing state and its criminalization of, in essence, daily life.
How this police state cinched a noose-like grip on the nation, at this late date, arguably matters little in deference to the urgency it must be addressed. And while solutions run the gamut from individual officer liability insurance to the use of body cameras, forcing an on-call policy akin to that of fire departments to an overhaul of training policies, as it becomes apparent nothing will be done, the larger aforementioned existential question must come into play.
Are police a necessary element in an ordered, peaceful society?
In short, the answer is no — absolutely not — largely because police spend such little time policing anything other than ridiculous laws created solely for the purpose of revenue generation to justify their own existence.
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Graeber writes:
“The police spend very little of their time dealing with violent criminals — indeed, police sociologists report that only about 10% of the average police officer’s time is devoted to criminal matters of any kind. Most of the remaining 90% is spent dealing with infractions of various administrative codes and regulations: all those rules about how and where one can eat, drink, smoke, sell, sit, walk, and drive. If two people punch each other, or even draw a knife on each other, police are unlikely to get involved. Drive down the street in a car without license plates, on the other hand, and the authorities will show up instantly, threatening all sorts of dire consequences if you don’t do exactly what they tell you.
“The police, then, are essentially just bureaucrats with weapons. Their main role in society is to bring the threat of physical force — even, death — into situations where it never would have been otherwise invoked, such as the enforcement of civic ordinances about the sale of untaxed cigarettes.”
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This overcriminalization of, well, living, has exploded prison populations and adversarial policing to a profoundly negative effect. In the beginning of 2015, the number of federal criminal laws exceeded 4,500 — over 27,000 pages of United States federal code — with Congress creating crimes where none previously existed at a rate of 50 new criminal laws each year. And that only covers federal law — add state and local criminal codes and it’s estimated the average American unknowingly commits three felonies every day.
According to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, “our nation’s addiction to criminalization backlogs our judiciary, overflows our prisons, and forces innocent individuals to plead guilty not because they actually are, but because exercising their constitutional right to a trial is prohibitively expensive and too much of a risk.”
These purported crimes, however, largely have nothing at all to do with true harm committed against another — though brutal responses by police and filled-beyond-capacity prisons would have you thinking otherwise. With just 5 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. incarcerates no less than 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. This stunning surplus of criminal law, coupled with the government’s military equipment giveaway to law enforcement departments which have little need for it, has put the populace in the altogether dangerous position of being 58 times more likely to be killed by an officer of the law than by a terrorist.
Once an individual has a criminal record, possible future interactions with police become a risky endeavor, indeed — it already doesn’t take evidence of wrongdoing to put an officer on guard, but a criminal blip on someone’s record during an otherwise routine traffic stop creates wholly unnecessary tension where none should exist. Especially if that crime was collecting rainwater, living off-grid, keeping rabbits in the backyard, or any of the untold number of patently absurd behaviors now deemed verboten by the state — and the scope of this article won’t even touch on the untold tragedies fueled by the failed war on drugs.
Loosely in line with the law of the instrument, citizens have become opportunities for revenue generation, as police patrol the streets searching for anyone stepping out of line with some misbegotten code. We are little more than adversarial dollar signs to these roving bands of armed enforcers of extraneous laws — targets to be plundered and pillaged, harassed and shaken down, to generate revenue and therefore justify the continuation of Big Government.
In the absence of policing, justice, prison, and criminal code reform, several viable options present themselves for consideration — perhaps most imperatively among them, the complete abolishment of police.
To posit the populace would devolve into chaos and violence without police departments ignores the chaos and violence wrought by police — not to mention the very real historical proof a correctly and fully-functioning society can and will police itself.
First, consider the sizable financial feedback loop perpetuated by an excessively intrusive nanny state and its armed agents of enforcement. Taxpayers shoulder the cost of disproportionately large police forces, which crack down on petty criminals instead of preventing murders, rapes, and significant property crimes. Then taxpayers fund overburdened public defenders and backlogged courts, prisons, probation officers, and legislators in their effort to criminalize yet more ridiculously innocuous behaviors. It’s neverending. It’s unsustainable. And it’s not going to fix itself — not in ways significant enough to warrant further discussion.
