Good.<p>I really don't understand how this practice persisted for so long next when we have the right to due process.<p>For people who think it only happened to drug dealers who were difficult to prosecute; it happened to my elderly parents.<p>My grandfather died suddenly in Georgia and we were the closest family at the time. My parents packed up their car in a hurry and started from Texas down I-10. In Mississippi they ran into a drunk driving checkpoint. They, being elderly conservative Republican business owners driving a luxury sedan that never conceived that the police would not be on their side, consented to a search of their car. The police found an antique revolver (my dad is an avid collector) locked in its case in the trunk. That plus the $800 he had in his wallet as travel money was enough to get them thrown in jail for the weekend and their property seized as suspected drug dealers.<p>$8000 in local lawyer fees later they got their car back but the antique gun had 'gone missing' along with the cash. Their lawyer said they were lucky to get the car back.
> Police do not need evidence of a crime to use it, because it is a civil action against an object, such as currency or a car, rather than a person.<p>This is just so wrong. It essentially denies there's any such thing as property rights.
> "Forfeiture has its basis in British admiralty law"<p>British admiralty law is the bane of the American legal system:<p>"Next to revenue (taxes) itself, the late extensions of the jurisdiction of the admiralty are our greatest grievance. The American Courts of Admiralty seem to be forming by degrees into a system that is to overturn our Constitution and to deprive us of our best inheritance, the laws of the land. It would be thought in England a dangerous innovation if the trial, of any matter on land was given to the admiralty."<p>-- Jackson v. Magnolia, 20 How. 296 315, 342 (U.S. 1852)
I remember seeing this on John Oliver and thinking that it was no different than highway robbery.<p>I've literally seen shakedowns in third world countries that weren't as bad as what the police have been doing in the US. They just take a bribe and move on, you'd still have your car and most of your wallet.<p>The acts of the police in the US make me wonder why they even joined the police force in the first place?
I think all of the cynics on here (including me) should pause for a moment and reflect on what is happening in this case: the government is going to do something that will cost it revenue, just because its the right thing to do and the people wanted it.
>Holder said there is also less need for the Equitable Sharing program.<p>>“Today, however, every state has either criminal or civil forfeiture laws, making the federal adoption process less necessary,” Holder’s statement said.<p>> ...police can continue to make seizures under their own state laws, the federal program was easy to use and required most of the proceeds from the seizures to go to local and state police departments.<p>In other words, no longer will your rights be violated vis-a-vis the forfeiture of assets - without proof of a crime - under Federal Law. Rather, local police will be violating rights and taking assets under State Law.<p>Reading between the lines (e.g. following the money), it is clear the State's are behind this change and not the outrage of law makers at the notion police forces are strong-arm robbing ordinary citizens. Whereas under the Federal law money goes direct to the police agency and under state laws the money goes to a State fund where presumably the State law makers can get their greedy little hands on the money.
This quote is why I will never go back to the USA unless somethings radically change:<p>“It seems like a continual barrage against police,” said John W. Thompson, interim executive director of the National Sheriffs’ Association. “I’m not saying there’s no wrongdoing, but there is wrongdoing in everything.”<p>This is the head of a police organisation basically saying stop picking on us because other people rob citizens too. By the way I am an American and left in the years after 9/11 because shit like this was starting to become more and more common. It was bad for me there because I had a strange accent - I was raised in London, and I am half black.<p>Before 9/11 conversations would be like "Where are you from? Oh, Europe! Why I you here? I've always heard wonderful things about the place?" Afterwards it turned to "WHERE ARE YOU FROM AND WHY ARE YOU HERE!?!<p>It was sad to see a lot of Americans I met go from a totally open, inquisitive nature to closed paranoia. Really makes me depressed about the future of my country.
Republicans are going to blow this because they hate Obama and Holder. Police departments and their unions are a huge component of the pension liability blowing a hole in state budgets. With all the blowback recently, now is the perfect time to knock them down a peg or two in a way that's going to get bipartisan support if the message is crafted right.
Obama is killing it as a lame duck President. If he would have nutted up and acted this way throughout his Presidency, Democrats would be golden right not and not fighting for their political lives.
I am happy about this, but note that besides the (fairly narrow) "public safety" exception mentioned in the article the order also exempts joint task forces and joint federal-state investigations [1]. I don't know how those work, but my cynical expectation is for those activities to increase to make up for some of the lost revenue.<p>[1] <a href="http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/AGassetforfetureorder.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/AGassetforfetureorder.p...</a>
So... how long is this going to last? The article says Holder's leaving his office. When he leaves, what stops the next person from simply reinstating this policy?
Steve Rich posted all the documents on DocumentCloud and all the data on Github too.<p>The post about the documents (which you can search) and the data: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/01/16/how-police-spent-billions-seized-from-americans/" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/01/1...</a>
I remember a radio show on Canadian CBC, which talked about the danger of having goods, cash or otherwise being confiscated by less savoury deputies of the law in U.S.<p>It aired just last year, but I don't remember the exact name of the broadcast.
Of course, Holder does this as he is leaving, to score some brownie points. What was stopping him from doing this earlier? Nothing. The WaPo did a huge expose a few months back about the abuses in this system, but nobody cared. And others have been complaining about it for many years.<p>So now that he doesn't need the backing of the LEO community, but wants to line up speaking engagements after he retires, he throws the people a bone.
I know this is good news, but when I read it, the first thing I thought was "this would have saved quite a bit of trouble for Clay Davis' driver in The Wire". Which is not actually true, to be fair -- it could still happen in the same way, the only thing changing is what happens to the money after it's seized (well, the bits that Herc and Carver won't stuff in their pockets, at least).
The whole problem with this is when he is gone, it could be back again, ie. 2016<p>Justice for all is such an complete illusion in this country and the worst part is the people who breathlessly defend police until suddenly one day they get an eye opener and then it is too late.
To see both sides of this issue, you have to understand the thinking that brought this sort of legislation into use. Let's say you have some bad guy, whether he/she's a low-level crack dealer that sells on the streets or a gang leader who has all kinds of stuff going on.<p>When you arrest this person, what happens to their assets that they've (assumingly) illegally obtained? The hundred thousand in drug money? The guns, high end electronics, luxury cars, etc?<p>You weaken the individual criminal and their gangs by taking their money away. It's far to easy to just pass those assets on to another person and they can simply assume the role. And after the person does their 5-10 years in prison should they be released back to what they had obtained through illegal activity?
This is good news, but I hope it doesn't take the wind out of the sails of the effort to actually change the law.<p>Executive decisions such as this are a poor substitute for settled law.
I'll have to watch to make sure that this isn't something sneaky, but if he's really putting a stop to it this could be significant.<p>Some states have already legislated to prohibit this, but the federal program allowed their own police forces to sidestep the prohibitions... effectively making it impossible to fix at the state level.<p>Don't get me wrong, Obama and Holder are both shitbags, but this makes them slightly less shitbaggish, even in my own eyes. Two or three more things like this, I might even be forced to change my opinion of them.
Won't change a thing. All it will take is the good old standby of "disorderly conduct" to determine that a crime has been committed as justification for a seizure. Look at a cop the wrong way and your cash is as good as gone.