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I'm not in favor of civil asset forfeiture.

That said, hard to believe they have no idea WHY it was seized.

And in white collar crimes, the case lengths are unnecessarily long and the money is often hard to recover. They should work on both those issues longer term.

After Amazon wins it's lawsuits these folks will be filing various bankruptcy claims and the money will have been distributed all over the place (some to lawyers, some not) over the 5-10 years it takes to fight these out.

Sure it is, Its a question of which of the crimes, ...

That said, civil asset forfeiture is just theft.

If they did commit a crime they should be punished - after it has been proven.

Also, they didn't just seize the property allegedly acquired through illegal means, they also seized the entire family's unrelated savings (from prior/unrelated jobs). It was hardly some kind of crime family/syndicate situation that needed immediate law enforcement action to prevent further harm.

> I'm not in favor of civil asset forfeiture.

Might be a bit much to say... but I know some historic figures who would of raised arms over such a thing even existing. I have not heard a case where it even makes legal sense to do so.

Do you mean they “would have“?

Yeah, sorry, no. You don't get to come after somebody and tell them "you know why". And even if they did know why in general terms (which is a claim you haven't proven), it's still impossible to defend legally without knowing in detail not only the facts being alleged, but the legal theory under which you are accused.

Courts have gotten WAY, WAY too willing to seal things. In a healthy, functioning system, it should be damned near impossible to seal anything a court is supposed to consider. In fact, I'd be perfectly happy to make it totally impossible. Ignoring the intrinsic injustice, courts are supposed to be public, and proceeding in secret undermines their legitimacy.

Anyhow, generalities aside, the idea of sealing anything material to a complaint against access by the defendant is just plain unacceptable. That's true for both civil and criminal cases.

I agree, until they have proof, they shouldn't be allowed to "freeze" things more than a month or two and certainly not prevent people from getting enough to pay for a decent lawyer. CAF is a joke and should require a conviction. Texas is a big abuser of it as well. The law (who are the only ones who have the legal permission to do violence to you, essentially legal abusers) finds loopholes like this and really latches on. Their primary directive is to follow the constitution, they all take an oath but evidently don't care about that oath or keep it in mind when doing this stuff.

Civil rights and civil liberties must be fought for, repeatedly. Those in power will only do what is constitutionally required of them when they are forced to do so.

I fail to understand how such a thing like civil asset forfeiture can even exist in a 'wah-wah-freedom' country like the USA. You are presumed guilty if the state wills it, your assets seized and good luck finding money to hire an attorney to contest the charges.

If this was 1775, Americans would be launching a revolutionary war against such tyranny. Citizens have gotten real soft these days.

Drugs are bad m'kay... Seriously the recent spate congress from the drug war. But apparently it was also used a lot in prohibition. But it is a vile, unconstitutional practice.

> He may be guilty as hell but the fact of the matter is that doesn't mean the FBI can just take his stuff, it doesn't matter how guilty you look until you are convicted you are innocent, and the fact that it has been 20 months and there still haven't been any charges brought is ridiculous. Their money was taken before they were convicted and now they are not receiving a speedy and fair trial.

I'm against civil forfeiture, but the problem here is easy to see. If you come at someone and say "we think you got $large_amount via illegal means, but go ahead and do whatever you want with it until the court proceedings are finished", the money is going to be spent or stashed in nearly every case where the person is guilty. It would make it difficult to ever recover money for the victims of crime.

Not sure how to solve that dilemma.

Easy. Restitution or jail. And I mean, jail until restitution is complete.

If you laundered the money to hide it, and only retained 50% of the value in that transaction, that is your your problem. You knew what you were doing and you messed up.

Nowadays money can be accused of a crime, and isn't innocent until proven guilty

Yes they abuse the civil laws of the USA to blackmail and bully citizens. Cops really do know no bounds and it is legalized violence. Remember violence isn't just physical it can be mental and emotional as well, and they are really good at it. Humans don't react well to not having power over their destiny and in these things unless you have an army of lawyers to begin with then they have complete control to legally abuse you mentally/emotionally to try to wear you down to get a conviction whether you're guilty or not. If they can't do that with lack of evidence, they will simply take everything you have in civil court and leave you a pauper as a warning to the next person who dares to defy them.

>It is unconstitutional and wrong, it also sets a precedent, how long before the FBI finds out someone politically unpopular is being "investigated" another nice thing is that once they take your money good luck affording lawyers fees.

I absolutely agree

The differentiating case in this matter seems to be this.

>The story begins around 2017. Amazon Web Services was opening new data centers in Northern Virginia at a rapid clip to handle the growing needs of its customers, including the *Central Intelligence Agency* and other branches of the U.S. government.

Having had a TS and dealing with government, my intuition is that there is something more involved here concerning the 3 letter agencies. Generally, things like this are usually settled as a lawsuit.