Carry Cash, Get Pulled Over - The Police Sieze It For Their Use

by xarmy Fri Jun 10, 2011 1:07 am

UNBELIEVEABLE!

Here is the story and video:

STORY LINK: http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3291&Itemid=165

States ranking on page 43 of this link:
http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/other_pubs/assetforfeituretoemail.pdf

Video

How Police Confiscation Is Destroying America
by Jarret B. Wollstein, October 1993

Throughout America, police are now seizing cars, houses and bank accounts — without trial . . . and killing innocent Americans. The police now have the legal power to confiscate anything and everything
that you own. Without trial, conviction, or even indictment, police are
seizing cars, bank accounts, homes, and businesses from at least 5,000
innocent Americans every week. If you resist a police confiscation, they
can even cripple or kill you with impunity.
Do you want proof? Every Wednesday, Section D of USA Today
newspaper lists the latest confiscations by the Drug Enforcement
Administration. There, in tiny 7-point type, you will find the latest
list of weekly seizures of pocket cash, bank accounts, cars, and homes,
by just this one government agency.
More and more government agencies are joining in this feeding frenzy. You
and I are the prey. Agencies now confiscating property from innocent
Americans include the FBI, the Coast Guard, the Food and Drug
Administration, the U.S. Post Office, the Bureau of Land Management, the
Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Department of Housing —
plus thousands of state and local police departments.
A sign of the times: many police departments now have their own moving
vans for carting away everything you own. Your property, your liberty,
and your life, are under siege. Here are a few example
Robbing Innocent Motorists
If you are stopped by police in Volusia County, Florida for a minor
traffic violation, it may cost you a lot more than a $100 ticket. If
Volusia police stop you on I-95, they ask, "How much cash are you
carrying?" If your answer is more than a few hundred dollars, they
routinely seize it.
Volusia police say that carrying more cash is "suspicious behavior." Under
current laws, suspicion is all they need to confiscate your property.
If you are also carrying valuables — such as jewelry, or driving an
up-scale car, they often confiscate that as well. In the last four
years, these legalized highway robberies have brought in $8 million for
Volusia County.
Similar car confiscations are taking place throughout America. In Houston, over
4,000 cars a year are confiscated. In New York, it's over 10,000 cars.
Police car confiscation squads now operate in Louisiana, New Jersey,
Alabama, Arizona, California, Texas, and many other states.
Janitor's Life Savings Confiscated
In 1989, police stopped 49-year old Ethel Hylton at Houston's Hobby
Airport and told her she was under arrest because a drug dog had
scratched at her luggage. Agents searched her bags and strip-searched
her. They found no drugs. They did find $39,110 in cash, money she
received from an insurance settlement and her life savings. Ms. Hylton
had accumulated this money through over 20 years of hard, physical work,
as a hotel housekeeper and hospital janitor.
Ethel Hylton completely documented where she got her money. She was never
charged with a crime. But police kept her money anyway. Nearly four
years later, she has little hope of ever getting her money back.
The Drug Enforcement Administration and the police now operate surveillance
units at all major U.S. airports. Virtually everyone you deal with at
an airport — from the ticket clerks to the baggage handlers — is paid
10% bounties for turning you in to the DEA if you buy a ticket with cash
of if you look "suspicious."
Investigative reporters from 60 Minutes recently checked out reports of DEA airport confiscation squads in
