Homeland Security Seized $2 Billion in Cash From Travelers at U.S. Airports

Reason ^ | July 30th | C.J. CIARAMELLA

[ontap]

The people of this country have decided that drug cartels are a big problem. The police are charged to stop them. One large sign of a drug dealer is large sums of cash. No police officer is legally allowed to confiscate money from a citizen who is legally carrying it. Are there bad cops absolutely....like any other criminal if they are caught they should be prosecuted. I know of no law banning carrying large sums of money except through airports etc. I believe but am not sure it is international airports!!!

[discostu]

No. The people of this country were sold a bill of goods. And now they don’t know any better. We’ve been doing this asset seizure as part of the war on drugs for 50 freaking years and the drug cartels are more powerful now than they were then.

Nope, you are 100% wrong. Carrying $10,000 is considered “suspicious” and subjects you to seizure. You don’t have to be doing anything illegal. They don’t have to have any proof you got it illegally, or will use it illegally. They don’t have to charge you with anything. Too much cash is subject to seizure with zero due process.

The only reason airports are at all “special” when it comes to this is they have metal detectors. Combine those with the magnetic strips that they put in our money and you have a very easy system to detect “too much cash”. Doesn’t matter if you’re flying internationally. Doesn’t matter if you’re in an international airport. And it can happen anywhere. If they wind up with “probable cause” to search your car and find “too much cash” they can seize it. And your car at that point because you’ve become “suspicious”.

[zeugma]

When the $10000 limit was passed in 1970, you could buy a brand new Corvette fully optioned out for that amount. And the trailer to haul it around.

Yup. Today it ought to be $100,000 or more. This is nothing but legalized theft on the part of many, many government agencies.