In 2014 the federal government took in more money through asset forfeiture – seizing private property – than thieves stole through burglary.
WE NO LONGER HAVE TO BE EVEN ACCUSED OF A CRIME BEFORE OUR OWN LAW ENFORCEMENT AND OUR OWN GOVERNMENT CAN SEIZE BOTH OUR FINANCES AND OUR PRIVATE PROPERTIES.
A CONGRESSIONAL "ACT" MAKES IT ALL LEGAL AND THE FEDS ARE CASHING IN...EXCEPT THE FEDS ARE MOVING US QUICKLY TO A CASHLESS SOCIETY.
[ SEE ALSO Cashless society: A huge threat to our freedom ]
CARE TO GUESS WHEN THIS LAW WAS CREATED THAT ALLOWS THE FEDS OR STATES TO NAB YOUR ASSETS?
IN THE FIRST YEAR OF GEORGE W. BUSH'S REIGN, 2000.
AND THE BASIS FOR "EQUITABLE SHARING" BETWEEN THE FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS SO STATES CAN KEEP SEIZED CASH, ETC?
UNDER REAGAN, 1984.
"The number of federal statutes permitting government forfeiture (since 1990) doubled from 200 to 400
But when innocent owners were sometimes ensnarled in seizure proceedings, it spurred criticism.
In the early 1990s a technique law enforcement officers are trained in called "Desert Snow", stop-and-seizure techniques, raked in $427 million JUST from highway encounters during a five-year period.
A federal contract allowed Joe David's consulting firm (He was a retired highway patrolman who "invented" Desert Snow) to keep 25% of the seized cash.
THIS WAS PART OF G.W. BUSH'S "HOMELAND SECURITY" WHICH A GULLIBLE, SELF-BLINDED CONGRESS WAS ALL TOO HAPPY TO PASS AS IT UPPED REVENUE IN ALL THEIR STATES.
According to the Justice department, there are three main justifications for civil forfeitures:
- Punishment and deterrence. To punish and deter criminal activity by depriving criminals of property used or acquired through illegal activities.
- Enhance police cooperation. To enhance cooperation among foreign, federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, through the equitable sharing of assets recovered through this program.
- Revenue for law enforcement. As a byproduct, to produce revenues to enhance forfeitures and strengthen law enforcement. [ See pages 60, 71 of that linked document]
"But this is not just a federal problem – millions are also taken in by states every year, with little to no oversight, and with few due process protections for property owners.
In the same report from the Institute for Justice, Illinois received a D- for its civil asset forfeiture laws.
There are two types of asset forfeiture.
1~ Criminal asset forfeiture occurs when government seizes private property after someone has been convicted or pleads guilty to a crime, and the property was either gained through or closely involved with the commission of the offense.
2~ Civil asset forfeiture.
Under civil asset forfeiture, charges against a person aren’t required.
Police can take property they suspect is related to criminal activity without having to prove a connection in court.
Under federal and many states’ civil asset forfeiture laws, such property – cash, vehicles, computers, real estate, etc., – can be taken without a criminal conviction or a warrant, and sometimes without formally charging the property owner with a crime.
Civil asset forfeiture places the burden on property owners to contest the seizure in court.
Eighty-seven percent of all federal forfeitures are civil, not criminal, meaning that criminal charges and a conviction are not involved in the overwhelming majority of these seizures.
Properties which can be confiscated include real estate property such as a house or motel, cars, cash, jewelry, boats, and almost anything suspected of being related to the manufacture and sale and transportation of illegal controlled substances, such as:
- controlled substances
- raw materials needed to make them
- containers to hold them
- vehicles to transport them
- information for manufacture and distribution, such as books, records, and formulas
- money and other valuables "used or intended to be used" to buy or sell them
- property facilitating illegal transactions
- chemicals needed to make them
- machines for making capsules and tablets
- drug paraphernalia
- firearms
— Craig Gaumer, Assistant United States Attorney, 2007
SURPRISED?
THEN YOU WILL BE MORE SURPRISED AT HOW THIS "ACT" IS BEING USED AND ABUSED TO FATTEN FEDERAL AND STATE, EVEN COUNTY COFFERS.