Atlanta, New York and other cities. In every case, within minutes of a
well-dressed black undercover reporter buying a ticket for cash, a DEA
agent came out and confiscated all of the money in his wallet.
DEA surveillance operations are expanding. DEA units have now been
established at some major hotels, particularly in "drug centers" like
Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. The DEA has even installed
surveillance cameras at some agricultural supply houses, and requires
salesmen to record the name, address and social security number of
anyone who buys grow lights.
Couple Thrown Out of Home
Kathy and Mark Schrama were arrested on a freezing day in late December 1990,
at their home in New Jersey. Kathy was charged with taking $500 worth
of UPS packages from neighbors' porches. Her husband Mark was charged
with receiving stolen goods.
If there had been a trial and they were found guilty, the Schramas might
have received a small fine and probation. This was their first offense.
While they were at the station, police casually informed the Schramas that
they could forget about ever driving their cars or going home again.
Under New Jersey's forfeiture laws, the police confiscated the Schrama's
two cars, their home, and all of their possessions — over $150,000 in
property — without trial or conviction. Police even took their clothing, prescription medicines, eyeglasses, and Christmas presents for their 10-year-old son.
Hundreds of similar home confiscations without trial are taking place every
week. To confiscate your home, all police need is a tip from an
anonymous informant that a family member or friend once had drugs,
pornography, or unregistered guns in your house. Once the accusation is
made, they can confiscate your home at their discretion. The burden of
proof is then on you to prove that the government's charges are false.
Civil-asset forfeiture is based upon the legal fiction
that property — not individuals — is guilty of offenses. That legal
fiction enables the government to throw all of your Constitutional
rights out the window. Your property — not you — is charged, and
property has no presumption of innocence, no right to legal counsel, and
no right to trial by jury. Under civil-asset forfeiture, the police can
confiscate your "guilty property" without ever charging you with a
crime.
If you have a party at your house, and one of your guests gives a single marijuana
cigarette to another guest, that is enough for police to confiscate your
home. If you own a business and one of your employees uses the company
telephones or fax machine to place an illegal, off-track bet, that is
enough for the government to confiscate your business.
It doesn't matter if you knew nothing about these illegal acts. It doesn't
matter if you strongly oppose drug use and illegal gambling. In the
topsy-turvy world of civil-asset forfeiture, all that matters is your
property has become "tainted" — and hence subject to forfeiture because
it was used to commit an illegal act.
According to the Washington Post, the U.S. Marshall's Service alone, now has an inventory of over 30,000 confiscated, homes, cars, boats, and businesses.
The Power to Confiscate Cash.
In December 1988, Detroit police raided a supermarket to make a drug bust,
but did not find any drugs. When police dogs reacted to traces of
cocaine on three $1.00 bills in the cash register, they seized the entire contents of the store's registers and safe, totalling $4,384.
Using "drug residue" as a criterion, police could seize all of the cash in
the country. According to a seven year study by Toxicology Consultants,
"An average of 96 percent of all the bills we analyzed from 11 cities
tested positive for cocaine."
A series of studies recently completed for the U.S. Bureau of Engraving
and Printing reveal that rollers in 15-27% of the government's presses
that print our currency, are also contaminated with cocaine.

