Asset forfeiture laws allow us to take the ill-gotten gains of drug kingpins and use them to put more cops on the streets and more prosecutors in court.
In the last 5 years alone, the Justice Department shared over half a billion dollars in forfeited assets with State and local law enforcement.
-Pres Bush, March 05, 1991
http://bush41library.tamu.edu/archives/public-papers/2764
Notice how they don’t call it the seizure of property? That would be unconstitutional. Instead, the person is “forfeiting” it.
Very Orwellian.