Contesting the seizures can be expensive and time-consuming. In Illinois, a property owner who challenges a property seizure must pay a bond worth $100 or 10 percent of the value of the property (whichever is the greater amount) just to contest the seizure. If the owner loses, he or she forfeits the bond.
When police departments are allowed to use the assets they take as revenue for themselves – as they often can and do – incentives for abuse abound.
One way Illinois collects forfeited funds is through the Department of Justice’s equitable sharing program. Equitable sharing allows local and state police to collaborate with federal law enforcement so that any property taken will be forfeited under federal, not state law. Local agencies then get to keep up to 80 percent of these forfeited funds.
Illinois is a major participant in equitable sharing programs, taking in over $186 million from the DOJ’s equitable program between 2000 and 2013, and another $36 million from the Treasury Department’s program.
But outside of equitable sharing, Illinois also takes in millions through its state-level asset forfeiture program. The available information doesn’t distinguish between criminal and civil asset forfeiture, and Illinois does not maintain detailed, publicly available data on how much is seized and what the funds are used for.
But information obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests reveals that between 2009 and 2013, Illinois law enforcement took in over $113 million worth of property.
During this same period, Illinois made over 45,000 seizures of personal property in Illinois through asset forfeiture.
SOME CITIZENS ARE FIGHTING BACK
The new data regarding the billions of dollars taken through federal forfeiture comes at a time when proposals to limit or ban civil asset forfeiture are gaining traction across the country.
New Mexico and Montana, for example, only allow police to seize private property after a criminal conviction. Minnesota enacted significant reforms in 2014 in the wake of scandals involving police using funds from seized property for trips to Hawaii, as well as law enforcement’s inability to account for a large part of the proceeds from seized assets.
In October, Michigan took steps to improve police reporting regarding the use of seized assets and also put a higher burden of proof on law enforcement to show the connection of the seized property to a crime.
Mandating that law enforcement publicly report on how it acquires and uses forfeited funds would be a step forward, but it is not enough.
Law enforcement should not be able to take any property without a conviction or admission of guilt – which means ending civil asset forfeiture altogether. Property rights are too important to allow the government to routinely violate them with little oversight or accountability. Illinoisans should demand the General Assembly put a stop to it."
BUT THE INNOCENT STILL LOSE IT ALL.
THERE HAVE BEEN MORE INSTANCES LIKE THE FOLLOWING REPORTED IN MAINSTREAM MEDIA THAN I COULD COUNT.
LET THIS SERVE AS A WARNING.
In May, 2013, IRS agents seized $32,821 from the account of a restaurant owner in Arnolds Park, Iowa, on suspicion of tax evasion, but the seizure was contested by lawyers from the Institute for Justice.
The IRS is increasingly taking money from legitimate business people who ... run an honest cash business and make frequent cash deposits ...TEN LONG YEARS OF BANKRUPTING LEGAL BATTLES FOR INNOCENT VICTIMS.
The government doesn't allege that she evaded taxes.
The government doesn't allege that she was depositing money from an illicit source.
She's simply depositing her own lawfully-earned money ... that she gets from customers in her restaurant...
— Institute for Justice attorney Larry Salzman, 2014
Police seized a house on the pretext that it was being used for selling drugs, after a couple's son was arrested for selling $40 worth of illegal drugs.
In another case, homeowners Carl and Mary Shelden sold their house to a man who was later convicted of fraud, but because of the real estate transaction, the Sheldens got caught up in a 10-year legal battle that left them "virtually bankrupt"; after years, they finally got back their house but it was in badly damaged condition; the Sheldens had done nothing wrong.
LOOK AT HOW PROFITABLE THIS HAS BEEN SINCE THE REAGAN CONGRESS PASSED "ENHANCED SHARING".
| Year | Total forfeitures | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1986 | $93.7 million | DOJ's Asset Forfeiture Fund |
| 2004 | $567 million | |
| 2005 | $1.25 billion | |
| 2007 | $1.58 billion | |
| 2008 | $1.6 billion | DOJ Asset Forfeiture fund took in $1 billion |
| 2010 | $2.50 billion |
THAT'S QUITE A HAUL, AND IF ANY CITIZENS TRIED THIS I SHUDDER TO THINK HOW LONG A PRISON SENTENCE WOULD BE IN STORE FOR THEM.