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As of 2011, according to a 2013 study by the associate dean of Eastern Kentucky University’s School of Justice Studies, Victor E. Kappeler, a mere two of 14 arrests were for violent or property crimes. If police truly existed to fight actual crime, not the overwhelmingly excessive number of ‘crimes’ created by lawmakers, departments would be slashed in staff dramatically.
Kappeler writes:
“If we take all the violent crimes reported to the police in 2011, we find that there were 1,203,564 violent crimes (FBI, 2012). Since more than 885,000 people worked as sworn officers in that same year (BJS 2012), there were 1.36 violent crimes reported for every police officer employed in the U.S. If crime were dispersed evenly across the nation’s police, then this would mean that in 2011 each police officer would have been responsible for investigating just over a single violent crime. And since we know that a relatively small number of criminals are responsible for the vast majority of crime in a society, each cop would be responsible for even fewer criminals.”
After the hotly controversial deaths by police of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in 2014, the call for police reform intensified exponentially. While undoubtedly well-intentioned in motive, years of begging nicely for the broken system to fix itself have, as to be expected, fallen on deaf ears.
Abolishing police entirely might reek of radicalism to a nation cowed by constant government fear propaganda, but considering how little violence is present in our current society — compared to just decades ago — examples already in place prove the concept has teeth.
Trained and unarmed intervention teams consisting of civilians — often former violent offenders, themselves — can and do defuse potentially violent conflicts in their own neighborhoods in major cities from Los Angeles to Detroit, as noted by Rolling Stone. Indeed, conflict resolution as a community program has effectively prevented criminal activity, improved neighborhood relations, reduced gang violence, and resolved — without the involvement of police or courts — crimes which have already occurred.
Ethan Ucker, cofounder of Circles & Ciphers — “a leadership training a conflict resolution program for young men who’ve been in prison, jail, or a gang,” which began in Chicago — facilitates “peace circles.” Though ‘peace circles’ will likely evoke images of stoned hippies around a campfire for many, the concept has done the extraordinary in a community once awash in violence and gang activity.
In just one anecdotal example Ucker offered to the Chicago Reader recently,
“There was a robbery at this store in the community. One of the people at the store whose stuff was taken said, ‘Look, I don’t want to call the cops. Is there anything we can do?’ … They found on Facebook that this young person was selling their stuff, and that young person happened to go to a school where we’d done some circles, so I knew a teacher at the school and could say, ‘Hey, this is where we’re at.’”
Eventually, robber and robbed were brought together in an attempt to resolve the wrongdoing.
“That young person ended up returning what he had that hadn’t been sold, and then working at the shop in restitution for everything else. Then it turned out he really liked working there, and after this agreement was over, he continued to go there and volunteer. There was a relationship built there.”
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That relationship among community members can act as a compelling deterrent against crime — the better one knows a neighbor, the less likely they are to rob or victimize them. This cannot be said of police in 2017, as officers often don’t live in the neighborhoods they police, which creates a degree of separation and personal investment from the ultimate outcome of any interaction — decreasing the hesitation to act violently in an encounter that wouldn’t ordinarily call for the use of force.
In some manifestations, this community solution subverting the need to involve police and the court system is termed ‘reparative or transformative justice’ — about which José Martín writes for Rolling Stone has appeared in cities across the U.S., like “Philadelphia’s experiment with community courts, spaces are created where accountability is understood as a community issue and the entire community, along with the so-called perpetrator and the victim of a given offense, try to restore and even transform everyone in the process.”
Putting the community back in community policing while abolishing police as armed agents for revenue generation can effect sweeping changes to an increasingly polarized and distanced society. Rather than the financial feedback loop apparent in our [in] justice system presently, defunding police loosens taxpayer dollars to reinstate mental health and addiction programs — two conditions of which often drive actual violent crime — among many other effective solutions.
When our rights have been pawned away by a money-hungry system, the only means left to reclaim those rights stands in wresting excessive power from those who would misuse and abuse it, in often brutal ways.
