Police Confiscations

Throughout America, police are now seizing cars, houses and bank accounts ? without trial . . . and killing innocent Americans.

The police now have the legal power to confiscate anything and everything that you own. Without trial, conviction, or even indictment, police are seizing cars, bank accounts, homes, and businesses from at least 5,000 innocent Americans every week. If you resist a police confiscation, they can even cripple or kill you with impunity.

Do you want proof? Every Wednesday, Section D of USA Today newspaper lists the latest confiscations by the Drug Enforcement Administration. There, in tiny 7-point type, you will find the latest list of weekly seizures of pocket cash, bank accounts, cars, and homes, by just this one government agency.

More and more government agencies are joining in this feeding frenzy. You and I are the prey. Agencies now confiscating property from innocent Americans include the FBI, the Coast Guard, the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Post Office, the Bureau of Land Management, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Department of Housing ? plus thousands of state and local police departments.

A sign of the times: many police departments now have their own moving vans for carting away everything you own. Your property, your liberty, and your life, are under siege. Here are a few example

Robbing Innocent Motorists

If you are stopped by police in Volusia County, Florida for a minor traffic violation, it may cost you a lot more than a $100 ticket. If Volusia police stop you on I-95, they ask, "How much cash are you carrying?" If your answer is more than a few hundred dollars, they routinely seize it.

Volusia police say that carrying more cash is "suspicious behavior." Under current laws, suspicion is all they need to confiscate your property.

If you are also carrying valuables ? such as jewelry, or driving an up-scale car, they often confiscate that as well. In the last four years, these legalized highway robberies have brought in $8 million for Volusia County.

Similar car confiscations are taking place throughout America. In Houston, over 4,000 cars a year are confiscated. In New York, it's over 10,000 cars. Police car confiscation squads now operate in Louisiana, New Jersey, Alabama, Arizona, California, Texas, and many other states.

Janitor's Life Savings Confiscated

In 1989, police stopped 49-year old Ethel Hylton at Houston's Hobby Airport and told her she was under arrest because a drug dog had scratched at her luggage. Agents searched her bags and strip-searched her. They found no drugs. They did find $39,110 in cash, money she received from an insurance settlement and her life savings. Ms. Hylton had accumulated this money through over 20 years of hard, physical work, as a hotel housekeeper and hospital janitor.

Ethel Hylton completely documented where she got her money. She was never charged with a crime. But police kept her money anyway. Nearly four years later, she has little hope of ever getting her money back.

The Drug Enforcement Administration and the police now operate surveillance units at all major U.S. airports. Virtually everyone you deal with at an airport ? from the ticket clerks to the baggage handlers ? is paid 10% bounties for turning you in to the DEA if you buy a ticket with cash of if you look "suspicious."

Investigative reporters from 60 Minutes recently checked out reports of DEA airport confiscation squads in Atlanta, New York and other cities. In every case, within minutes of a well-dressed black undercover reporter buying a ticket for cash, a DEA agent came out and confiscated all of the money in his wallet.

DEA surveillance operations are expanding. DEA units have now been established at some major hotels, particularly in "drug centers" like Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. The DEA has even installed surveillance cameras at some agricultural supply houses, and requires salesmen to record the name, address and social security number of anyone who buys grow lights.

Couple Thrown Out of Home

Kathy and Mark Schrama were arrested on a freezing day in late December 1990, at their home in New Jersey. Kathy was charged with taking $500 worth of UPS packages from neighbors' porches. Her husband Mark was charged with receiving stolen goods.

If there had been a trial and they were found guilty, the Schramas might have received a small fine and probation. This was their first offense.

While they were at the station, police casually informed the Schramas that they could forget about ever driving their cars or going home again. Under New Jersey's forfeiture laws, the police confiscated the Schrama's two cars, their home, and all of their possessions ? over $150,000 in property ? without trial or conviction. Police even took their clothing, prescription medicines, eyeglasses, and Christmas presents for their 10-year-old son.

Hundreds of similar home confiscations without trial are taking place every week. To confiscate your home, all police need is a tip from an anonymous informant that a family member or friend once had drugs, pornography, or unregistered guns in your house. Once the accusation is made, they can confiscate your home at their discretion. The burden of proof is then on you to prove that the government's charges are false.