Doctor Reduced to Destitution
A new offense that can trigger total confiscation of your assets is the
crime of "structuring." Structuring is arranging your bank deposits or
withdrawals to avoid filing an IRS Currency Transaction Report (CTR).
If you have recently deposited or withdrawn as little as $3,000 in cash in
your bank account without filing a CTR, you are probably guilty of
structuring. The penalty is a fine of up to $250,000 and five years in
prison.
A few years ago, a 65-year-old Alabama physician had his life savings seized by the IRS because of alleged structuring.
The doctor got into trouble when he consolidated his savings at a new bank
opened by a friend. The banker made the mistake of suggesting that the
doctor deposit his funds gradually, so he wouldn't have to file CTRs and
attract IRS attention. But according to the government, simply acting
in a way that falls outside their reporting requirements is itself a
crime!
Using money-laundering statutes, a United States Attorney seized this elderly
doctor's entire savings. The doctor is now a pauper, and could still be
imprisoned for five years.

Under the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act of 1984 and other federal crime
laws, any monies a defense attorney receives from a client can be
confiscated — either before or after trial — if the government alleges
they were the proceeds of an illegal transaction.
In March 1992, the Securities and Exchange Commission froze all of the
assets of the nationally renowned law firm of Kaye, Scholer, Fierman,
Hays and Handler.
With all of their assets frozen, Kaye, Scholer couldn't pay salaries, rent,
or even an electric bill. Faced with imminent bankruptcy, in a matter of
days Kaye, Scholer agreed to make a deal. In exchange for "voluntarily"
paying the SEC a $41 million fine, their funds were unfrozen.
What was Kaye, Scholer accused of? The government claimed that they had
"concealed information" from government prosecutors about their clients,
Lincoln Savings and Loan and Charles Keating.
For 200 years, the confidentiality of the attorney-client relationship has
been a bedrock principle of our legal system. That's history. Our
government now says that unless your attorney spies on you for the state
and helps prosecutors prepare a case against you, all of your
attorney's assets can be frozen or confiscated without trial or even
indictment.
Few attorneys even take drug cases anymore. To destroy the defense in any
criminal case, prosecutors now only have to hint that the money used to
pay an attorney is "tainted" and could be confiscated. Unless your
attorney is independently wealthy or a philanthropist, he probably won't
be able to defend you. No wonder less than 3% of criminal cases now
result in a jury trial.
Arresting Your Property
Civil-asset forfeiture is based upon the legal fiction
that property — not individuals — can be guilty of criminal acts. Since
your property has no rights, once police confiscate it, your property
is presumed guilty, and you must prove its innocence to get it back.
Since your property — not you — is charged, you have no right to a
court-appointed attorney, you have no right to confront your accusers,
and hearsay evidence can be used against you. If you want to fight
confiscation, you will somehow have to beg or borrow the funds to pay an
attorney — who typically will want at least $10,000 up front for
these cases. Furthermore, the government requires you to pay a 10% bond
before you can contest asset confiscation. The cost bond pays for
government attorneys investigating you, questioning you, and prosecuting
you. Any information you provide in answering hundreds of
interrogatories will be perused by the IRS and other governmental
agencies to identify crimes they can charge you with.Finally, since
property is charged, the constitutional protection against double
jeopardy doesn't apply. And even if you win in the trial court, the
government can appeal endlessly, until legal fees alone force you to
quit or make a deal with the government — such as splitting the value of
your house with them.
Killing Innocent People During Confiscation Raids
Increasingly, confiscation raids are turning deadly. On the night of March 12, 1988,
Tommie C. Dubose, a civilian naval instructor, was relaxing in his
living room in San Diego. Without warning, the police broke down his
front door and shot him dead.
The police were acting on a tip that drugs were sold at his house. No drugs
were found. And people who knew Dubose said he was strongly opposed to
drug use. In 1992,
"Annie Rae Dixon, 84, bedridden with pneumonia in Tyler, Texas, [was]
shot to death by police in a 2 a.m. raid last January. An officer said
his pistol accidentally went off when he kicked down her bedroom door.
No drugs were found." (USA Today, January 11, 1993, page 1.)
On October 2, 1992, "Multimillionaire rancher Donald Scott, 61, was shot
to death when 26 DEA agents, LA County sheriffs deputies and National
Park Service officers raided his 200-acre Malibu spread looking for
marijuana they never found." (USA Today, January 11, 1993, page 1.)
The National Park Service had unsuccessfully tried to buy Scott's ranch to incorporate it into a surrounding national park. A Sixty Minutes report of April 2, 1993, uncovered police planning documents for the
raid that make it clear that police were searching for evidence to
justify confiscating Scott's ranch.
Legalized murder is becoming legalized mass
murder. In May 1993, heavily armed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms (BATF) agents and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents
attacked the compound of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, to serve a
search warrant for illegal firearms. The 51-day siege ended with