Police aren’t serving the people who pay their salaries — and are under no obligation to do so — but if they aren’t solving crimes or protecting the citizenry, whose purposes do they serve?
As Graeber, writing after the Department of Justice published a scathing report on systemic racism and excessive fines as pattern and practice in Ferguson, Missouri, continues, “in recent decades, local governments have become deeply indebted to large, private financial institutions — many of the same ones that brought of us the crash of 2008. (In Ferguson, for instance, the amount of revenue collected from fines corresponds almost exactly to that shelled out to service municipal debt.) Increasingly, cities find themselves in the business of arresting citizens in order to pay creditors.”
Ferguson is, of course, far from an isolated example. One wonders if those who unfalteringly defend the violent police state would as adamantly stand behind them if police were more accurately portrayed as state-sponsored, armed thugs for Big Banks and corporate America.
Notice none of these arguments for abolishing police criticize officers as individuals — except for an obviously growing number of bad apples, many officers chose policing as an occupation with protecting and serving in mind. But that arguably laudable goal is a vapid remnant of what has become policing for profit at the expense of communities nationwide. And unless an altogether unlikely revamping of overcriminalization takes place soon, officers serve no one but state and corporate interests — thus those who argue police put their lives on the line miss that they do so at the behest of the system oppressing us all to meet its financial goals.
No perfect solution for police violence exists, and in the absence of wholesale reform, abolishing American police might be our only realistic and suitable solution.
Having legalized recreational cannabis in its historic 2016 ballot initiative, the most populous U.S. state is not done challenging federal prohibition. California lawmakers have passed a bill that would prohibit cops in the state from helping the feds carry out their war on people and the cannabis plant.
Perhaps inspired by Colorado’s similar move, the California Assembly passed Bill 1578 by a thin margin, which now moves to the Senate for consideration before going to the governor’s desk.
The bill would prohibit state and local agencies from using “money, facilities, property, equipment, or personnel to assist a federal agency to investigate, detain, detect, report, or arrest a person for commercial or noncommercial marijuana or medical cannabis activity that is authorized by law in the State of California.”
Agencies also would be barred from responding to requests “made by a federal agency for personal information about an individual who is authorized to possess, cultivate, transport, manufacture, sell, or possess for sale marijuana or marijuana products or medical cannabis or medical cannabis products, if that request is made for the purpose of investigating or enforcing federal marijuana law.”
Agencies also could not “Transfer an individual to federal law enforcement authorities for purposes of marijuana enforcement or detain an individual at the request of federal law enforcement for conduct that is legal under state law.”
California’s move to protect its citizens from the injustice of federal prohibition takes on even greater urgency with rabid drug warrior Jeff Session as Attorney General, under President Trump, who declared that he reserves the right to crack down on states with medical and recreational cannabis laws.
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As the Tenth Amendment Center points out, there is strong legal precedent in withdrawing state and local enforcement of federal law under the ‘anti-commandeering doctrine.’ Four U.S. Supreme Court cases, dating back to 1842, provide sound support for the position that “federal government cannot force states to help implement or enforce any federal act or program.”
In the 1997 case of Printz vs. US, the late Justice Scalia wrote:
“We held in New York that Congress cannot compel the States to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program. Today we hold that Congress cannot circumvent that prohibition by conscripting the States’ officers directly. The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program. It matters not whether policy making is involved, and no case by case weighing of the burdens or benefits is necessary; such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty.”
Ending state enforcement would essentially end prohibition itself, since, according to the FBI, “law enforcement makes approximately 99 of 100 marijuana arrests under state, not federal law.”
Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, the author of Bill 1578, notes that California shouldn’t waste any more taxpayer money enforcing the fed’s senseless war.
“AB 1578 ensures that our limited local and state resources are not spent on federal marijuana enforcement against individuals and entities that are in compliance with our laws,” said Jones-Sawyer during the floor debate.
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Naturally, law enforcement groups are strongly opposed to the bill, recognizing that it would hinder their ability to steal cash and assets from innocent people through civil asset forfeiture. Several lawmakers, conveniently ignoring the issue of states’ rights, are also strongly opposed.
