Posted on 01/16/2015 2:07:39 PM PST by oblomov
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without proving that a crime occurred.
Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.
Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing.
The program has enabled local and state police to make seizures and then have them “adopted” by federal agencies, which share in the proceeds. The program allowed police departments and drug task forces to keep up to 80 percent of the proceeds of the adopted seizures, with the rest going to federal agencies.
“With this new policy, effective immediately, the Justice Department is taking an important step to prohibit federal agency adoptions of state and local seizures, except for public safety reasons,” Holder said in a statement.
Holder’s decision allows some limited exceptions, including illegal firearms, ammunition, explosives and property associated with child pornography, a small fraction of the total. This would eliminate virtually all cash and vehicle seizures made by local and state police from the program.
While police can continue to make seizures under their own state laws, the federal program was easy to use and required most of the proceeds from the seizures to go to local and state police departments. Many states require seized proceeds to go into the general fund.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Me too. What is the catch? THe Feds want it all? A warning from the SCOTUS?
” You think asset seizure is within the Fourth and Fifth Amendments? “
Obviously not. I think you misunderstand. I only object to the current Zero group acting by fiat, instead of legally protecting the rights the Constitution contains.
Yeppers. Holder and state/federal goons are still gonna grab your cash without due process. They just ain’t gonna share it with the locals.
Very little has happened. The Feds can still seize cash (without any evidence of a crime) and the local LEOs can too.
It's just a matter of Holder wanting to dry up some of the seized money going to local LE.
Holder and Obama don't like local LE.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without proving that a crime occurred.
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No problem. Local officials will charge Juan with any number of phony-baloney (or even real) charges. They will be STATE charges. Not federal.
He’ll plea bargain out with no time served - oh on just one condition....
The 40 large they found in his trunk? Stays seized by the LEO’s.
Honestly, I don’t see where Holder is changing a thing. He’s playing the shell game here.
Mail him at ecampaign@gop.com.
can’t have others trying to get this and so he bans local and state but the feds can do it.
This is yet another instance where he is trying to get rid of state and local laws while getting the feds more power.
You can no longer use the word “pigs”, “bacon”, or “pork” when referring to Herr Holder. However, after a long and diligent search, I have come up with a good alternative - SWINE!
Wait until Obama and Holder find out about this new word. They will immediately ban its use as offensive to Moslems, meaning themselves.
Je Suis Charlie!!!
I’ll be d_mned! Something I actually agree with him on!
Whaaaaaat?
Did I wake up in the twilight zone?
“Eric Holder bans local police from seizing assets so the Federal Gestapo can get first dibs.”
Won’t work... Take away the goodies from the locals and it will stop.
All I’ve got to say about this, is don’t tread on me. I’m an older man, therefore I can inflict more pain on a younger man than he can on me... And I have less to loose.
First you give them the heroin, let them get addicted, then you take it away.
They got all the lower levels of LE to out grow their local funding, now every state and local law enforcement organization will be supporting the bigger federal government candidates, so they can get federal grants from higher federal taxes.
We lose again.
OK, what is the racist, America-hating, commie agitator up to then?
Maybe the other posters were correct in that he is doing this as a feint, to diffuse the objections to his replacement that has a gross history of indulging in asset confiscation.
Wow, broken clock effect in action! Given the odds the past 6 years, it’s about time he got one right.
Yeah. It’s probably a way to get alphabet agencies more incentive to terrorize Americans.
Why would you think they’d do anything? Would Barbara Boxer vote to ban abortion?
When an evil person does something that is agreeable to you, he usually has ulterior motives.
This a good thing. In Wisconsin there is a formula on how seized property is distributed among various units of government. If a drug arrest is made under Federal Law the Arresting Department gets to keep the assets. We find many Police Departments are using the Federal law so they can keep the spoils.
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