Civil-asset forfeiture is based upon the legal fiction that property ? not individuals ? is guilty of offenses. That legal fiction enables the government to throw all of your Constitutional rights out the window. Your property ? not you ? is charged, and property has no presumption of innocence, no right to legal counsel, and no right to trial by jury. Under civil-asset forfeiture, the police can confiscate your "guilty property" without ever charging you with a crime.

If you have a party at your house, and one of your guests gives a single marijuana cigarette to another guest, that is enough for police to confiscate your home. If you own a business and one of your employees uses the company telephones or fax machine to place an illegal, off-track bet, that is enough for the government to confiscate your business.

It doesn't matter if you knew nothing about these illegal acts. It doesn't matter if you strongly oppose drug use and illegal gambling. In the topsy-turvy world of civil-asset forfeiture, all that matters is your property has become "tainted" ? and hence subject to forfeiture because it was used to commit an illegal act.

According to the Washington Post, the U.S. Marshall's Service alone, now has an inventory of over 30,000 confiscated, homes, cars, boats, and businesses.

The Power to Confiscate Cash.

In December 1988, Detroit police raided a supermarket to make a drug bust, but did not find any drugs. When police dogs reacted to traces of cocaine on three $1.00 bills in the cash register, they seized the entire contents of the store's registers and safe, totalling $4,384.

Using "drug residue" as a criterion, police could seize all of the cash in the country. According to a seven year study by Toxicology Consultants, "An average of 96 percent of all the bills we analyzed from 11 cities tested positive for cocaine."

A series of studies recently completed for the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing reveal that rollers in 15-27% of the government's presses that print our currency, are also contaminated with cocaine.

Doctor Reduced to Destitution

A new offense that can trigger total confiscation of your assets is the crime of "structuring." Structuring is arranging your bank deposits or withdrawals to avoid filing an IRS Currency Transaction Report (CTR).

If you have recently deposited or withdrawn as little as $3,000 in cash in your bank account without filing a CTR, you are probably guilty of structuring. The penalty is a fine of up to $250,000 and five years in prison.

A few years ago, a 65-year-old Alabama physician had his life savings seized by the IRS because of alleged structuring.

The doctor got into trouble when he consolidated his savings at a new bank opened by a friend. The banker made the mistake of suggesting that the doctor deposit his funds gradually, so he wouldn't have to file CTRs and attract IRS attention. But according to the government, simply acting in a way that falls outside their reporting requirements is itself a crime!

Using money-laundering statutes, a United States Attorney seized this elderly doctor's entire savings. The doctor is now a pauper, and could still be imprisoned for five years.

Under the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act of 1984 and other federal crime laws, any monies a defense attorney receives from a client can be confiscated ? either before or after trial ? if the government alleges they were the proceeds of an illegal transaction.

In March 1992, the Securities and Exchange Commission froze all of the assets of the nationally renowned law firm of Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays and Handler.

With all of their assets frozen, Kaye, Scholer couldn't pay salaries, rent, or even an electric bill. Faced with imminent bankruptcy, in a matter of days Kaye, Scholer agreed to make a deal. In exchange for "voluntarily" paying the SEC a $41 million fine, their funds were unfrozen.

What was Kaye, Scholer accused of? The government claimed that they had "concealed information" from government prosecutors about their clients, Lincoln Savings and Loan and Charles Keating.

For 200 years, the confidentiality of the attorney-client relationship has been a bedrock principle of our legal system. That's history. Our government now says that unless your attorney spies on you for the state and helps prosecutors prepare a case against you, all of your attorney's assets can be frozen or confiscated without trial or even indictment.

Few attorneys even take drug cases anymore. To destroy the defense in any criminal case, prosecutors now only have to hint that the money used to pay an attorney is "tainted" and could be confiscated. Unless your attorney is independently wealthy or a philanthropist, he probably won't be able to defend you. No wonder less than 3% of criminal cases now result in a jury trial.

Arresting Your Property

Civil-asset forfeiture is based upon the legal fiction that property ? not individuals ? can be guilty of criminal acts. Since your property has no rights, once police confiscate it, your property is presumed guilty, and you must prove its innocence to get it back.

