Posted on 06/08/2016 11:20:35 AM PDT by heartwood
The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety has purchased several devices capable of seizing funds loaded on to prepaid debit cards to aid troopers in roadside seizures of suspected drug-trafficking proceeds.
The portable card scanners are designed to be carried in law enforcement vehicles, allow troopers to freeze and seize money loaded onto a prepaid debit card, and to return money to an account whose funds were seized or frozen.
The vehicle-mounted scanners are also capable of retrieving and storing limited account information from other cards as well, such as banking debit cards, credit cards and “payment account information from virtually any magnetic stripe card,” according to the website and patent documents of the device manufacturer, Texas-based ERAD Group Inc. ERAD stands for Electronic Recovery and Access to Data.
Law enforcement officials say that civil asset forfeiture is essential in disrupting drug trafficking operations. Civil-rights advocates argue that the process violates individuals’ property and civil liberties and sometimes results in innocent people having money seized on the roadside without being arrested or charged.
The new devices will now allow law enforcement to not only seize money in physical possession of a person being stopped, but from a financial institution holding the money loaded onto a prepaid debit card as well.
Brady Henderson, legal director for ACLU Oklahoma, said the new tactic could easily run afoul of the Fourth Amendment and land the issue in court.
However, law enforcement officials say the devices are essentially part of the arms race between police and drug traffickers, who in recent years have been loading pre-paid cards with millions of dollars for transport as part of the drug trade, thus decreasing the likelihood of seizure by law enforcement.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
And leaving the machines out of it, here's the case of OK seizing money from the manager of a Christian rock band that was raising money for a Christian college and an orphanage in Thailand and Burma. Drug dog alert! (75% false positive rate there.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/25/how-oklahoma-cops-took-53000-from-a-burmese-christian-band-a-church-in-omaha-and-an-orphanage-in-thailand/
A dog will alert to a ham sandwich.
They all do.
How these seizures passed Constitutional muster is beyond me. But SCOTUS has upheld the practice. Time for an anti-seizure law at the federal level, which ain’t gonna happen.
No criminal conviction: no forfeiture or civil liability.
REAL drug dealers are just going to start killing all the cops. Only innocent dupes are gonna be scammed like this.
These are not “law enforcement” officers. They are pirates and highwaymen. Volusia County in Florida will collapse economically if Florida ends Asset Forfeiture.
Oh, that’s easy: the Court hasn’t really enforced the Constitution since FDR slimed his way across the stage. Given that even “conservative” Justices will not reverse the underlying lawlessness of our time if it happens to be the case that their legal preferences coincide with the Constitution after some fashion that’s a mere happy circumstance.
Bitcoin
nor [will a citizen] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
We could call it, I don't know, maybe the Fifth Amendment or something...
Couldn't agree more.
Based on the fact that the average US citizen arguably commits three felonies a day...
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
...and a large percentage of those crimes are committed online (download a pirated movie? $100,000 fine and ten years in prison) where they can be recorded and catalogued...
...I predict that one of these days the Feds are going to seize the bank and stock market accounts of a few tens of millions of non-Democrats and most of them will never get it back because the courts will be clogged with cases for decades.
Ditto....in spades. I-95 all the way up the eastern seaboard is a gauntlet of thieves in uniform.
It's going to happen. It's already written and ready to become the supreme law of the land:
The right of the people to be secure in their . . . effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed.
All we have to do is ratify that and take it seriously, and this asset forfeiture nonsense will stop.
Drug sniffing dogs are trained to sniff out a specific terpene that occurs in cannabis.
The thing is, it is present in many other foods and plants too.
I believe drug sniffing dogs at traffic stops should be illegal. A random guess has the same or better probability of being correct.
The motto on their badges should read, “Stand and Deliver.”
>How these seizures passed Constitutional muster is beyond me. But SCOTUS has upheld the practice. Time for an anti-seizure law at the federal level, which ain’t gonna happen.
How welfare vs. 5th/13th passed Constitutional muster
How the ‘income tax’...
How the NSA/TSA/EPA/DoEd/etc....
How abortion/’gay marriage’/’gun control’...
Volusia County?!?
BWHAHA!!!
I’ll bet you remember that thievin’ skunk, former ‘Sheriff’ Bob Vogel don’t ya?
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