One frantic Assemblyman appealed to fear, claiming cops will be put “in harm’s way,” while groveling for centralized authority.
“This is insanity,” said Allen. “This is a complete violation of federal law. The hubris of California Democrats believing they can flout federal law on immigration and drug policy is beyond words.”
Nevermind the enormous economic opportunity of recreational cannabis sales, or the injustice of locking people in cages for victimless behavior, or the environmental benefit that will be realized when the open marketplace drives out criminal operations poisoning fish and wildlife.
For now, rationality has the edge in California and Colorado. States must exert their Tenth Amendment rights in no uncertain terms, and preventing cops from taking part in the federal drug war is an excellent way.
Fresno, CA – For some cops, it’s not enough to just ruin lives by enforcing the war on drugs. Some feel compelled to go even further by taking the loot and selling it for their own personal gain. That’s what former sheriff’s deputies Logan August and Derrick Penney did – and they got busted.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of California, August and Penney conspired with a former detective to steal several pounds of cannabis from storage and sell it through a confidential informant.
“According to court documents, between June 2014 and October 2014, while sworn peace officers working with the Kern County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO), August and Penney abused their positions of trust and authority by conspiring with former Bakersfield Police Department detective Patrick Mara and an individual who previously worked as a confidential informant for August, and others, to steal marijuana from a KCSO storage unit and sell it for unlawful personal gain. The marijuana had previously been seized during investigations into marijuana grown on public and private lands. Once August and Penney obtained the marijuana from the storage unit, they had it processed (trimmed) into approximately eight pounds of usable marijuana. August then delivered it to his former confidential informant, who sold it and provided August with part of the proceeds from those sales. August then shared the proceeds with Penney and Mara. August and Penney received approximately $1,200 each from the sale of this marijuana.”
August and Penney pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute marijuana, and face a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
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August has a history of using the power of the state to oppress others and profit from it. According to the document, he routinely participated in “marijuana eradication operations,” only to turn around and sell the stolen plants for hefty sums.
“On 10 separate occasions between March 2014 and December 2014, August wrongfully took marijuana from a law enforcement eradication operation for personal gain. August distributed to his former confidential informant the equivalent of 25 pounds of usable marijuana wrongfully taken from these law enforcement eradication operations. August received $15,000 from the sale of this marijuana.”
All of this underscores yet another way that the police state and the war on drugs serve only to degrade society and create crime where none should exist. Growing and selling a medicinal plant that has been used by humans for thousands of years is not the problem. Government’s prohibition of cannabis – borne of racism and the stifling of dissent – is the problem.
While thousands of people are locked in cages every year for possessing a beneficial plant, the enforcers of prohibition – “just doing their job” – benefit both legally and illegally from this war on people. The aforementioned deputies are among the rare few that actually get caught.
While their actions are certainly troubling, it pales in comparison to the legal way that law enforcement ruins lives and profits from it. Civil asset forfeiture (CAF), or policing for profit, has become standard operating procedure at federal, state and local levels of government.
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Under CAF, law enforcement can seize cash and assets from people on the spot, even if they are never charged with a crime. All cops have to do is say they suspect the cash or assets are involved in criminal activity. If an innocent person wants their stuff back, they have to go through expensive legal procedures to get it back. Most never even try.
Countless examples exist of innocent people being robbed blind by agents of the state, such as Joseph Rivers, who lost his life savings to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) as he was traveling to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music.
Thankfully, awareness is growing and people are standing up to the state, and CAF is on the ropes. Several states have already abolished or limited the practice, requiring a criminal conviction before cash and assets can be seized. Several more are following suit, and there is a growing movement at the federal level to end this massive system of legal theft.
When Richard Nixon decided to bring the War on Drugs into full force, he signed Reorganization Plan No. 2, in 1973, which established the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). For decades, the DEA has carried out a war on people as it enforces the senseless, unjust prohibition of arbitrary substances.
Government ruins countless lives – locking people in cages for years or life, tearing apart families – for victimless “crimes” such as possessing cannabis or other “illicit” drugs. In a glaring example of hypocirsy, however, the DEA is teaching Americans a telling lesson —you’re not supposed to sell or possess substances that are deemed illegal by the State – unless you work for the State.
