
71% of Americans Oppose Civil Asset Forfeiture - DiabloD3
https://today.yougov.com/news/2015/08/28/poll-results-civil-asset-forfeiture/
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rday
58% would follow the drugs, 30% would follow the money? Following the drugs
would catch smaller fish at each step.

Also 72% of people were unfamiliar with the term.

Serious question, does being unfamiliar with the term for which the survey is
named taint the significance of the answers given?

~~~
logfromblammo
The person leaving with the money is not leaving with the necessary evidence
that a crime has occurred. It is not illegal to carry money (most of the
time).

You follow the guy with the drugs, so that you can seize the drugs and place
them into evidence. That, combined with the LEO witness of the transaction,
provides probable cause to get a warrant for the person who left with the
money. You presumably also have the guy who left with the drugs in custody,
and the prosecutor might be able to convince him to testify against the other
party.

If you follow the guy with the money, the only evidence you have is the LEO
witness testimony. As we have been repeatedly reminded in the smartphone age,
that sometimes contradicts the objective evidence. (That is a polite way of
saying that some cops lie in order to achieve a desired enforcement outcome.)
The jury couldn't know for sure whether the cop saw a drug deal and decided to
go after the "bigger fish", or whether he just saw a guy with a lot of cash
and came up with a plausible pretext for taking it.

Cops should chase the hard evidence necessary to secure a conviction, not the
potential forfeiture targets that pay for all those cop toys.

(Of course, there was no third option that might satisfy someone who opposes
the continuation of the "war on drugs".)

~~~
rday
Very good point. I suppose the question is a false choice in the first place.
The officer should just write down both tag numbers with a "worst drug deal
ever" note...

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AdmiralAsshat
30% would be okay with permanently seizing money as long as they "suspect" it
might be connected with a crime.

Put a different way, 30% of those interviewed are perfectly fine with the
"Arrest the black guy driving a nice car" routine.

~~~
Absentinsomniac
It says: "To the best of your knowledge", not SHOULD. The should one is after
that, which says:

"Law enforcement should be able to permanently seize money or other property
if they suspect it’s connected to criminal activity, even if no charges have
been filed . . . . . 7%"

So 7% are ok with that routine.

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fataliss
The interesting part is that 72% never heard of the term. That typically show
how people are deeply involved... Ok they disagree, but, do they do anything
about it? No! They were not even aware of it in the first place. That's the
problem here in my opinion. People need to know what kind of fucked up things
the government is doing, maybe then we'd have enough engagement to change
anything.

~~~
dsp1234
_They were not even aware of it in the first place._

I just asked two people around me if they knew what Civil Asset Forfeiture
was. Both said no. I then asked them if they had heard about the police
confiscating the money from the guy who was driving back from Las Vegas after
he won a jackpot. They both said yes.

Sometimes it's not a lack of awareness of the issue, it's a lack of awareness
of what the the technical or legal term is.

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KB1JWQ
Wait, you mean that policing shouldn't be a revenue generating activity? What
a radical concept!

~~~
baddox
I don't even see it in those terms. In some contexts policing clearly can be a
revenue generating activity (e.g. private security guards). Civil asset
forfeiture is awful regardless of whether the policing is generating revenue.

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Bluestrike2
Ah, but that doesn't matter, does it? Because the program's defenders get to
point to big piles of drug money and cigarette boats and say "hey, you don't
want drug dealers to keep their ill-gotten gains, do you?" And the issue is
clouded enough that nothing has to change. It's enough to make you sick.

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gizmo
Assert Forfeiture as it exists today is farcical:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._$124,700_in_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._$124,700_in_U.S._Currency)

~~~
vezzy-fnord
The practice does lead to inane case names ( _in rem_ cases do, in general),
but by far this is the greatest:
[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I_Am_The_Beast_etc._v._Michig...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I_Am_The_Beast_etc._v._Michigan_State_Police)

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zyxley
Presumably this has to do with most Americans having at least some
understanding that Amendment IV exists, as well as likely believing that any
judicial arguments in favor of civil forfeiture are unconstitutional bullshit.

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PythonicAlpha
Even the Magna Charta did contain a passage saying, that the ruler can not
deprive a free man from his property without proper trial.

When this is now changed by law trickery of modern governments, we fall back
into times of non-liberty.

It is the same as with the "war against terror" \-- in the "war against
criminals" we sacrifice basic freedoms and thus the basis of our societies.
Even worse, we make out of those who shall persecute criminals, criminals
themselves (because there are already plenty of cases documented, where the
policemen use this to get advantages for themselves from innocent victims).

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ZoeZoeBee
The other 29% are cops and government employees

~~~
AnimalMuppet
No, they aren't, which is even worse.

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ck2
and I bet 90%+ of people are against police committing crimes

but that's not going to change anything

~~~
on_
Government officials breaking laws or abusing their office should be held to a
much higher standard, and I would like to think most people agree here.

> I bet 90% of people are against police comitting crimes

Survey Question: Would you agree or disagree with a police officer or federal
agent holding a suspected terrorist longer than 24 hours without charging them
with a crime?

This is the sort of question that I think more than 10% might agree with.
Then, police have endorsement to commit crimes which trend up proportionately
to what they can get away with. Substitute terrorist for paedo or rapist, etc.
However, this question negates the fact that the implementation and scope may
be larger than how it is framed.

I hope 90% of people would uphold AT MINIMUM, the US constitutional laws in
the bill of rights. But you and I might be disappointed

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maresca
Here's a good article about Civil Forfeiture written by Pennsylvania State Rep
Jim Cox:

[http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/thinktank/Pa-must-
reform-...](http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/thinktank/Pa-must-reform-civil-
forfeiture-laws.html)

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knodi123
It says "These are the topline results of a YouGov/Huffington Post survey of
1000 US adults interviewed August 25-27, 2015 on Joe Biden."

What does Joe Biden have to do with this? The string "Biden" does not appear
in the full results PDF...

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dpierce9
Are civil penalties against corporations (e.g. SEC/CFTC fines, mortgage crisis
fines) examples of civil asset forfeiture?

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nmrm2
No, fines and civil forfeiture are completely different.

Forfeiture would be more like the EPA confiscating (and then auctioning off) a
factory because it might have been polluting too much maybe, with the onus on
the company to prove that they weren't polluting. Or the SEC confiscating all
the money you made on an insider trade, and then demanding you prove that you
didn't insider trade before getting the money back.

~~~
dpierce9
Just to be clear, the order to show cause process of a civil case involving
the SEC is this: pay up or prove to the agency beyond some standard of proof
that you didn't do what we said you did.

The differences are that they don't take the money in advance and offer you
the option of fighting the case.

~~~
nmrm2
Thanks for the clarification.

(Perhaps the most important difference is that if you're being fined by the
SEC, you've probably got lawyers who are ready to defend you. One of the most
egregious things about civil forfeiture is the way it preys on poor people.)

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cphoover
100℅ of police departments support it.

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irascible
Seized assets should be sold and put into social security.. not into new toys
for pigs.

