Feds seize 64-year-old man's life savings, without bringing any crime charges | Hacker News Reader

Feds seize 64-year-old man's life savings, without bringing any crime charges

iol.co.za

Civil asset forfeiture is where the government directly steals your money without being supported probable cause and without being supported by Oath or affirmation. A sham trial is held against your money where you must prove your innocence to re-secure your effects. The money is then used to fund the police agency. Many have adjusted theirs budgets with the expected amount they will seize from the public.

You are not secure in your persons, houses, papers, or effects within the United States of America. They may be seized at any time on flimsy justification.

In Albania: Corrupt cops take your cash. In the USA: Corrupt cops are protected by public policy set at the highest level of government, and you get a receipt when your cash is stolen. It's unfortunate that metrics of government corruption don't account for civil asset forfeiture.

Is there anything we can do to help this person out?

You could vote against the politicians who supported Jeff Sessions, the US Attorney General who openly supports and wants to expand civil asset forfeiture.

Here's the list of senators who voted for a man calling for expansion of stealing from the public: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/02/08/us/politics/j...

That's a 99% party-line vote. You could kick most of 'em out and those seats would just be filled with another republican who would have voted the same way.

If you want to see movement on this issue, then you need to communicate your views with your representatives.

There seems to be some opportunity at this point to try to steer the political energy opposed to the Trump movement in a direction where it, like, has a reasonable and just society as a real actual goal.

Come on, now.

If I can't travel with a pint of water. This man surely shouldn't be traveling with $58,000 of cash.

He should absolutely get the money back assuming there was no wrongdoing. But let's not pretend that his actions weren't suspect.

Speaking as a filthy foreigner, part of the longstanding claim of moral superiority of the US was that it didn't matter how suspect (sic) your actions were; that the USA was a place of rule of law; not rule by law. That habeus corpus was respected. That a man going about his lawful business need not have to justify himself to government bully-boys.

Turns out that was all bullshit.

Filthy foreigner? Don't insinuate that I have xenophobia.

Do you not hate the TSA and how difficult traveling in the US can be?

Given how hard it is to travel with innocuous items, no one should be surprised that he had difficulty carrying $58k in cash.

No xenophobia insinuations intended. Foreigners have a different view of the US, compared to indigents. We've seen the US portray itself, rightly or wrongly, as simply better, for most of the last century. And now we see this.

It's not surprising that it was taken from him. That's exactly what corrupt, bullshit officials do the world over. That's what most of the world expect; that powerful people take what you have. There was a time when the US asserted it was better than that. When the US asserted that a man was free to be about his lawful business. Those times are gone.

Those innocuous items are banned because they are supposedly, either directly dangerous, or just too difficult to verify as safe (liquids). But you'll find TSA has no problem with you choosing to leave the airport with your oversized shampoo bottle instead of taking your flight if that's what you prefer to do.

That's simply not true.

The TSA will absolutely stop you if you try to back out of the screening process once you've already started.

Right, if you attempt to smuggle a listed banned item through. If you get there and say, "crap it says no ulus (knives)" no problem. Happens at ANC all day long.

I've never tried that, and can't verify what happens, but I can tell you that if you bring too large a bottle of liquid they will let you put it into checked baggage to retrieve at your destination. Clearly the same offer is not on the table with cash.

Furthermore, nothing in the TSA rules says "no cash exceeding X dollars". If they don't want you to bring it, they should explicitly disallow it.

Interesting. They do say that in Aus and NZ. No cash over a few thousand IIRC. Then you have to declare it to customs

My dad walked through with a Leatherman accidentally, set off the metal detector.

He got let through eventually. I seem to remember someone escorting him out to let him put in in his parked car, which to my mind seems unusually accommodating but I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

Suspect in what way?

Why is it anyone's business what this cat does with his possessions..?

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