In a recent House Judiciary Committee Hearing, the DEA’s acting director, Chuck Rosenberg, was caught off-guard by a question and tacitly admitted that his agency sells drugs and lets drugs flow into communities. The ostensible purpose is to catch bigger drug dealers, but Rosenberg could not even summon the typical bureaucratic doublespeak to address the issue.
Louisiana Rep. Cedric L. Richmond was questioning Rosenberg at the hearing.
RICHMOND: This committee held many hearings, and was furious about the Fast and Furious program. At least from my knowledge of DEA and other drug agencies, oftentimes part of a bigger sting is letting transactions and other things go through. Now, it’s a very specific question. In DEA’s past, present, future, any times do you let drugs hit communities to get the bigger fish?
ROSENBERG: We’re not supposed to – no, sir.
RICHMOND: Okay. Are you aware of any instances where it may happen?
ROSENBERG: I’ll have to check and get back to you on that.”
Rosenberg’s first answer is, “We’re not supposed to – no, sir.” However, this does not change the reality of the situation that DEA lets drugs flow into communities and actually sells drugs. Rosenberg didn’t deny it, because denying it would amount to lying.
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As the Washington Post notes, DEA trafficks drugs through undercover agents and they use of confidential informants.
DEA catches small-time drug users or sellers and threatens jail and other punishments, unless the subject agrees to work for the government to catch other people. The DEA then has the frightened subjects engage in “otherwise illegal activity,” having them pose as buyers or sellers of drugs.
DEA is “trafficking in what would be considered as large quantities of controlled substances,” as a 2015 Dept. of Justice Inspector General report noted. That report also stated: “These inadequate DEA policies and procedures related to OIA greatly increase the risk to the DEA, the U.S. government, and the public from the involvement of DEA confidential sources in OIA.”
Indeed, the threat to the public is well documented, as some of those coerced into becoming informants end up murdered. In one heartbreaking case, Rachel Hoffman – a young college graduate whose “crime” was smoking pot – was shot and killed after cops coerced her into going undercover for a large drug deal.
No one really knows the scale of DEA drug trafficking, as the agency does not release this information, but outside experts say the DEA sells drugs on a routine basis.
Even more infuriating is the fact that DEA and law enforcement lets drugs flow into communities for the sole purpose of seizing cash and assets under the insidious practice of civil asset forfeiture, or policing for profit. As we reported on March 30, the DEA has stolen $3.2 billion over the past decade – from people never charged with a crime. Drug task forces work the highways where they know cash travels, instead of the actual drug routes.
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“We are deliberately letting the drugs get to their final destination, get sold, get used, and in some cases letting someone die of an overdose,” said Brady Henderson of the ACLU.
So let’s get this straight. The DEA, tasked with enforcing federal government’s prohibition on drugs, is actually trafficking large quantities of drugs for the ostensible purpose of catching bigger drug dealers, or just to steal cash from people. After decades of the miserable drug war, drugs and drug use are still as prevalent as ever, so the war on drugs clearly is not working.
But the DEA still funnels large quantities of drugs into communities, even though their success rate at combating drug use is ZERO as drug overdoses are at an all time high. What, then, could possibly be the rationale for continuing?
The thrill of exerting power over the populace is one answer. Continuing the oppression of minorities and dissenters is another. The billions of dollars stolen from innocent people is surely an incentive to continue. Protecting the profits of Big Pharma is another answer to this puzzling irrationality.
The DEA was recently caught deliberately slowing its investigations into the makers of prescription opioid manufacturers, which constitute the biggest and most deadly drug dealers in the nation. The DEA’s first case against an opioid maker faltered, resulting in a laughable $35 million fine against the company.
Exhibit A of DEA’s astounding level of ignorance and injustice is their maintaining of cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug with “no accepted medical benefit.” Even as most U.S. states have recognized the amazing power of cannabis to heal a variety of ailments, DEA somehow remains in a state of total denial.
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The War on Drugs is a war on people. The DEA not only ruins lives by enforcing unjust prohibition, but it’s also neck deep in perpetuating the black market.