eighty-six men, women and children being burned alive after an FBI tank
drove through the front door of the compound. According to branch
members, the FBI tank crushed a large bottle of propane fuel and knocked
over lit, kerosene lanterns. Attorney General Janet Reno said, "I sent
in the tanks to avoid more violence."
If police have a valid search or seizure warrant for your house, that now
means they have a virtual license to kill you, your spouse, or your
children. The courts have ruled that police can use any force they deem
necessary to protect themselves during a raid. It is nearly impossible
to get prosecutors to indict police who kill — unless your relatives are
politically powerful or there is a very loud, public outcry.
There was no indictment in the Don Scott case, and the FBI agents who killed
scores of innocent women and children in Waco, Texas, are being hailed
as heroes.
Becoming a Victim of Asset Confiscation
In America today, anyone can become a victim of a police confiscation
raid. Every state police department — and most local ones — are now
confiscating property. Financially strapped states and municipalities
are now making next year's planned confiscations a growing item
in their budgets. As government regulation and taxation destroy
productive enterprise, government at all levels will rely more and more
on direct confiscation of property for revenue.
There are now over 200 federal, state and local confiscation laws on the
books, and more are passed every month. There are hundreds of provisions
in the tax code alone, which can be used to justify confiscation of
your car, home, bank account, and business without trial.
Confiscating Property for Personal Use
State and federal asset-forfeiture laws allow police and government agencies
to appropriate confiscated property for their own use so long as it is
in "the line of duty."
A whole industry is evolving around asset confiscation. Police and
government agencies love it because it is a cheap and easy way to
increase their revenues. Informants and crooks love it — some of them
now make up to $780,000 a year entrapping and turning in neighbors and
former friends. Judges love it because they typically get 20% of the
forfeited property for their courts. Sheriffs and DEA agents love it
because they get first pick of confiscated assets.
More and more police chiefs these days are driving around in confiscated
Jaguars, BMWs and Mercedes. Confiscated country clubs have been turned
into "police training facilities." Confiscated cash and expensive
stereos and TVs tend to disappear quickly from police lockers.
It not surprising that civil-asset confiscations are now doubling every
year. In 1985, the government seized $27 million in property. In 1992,
they seized $1.2 billion. That's an increase of 4,400% in seven
years. At the current rate of growth of confiscations, all property in
America will belong to the state within seventeen years.
Beginning of the End of Justice in America
Civil-asset forfeiture is the harbinger of a police state in America. When police
and government agencies can loot from innocent citizens at will, it is
the beginning of the end of justice and liberty. Increasingly, police
are focusing their energies upon what assets can be confiscated rather
than what actual crimes have been committed. And, even worse, more
asset-forfeiture laws are being proposed and enacted.
The 1992 Omnibus Crime Act — vetoed by former President Bush for being "too
soft on crime," and strongly supported by Bill Clinton — increases from
6 months to 6 1/2 years the time government agencies have to return
improperly seized assets. (How much would your car or house be worth
after six months without maintenance or repairs?)
Pending federal medical-forfeiture legislation allows the government to
confiscate all of the business or personal assets of doctors who
"overcharge" or who prescribe "unnecessary treatments" — with the
government defining after the fact what is a proper price and a necessary treatment.
The Crime Control Act of 1993, now before Congress, allows the government
to confiscate homes, cars and bank accounts of individuals and groups
whose publications, speeches or assemblies might encourage violence or "coerce legislation." A similar law has also been introduced in Arizona.
Modeled on existing drug laws and asset-forfeiture laws, under the new
political-forfeiture legislation, all the government would need to
confiscate your property is to "suspect" that you or your organization
tend to encourage violence. You are then presumed guilty, your property
would be confiscated, and you, penniless, would have to prove your
innocence.
Fighting Back
As appalling as the present situation is, there is some cause for hope.
In the fall of 1992, Representative John Conyers of Michigan held
congressional hearings on aspects of civil-asset forfeiture. He pledged
to oppose some of the more invasive aspects of forfeiture.
In February 1993, the Supreme Court rejected the Department of Justice's position that the government could confiscate the assets of innocent people if some of the money used to purchase the asset came (in whole or part)
from illegal activities. In June, the Court rejected the Department of
Justice's contention that confiscation is not punishment and said that
the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable search and
seizure does apply to confiscation cases.
If civil-asset forfeiture is not stopped, it will mean the end of justice
in America . . . the end of liberty . . . the end of America as we know
it. By fighting against asset forfeiture, you are fighting for your property, your liberty, and your life. It is a battle you cannot avoid; it is a battle we must win.