I guess the problem is that not enough people know that civil forfeiture is a thing yet.
...or that not enough people have experienced it yet, and probably never will. There's a lot of "it won't happen to me" thinking around this, and to be honest, how many people do take large amounts of cash with them while traveling? The fact that this item is newsworthy is enough to show that it happens rarely.
I'm almost willing to bet that if the number of people affected goes high enough, there will be armed revolts; but the government is smart enough to not do that, instead preferring to strip liberties in tiny bits at a time.