A bombshell report from the Inspector General (IG) at the Department of Justice has exposed the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for the colossal thieves they are. According to the report, DEA seized more than $4 billion in cash from people since 2007, but $3.2 billion of the seizures were never connected to any criminal charges. That figure does not even include the seizure of cars and electronics.
This thievery is possible through the insidious practice of civil asset forfeiture (CAF), where law enforcement can seize cash and property on the mere suspicion of being involved in criminal activity. Originally developed in the 1980s to go after organized crime, CAF has mushroomed into a source of revenue for cops across the country – from local to state to federal – in what’s become known as Policing for Profit.
When an innocent person’s cash is stolen by DEA, that person must petition to get it back, meaning the burden of proof (and the burden of time and expense) is on the unlucky victim who never did anything wrong in the first place. In fact, “forfeiture proceedings start from the presumption of guilt.”
It’s a clever scheme, and DEA knows it. The IG found that petitions were filed in only 20 percent of DEA cash seizures. As Reason Magazine points out, the IG report highlights just how arbitrary these seizures can be.
“We found that different task force officers made different decisions in similar situations when deciding whether to seize all of the cash discovered,” the Inspector General wrote. “These differences demonstrate how seizure decisions can appear arbitrary, which should be a concern for the Department, both because of potentially improper conduct and because even the appearance of arbitrary decision-making in asset seizure can fuel public perception that law enforcement is not using this authority legitimately, thereby undermining public confidence in law enforcement.”
The case of a man traveling at an airport with $27,000 is a prime example of how DEA can just take the cash on a whim, without even bothering to pretend it has to do with criminal activity.
“When a task force officer explained that the U.S. currency in the bag was going to be seized pending further investigation, the passenger asked whether he could keep some of the currency to travel home. The passenger asserted that all of the currency in the bag was his, and the task force officers allowed him to retain $1,000. This seizure resulted in an administrative forfeiture of $27,000 to the U.S. government, and the DEA explained to the OIG that, other than the events surrounding the seizure, there was no subsequent investigative activity or additional law enforcement benefit.”
Reason Magainze sums it up perfectly.
“If the DEA task force agents thought that man’s cash was connected to drug activity, why allow him to keep some of it? If they weren’t sure, why take it in the first place? The answer, of course, is there is no logical or legal rationale for this sequence of events.”
Indeed, most of the DEA’s cash seizures don’t relate to any criminal investigation, and 82 percent of the cases reviewed by the IG were settled without any judicial review. The DEA focuses on airports, train stations and bus terminals, relying on travel records and a host of confidential informants to target people they believe will have lots of cash.
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DEA gives itself wide latitude to pin you as a suspect for detainment and search. Woe to those “traveling to or from a known source city for drug trafficking, purchasing a ticket within 24 hours of travel, purchasing a ticket for a long flight with an immediate return, purchasing a one-way ticket, and traveling without checked luggage.”
The IG concludes that DEA is posing great risks to civil liberties by continuing the practices highlighted in its report.
‘‘When seizure and administrative forfeitures do not ultimately advance an investigation or prosecution, law enforcement creates the appearance, and risks the reality, that it is more interested in seizing and forfeiting cash than advancing an investigation or prosecution.’’
The IG states that “risks to civil liberties are particularly significant when seizures that do not advance or relate to an investigation are conducted without a court-issued seizure warrant, the presence of illicit narcotics, or subsequent judicial involvement prior to administrative forfeiture.”
The threat to civil liberties posed by CAF is being recognized more and more, as states continue to abolish the practice by requiring a criminal conviction before cash and assets can be seized. But the federal government is a primary reason why CAF still runs rampant, through the euphemistically named Equitable Sharing Fund where the stolen loot (amounting to $28 billion over the last decade) is shared by federal and state drug task forces.
“These findings fundamentally undercut law enforcement’s claim that civil forfeiture is a vital crime-fighting tool. Americans are already outraged at the Justice Department’s aggressive use of civil forfeiture, which has mushroomed into a multibillion dollar program in the last decade. This report only further confirms what we have been saying all along: Forfeiture laws create perverse financial incentives to seize property without judicial oversight and violate due process.
