If this doesn't scare you, you're just not paying attention.
It scares the heck out of me but it doesn’t surprise me one little bit.
the power to “to seize and administratively forfeit property allegedly involved in controlled substance offenses
If this doesn't scare you, you're just not paying attention.
I'm by no means a "legalize marijuana" person, but it has scared me for years that the local police can seize cash and other property without due process.
Extending it to the ATF is scary, but the practice should have been found unconstitutional decades ago.
It's not scary, it's a heads up.
It used to scare me, but there are diminishing returns. People kinds get how prohibition has changed crime and crimefighting. They know about RICO and know property is guilty until proven innocent. They may or may not br aware of ridiculous SCOTUS decisions according to which you can’t possibly get your stuff back after it rubbed up against drugs even if there’ no dour you’re innocent (guess why? government pikes money, dug).
I’s hard, is all, to keep on being scared due both to inertia and the only alternative painted as heroin vending machines at elementary schools and atom bomb solos in every back yard.
These forfeitures have been going on for years - way before Obama. I imagine Obama is all for it, as are a lot of local governments cause it’s easy money for them.
As if the whole thing weren’t bad enough in general, the word “allegedly” is the one that got me riled, too. Anyone could be alleged to have done anything. This is license to grab property from ANYONE they don’t like for no reason whatsoever. How much plainer does it have to be?
#38. I agree. Too many LEOs not doing their jobs, and now we have another big batch of LEO wannabes in every federal bureaucracy.
Apologies in advance to the hardworking LEOs who are out there doing the hard jobs, I think they are in the minority. From what I can tell, the vast majority are busy ignoring serious crime which might be hazardous to deal with. Instead, they are busy writing parking tickets and traffic tickets on little old ladies who fail to stop for a full 3 seconds at a stop sign so they can raise revenue for their jurisdiction. Now they are going to gear up with all kinds of fun SWAT type paraphernalia so they can terrorize Grandma and seize her property because of some “alleged” infraction.
They are afraid to go after the real drug dealers. That would be dangerous. Whole swaths of most cities and even most small towns are a no-man’s land where police rarely, if ever, set foot. But an easy mark like Grandma? No problem.