IT WOULD BE AN OPEN-AND-SHUT CASE OF THEFT.
EVEN PBS PUBLICLY QUESTIONED THIS PRACTICE.
THIS IS ALL BAD NEWS FOR LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS, BUT THERE IS A NEWER PLAN ON THE HORIZON TO "SEAL THE DEAL" AND TAKE BETTER CONTROL OF YOUR MONEY, AMERICANS.
THE FED WILL FORCE MONEY MARKET FUNDS TO SWITCH TO BUYING SOON-TO-BE WORTHLESS TREASURY NOTES.
WHEN IT ALL TANKS, AMERICANS WILL ONCE AGAIN LOSE.
Beware: You may lose cash in your money market fund
Thirty-day duration Treasury bills are yielding zero, according to
Debbie Cunningham, head of money-market funds at Federated Investors
Inc.
Treasury prices see longest losing streak since May - MarketWatch
Apr 26, 2016
IT'S A LAST-DITCH HAIL MARY
Over the past 30 years, many central banks have tried to re-order the
natural drivers of economies.
As opposed to savings and investment
driving production and consumption, they moved consumption to the front
of the line, meaning it came at the expense of savings and investment.
These efforts disrupt the natural order of activities in a healthy
economy and encourages an economic cycle fueled by debt.
Central banks’
model, as shown below, illustrates how ever-lower interest rates are
used to encourage additional borrowing to drive consumption and lift
asset prices; all in the hope of ultimately achieving economic growth.
In our article “The First Rule of Holes”
we mentioned how monetary policy has increasingly encouraged more debt
with little regard for the ability to service the accumulating debt on
an individual, national and global level. If the intention of negative
interest rates is to incur even more debt, one must question whether a
continuation of the monetary policies that created the problem in the
first place can actually solve the problem. We impart the wisdom of Will
Rogers to help guide the central bankers: “When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging”.
Having to resort to negative interest rates is not normal, despite
efforts to sell it otherwise. In our opinion it is a desperate effort
aimed at maintaining a faulty economic model amidst crumbling support as
witnessed by perennially weakening economic growth and soaring debt
levels. Drawing a link between NIRP and the sudden interest in
eliminating the $100 bill in the U.S. and the €500 in Europe is not a
stretch.We believe the proposals to eliminate large bills are being conducted under the guise of thwarting criminal and terrorist activities.
The reality is that eliminating large bills gives the government and financial system more control over the financial activities of the population.
Making cash withdrawals more difficult, lessens the likelihood that individuals avoid the penalty of negative interest rates by storing cash outside of the banking system.
Hoarding of cash reduces the ability of a NIRP to push savings into consumption or speculation.
At the end of the day these proposals have little to do with stopping crime and much more to do with extending the power of the banking sector and financial authorities to socially engineering an outcome they want to occur (i.e. individuals spend every dollar they have).
Negative interest rates are a tax!
Not a traditional tax paid to the government, but an expense paid, on savings.
Years of policy designed to encourage spending and discourage savings is likely reaching the end game; the point where those exhibiting prudence must be punished to keep the game going."
APRIL 16, 2016, WASHINGTON POST
The cover of Time magazine's next issue claims that every American owes $42,998.12 as his or her share of the national debt.
The article also states that current levels of U.S. debt are "unmanageable" and that investors and the public should not place their confidence in the government's ability to pay its debts.
"We can't easily pay what we owe. We spend too much and borrow too much. Worse, we promise too much," writes the author, James Grant, a well-known financial commentator."
REMEMBER YOU WERE WARNED, PEOPLE.
WHAT'S COMING DOWN WILL MAKE 2008 LOOK SWEET.
COMBINE ALL OF THE ABOVE AND STEP BACK A MOMENT...LOOK AT IT...
IT'S A GAME OF BIG GETTING BIGGER, AS IN GOVERNMENT AND THE CENTRAL BANKS ALL SET TO TOTALLY SCREW AMERICANS INTO THE GROUND.
IT'S WORKING!
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