This report is one more illustration that the only solution to resolving these issues is to end the use of civil forfeiture once and for all. – The Institute for Justice“
Over the past couple of years, great progress has been made in reforming the insidious practice of civil asset forfeiture (CAF), better known as policing for profit. CAF is one of the biggest threats to property rights employed by government — and Trump apparently wants to keep it.
Using CAF, local police departments and federal government seize cash and assets from innocent people who are never charged with a crime, on the mere suspicion (often fabricated) that the cash or assets were involved in criminal activity.
Even when a person is cleared of wrongdoing, in most states that person must incur legal fees and court costs to get their property back – creating a severe disincentive to even try. Originally set up in the 1980s to drain resources from criminal organization, CAF is now used by police to rake in millions from innocent people – mostly under the guise of war on drugs – so they can buy militarized police gear and further train themselves in the art of oppression.
As the Institute for Justice points out, several states have made significant improvements, effectively abolishing CAF by requiring a criminal conviction for government to keep cash and assets. These laudable reforms have, of course, been heavily criticized by law enforcement, who only sees a threat to their profits.
But now, it appears that civil asset forfeiture reform has encountered a major obstacle in the form of President Trump.
On Tuesday, Trump met with sheriffs from around the country to hear their concerns, as the president has vowed to pursue a “law and order” agenda. There, Texas Sheriff Harold Eavenson complained about efforts in his state to end policing for profit.
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“There’s a state senator in Texas that was talking about legislation to require conviction before we could receive that forfeiture money,” said Eavenson.
This shocking statement was met with laughter from the crowd of cops, but Trump’s face remained dead serious. Eavenson even seemed taken aback, and did not offer the name of the state senator who dares to suggest requiring a criminal conviction before seizing someone’s property.
The apparent willingness of Trump to destroy the career of lawmakers who believe private property and civil liberties should be protected is just one more indication of Trump’s rather frightening authoritarian tendencies. When it means seizing cash and property and perpetuating the war on drugs, the Republican mantra of less government appears to be history.
Eavenson defended the president, suggesting that he didn’t really mean what he said.
“He was just being emphatic that he did not agree with that senator’s position,” Eavenson said, adding of the senator in question, “I’m not into assassinating his character.”
But if there’s anything we have learned about Trump, it’s that he is unpredictable and not afraid to stoop to shocking levels of deception and aggression.
According to Dallas News:
“Two Texas senators have offered legislation this year to require conviction before someone’s assets could be seized. Sen. Konni Burton, a Republican who often pushes civil-liberties legislation to protect personal information and property, was a fierce critic of Trump during the campaign.
She and Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, a McAllen Democrat, have formed an unlikely team pushing this asset forfeiture legislation.”
Other Republicans have supported the measure, as their constituents have become aware of the threat to property rights and civil liberties CAF poses.
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The target of the sheriff’s and Trump’s ire is still unknown, but Sen. Burton is not being intimidated and has penned a response, which she posted on Twitter.
Yday, Trump joked he"d help a Tx sheriff "destroy" a senator who wants to overhaul asset seizure laws. Just in from @KonniBurton: #txlege pic.twitter.com/DfxHrVfqOq
— Lauren McGaughy (@lmcgaughy) February 8, 2017
“I have never met with Sheriff Eavenson, nor even heard of him before yesterday. However I take exception to his comments on asset forfeiture reform.
While I certainly want law enforcement to have the tools necessary to combat large criminal enterprises, we must be vigilant to safeguard the rights of everyday citizens from potential abuse. Do not be mistaken or misled: this is not strictly a law enforcement issue; this is a property rights issue.
Property rights are one of the foundational rights in any free society and the taking of property by government is no small matter. Requiring the government to secure a criminal conviction before permanently taking property from citizens is simply commonsense. We would not stand for anything less when it comes to our personal liberty or freedom; why should we allow our property to be taken so easily? We should not diminish the constitutional protections guaranteed for all in the 4th and 5th Amendments to more easily punish criminals. On the contrary, we should defend these protection more fiercely than ever so they are strong for future generations.
