The important bit:
> he may have been singled out for a search because he was the only black person on that part of the train.
> he may have been singled out for a search because he was the only black person on that part of the train.
"A DEA agent boarded the train at the Albuquerque Amtrak station and began asking various passengers, including Rivers, where they were going and why."
Yeah, no. We've already crossed into unacceptable police behavior right there. There's no reason to suspect me of a crime, so you don't get to question me. At all. Forget whether or not it's smart for me to answer it, it's wrong for the cop to be asking it. We, as a society, need to walk this all back starting right here at this point in the process.
The forfeiture itself is so clearly unconstitutional that I can't imagine how even a loose constructionist can twist it to make it ok. Much less someone like Thomas or Scalia. Ugh.
What is it when the laws only apply to you but not the government? In this case the law is specific to people doing the violation "under color of law".
Individual discretion, but with collective protection and anonymity. That's not going to work.
And honestly, having cash in an envelope should be something completely normal no matter where you are. In Japan having tons of cash on you is not frown upon by anyone, because cash is used for everything and accepted everywhere even where cards aren't (and people are not afraid of being robbed).
> The agent found Rivers's cash, still in a bank envelope.
Yeah, the police have a severe race issue, but civil asset forfeiture is being used against anybody that has anything worth taking.
Of COURSE race is an important element of how law enforcement interacts with citizens. Race is part of these issues. The very term "race card" is offensive and marginalizing, even if you didn't mean it that way.
There's one of your problems. Am I a person of no colour?
Your (and this isn't a direct attack on you) use of language contributes to the situation while it is trying to be softly softly.
Maybe it doesn't have as much play outside the U.S. but the term PoC seems to work well here. For the whole semantic argument I'll point to http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_color .
We also have IC codes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC_codes
Code Ethnicity
IC1 White - North European
IC2 White - South European
IC3 Black
IC4 Asian (in the UK Asian refers to people from the Indian subcontinent like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal)
IC5 Chinese, Japanese, or other South East Asian
IC6 Arabic or North African
IC9 Unknown
I am foreigner, so I can see it from different perspective than regular american person, who grew up with the notion "we, whites, are oppressing black men, and we should feel guilty". As soon as you guys realize that whites/blacks/asians/whatever word you come up with for arbitrary characteristic of a group of people, who live same life, live in the same country, has on a daily basis more or less similar issues, and, in case of assets forfeiture, all likely to get abused with it, may be then you understand that you need fight back, and not try to differentiate yourself from your neighbor.
Just a random overview from a guy without blurred picture of what is going on in your country.
I don't mention this to say civil forfeiture is necessarily racist, as much as to point out that it is a tool entirely too attractive to them. And they are using it as much as they can, here.
http://justicedenied.org/issue/issue_27/coleman_convicted.ht...
Fight one problem at a time.
Strongly disagreed. And for the reason that they don't occur in a vacuum. Racism and police abuse have a very long history.