I will not be discouraged nor deterred. The moment for reform of our system of asset forfeiture has arrived. Please join me in this effort.”
One of the worst states engaging in civil asset forfeiture, better known as “policing for profit,” suffered a blow in its campaign to rob innocent people of their cash and assets. After withering criticism and a lawsuit it couldn’t win, Iowa’s “Drug Interdiction Team” was disbanded on December 6.
“The so-called “interdiction” unit’s key focus was to stop vehicles traveling along Interstate Highway 80 suspected of being involved in drugs or other crimes. It was a part of the Iowa Department of Public Safety and had become a target in recent years from critics who alleged the team used unconstitutional practices to seize private property for law enforcement profits.”
This special group of State Troopers used every trick in the book to engage in warrantless searches of people’s vehicles, after pulling them over for minor “offenses” like failure to use a turn signal. Using flimsy excuses such as a dirty car, the odor of air freshener, or fidgeting, the cops would ransack vehicles in hopes of finding any amount of suspected drugs or paraphernalia.
The cops would then make up suspicions about “criminal activity” and use Iowa’s broad civil asset forfeiture laws to seize cash, assets and vehicles of the occupants – with no charge or proof of a crime. Even if no charges are filed or the person is found innocent, he or she must prove to a court they obtained their cash or property legally, incurring attorney and court fees.
Using these devious methods, Iowa law enforcement has raked in more than $55 million in cash since 1985 and 4,200 vehicles since 1991. It’s entirely unknown how much the cops took in other valuables such as guns, jewelry, furniture and artwork, as no records are kept for those items.
The Des Moines Register began exposing Iowa’s egregious use of civil asset forfeiture after a 2013 incident. Two California gamblers were traveling through Iowa with $100,000 in cash, and were pulled over for allegedly not using a turn signal. Having a California license plate, this was a golden opportunity for the “interdiction” team.
The cops used alleged “fidgeting and nervousness” to justify their search, which found a small bit of cannabis. It didn’t matter than both the men had California medical cannabis cards. After arguing the search was illegal, $90,000 was returned to the men, who filed a federal civil lawsuit in 2014 for damages, stating “the troopers had no probable cause to detain the men for a search of their vehicle and that officers had been taught improper techniques for justifying the search.”
Iowa settled the case by awarding the men an additional $60,000, on the same day it disbanded the Drug Interdiction Team.
“The true importance of this lawsuit was that it forced the state of Iowa to re-examine its decades-long practice of pushing the constitutional boundaries of the state’s civil asset forfeiture law and to disband the Iowa Drug Interdiction Team,” said Glen Downey, attorney for the gamblers.
Four days after the announcement that the “interdiction” team was disbanded, Iowa’s policing for profit was struck another blow. The state’s Supreme Court ruled that cops wrongly detained a driver in a case that “will restrict the ability of state patrol troopers and deputies to do the type of warrantless vehicle searches…using controversial civil forfeiture laws.”
“Friday’s ruling came in the case of Robert Pardee, who’s fighting to get back $33,100 that a trooper seized after stopping a vehicle he was riding in and finding a small amount of marijuana during a search. The trooper called for a drug dog and searched the vehicle, partly because he believed the car had a “lived-in” look that could indicate cross-country drug trafficking.
But Justice Edward Mansfield in his opinion for the majority dismissed that evidence as “unremarkable” and clearly not evidence of criminal activity.
“There were water bottles, an energy drink, a metal coffee cup, chips and dip, apples and bananas, a trash bag with some trash, a sleeping bag draped on the rear seat and a guitar case,” Mansfield wrote. “Many vehicles are more lived-in than that.”
Pardee, a California resident, was acquitted of the drug charge, but even after the court ruling in his favor, he still has to convince the Poweshiek County District Court to give him his money back.
The insidious nature of civil asset forfeiture is being exposed across the country. In the last two years, 18 states have reformed their forfeiture laws, in some cases requiring a criminal conviction to seize assets. With these two cases being highlighted and the disbanding of Iowa’s “interdiction” unit, that state may be joining the list soon.