Since your property ? not you ? is charged, you have no right to a court-appointed attorney, you have no right to confront your accusers, and hearsay evidence can be used against you. If you want to fight confiscation, you will somehow have to beg or borrow the funds to pay an attorney ? who typically will want at least $10,000 up front for these cases. Furthermore, the government requires you to pay a 10% bond before you can contest asset confiscation. The cost bond pays for government attorneys investigating you, questioning you, and prosecuting you. Any information you provide in answering hundreds of interrogatories will be perused by the IRS and other governmental agencies to identify crimes they can charge you with.Finally, since property is charged, the constitutional protection against double jeopardy doesn't apply. And even if you win in the trial court, the government can appeal endlessly, until legal fees alone force you to quit or make a deal with the government ? such as splitting the value of your house with them.

Killing Innocent People During Confiscation Raids

Increasingly, confiscation raids are turning deadly. On the night of March 12, 1988, Tommie C. Dubose, a civilian naval instructor, was relaxing in his living room in San Diego. Without warning, the police broke down his front door and shot him dead.

The police were acting on a tip that drugs were sold at his house. No drugs were found. And people who knew Dubose said he was strongly opposed to drug use.

In 1992, "Annie Rae Dixon, 84, bedridden with pneumonia in Tyler, Texas, [was] shot to death by police in a 2 a.m. raid last January. An officer said his pistol accidentally went off when he kicked down her bedroom door. No drugs were found." (USA Today, January 11, 1993, page 1.)

On October 2, 1992, "Multimillionaire rancher Donald Scott, 61, was shot to death when 26 DEA agents, LA County sheriffs deputies and National Park Service officers raided his 200-acre Malibu spread looking for marijuana they never found." (USA Today, January 11, 1993, page 1.)

The National Park Service had unsuccessfully tried to buy Scott's ranch to incorporate it into a surrounding national park. A Sixty Minutes report of April 2, 1993, uncovered police planning documents for the raid that make it clear that police were searching for evidence to justify confiscating Scott's ranch.

Legalized murder is becoming legalized mass murder. In May 1993, heavily armed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) agents and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents attacked the compound of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, to serve a search warrant for illegal firearms. The 51-day siege ended with eighty-six men, women and children being burned alive after an FBI tank drove through the front door of the compound. According to branch members, the FBI tank crushed a large bottle of propane fuel and knocked over lit, kerosene lanterns. Attorney General Janet Reno said, "I sent in the tanks to avoid more violence."

If police have a valid search or seizure warrant for your house, that now means they have a virtual license to kill you, your spouse, or your children. The courts have ruled that police can use any force they deem necessary to protect themselves during a raid. It is nearly impossible to get prosecutors to indict police who kill ? unless your relatives are politically powerful or there is a very loud, public outcry.

There was no indictment in the Don Scott case, and the FBI agents who killed scores of innocent women and children in Waco, Texas, are being hailed as heroes.

Becoming a Victim of Asset Confiscation

In America today, anyone can become a victim of a police confiscation raid. Every state police department ? and most local ones ? are now confiscating property. Financially strapped states and municipalities are now making next year's planned confiscations a growing item in their budgets. As government regulation and taxation destroy productive enterprise, government at all levels will rely more and more on direct confiscation of property for revenue.

There are now over 200 federal, state and local confiscation laws on the books, and more are passed every month. There are hundreds of provisions in the tax code alone, which can be used to justify confiscation of your car, home, bank account, and business without trial.

Confiscating Property for Personal Use

State and federal asset-forfeiture laws allow police and government agencies to appropriate confiscated property for their own use so long as it is in "the line of duty."

A whole industry is evolving around asset confiscation. Police and government agencies love it because it is a cheap and easy way to increase their revenues. Informants and crooks love it ? some of them now make up to $780,000 a year entrapping and turning in neighbors and former friends. Judges love it because they typically get 20% of the forfeited property for their courts. Sheriffs and DEA agents love it because they get first pick of confiscated assets.

More and more police chiefs these days are driving around in confiscated Jaguars, BMWs and Mercedes. Confiscated country clubs have been turned into "police training facilities." Confiscated cash and expensive stereos and TVs tend to disappear quickly from police lockers.

It not surprising that civil-asset confiscations are now doubling every year. In 1985, the government seized $27 million in property. In 1992, they seized $1.2 billion. That's an increase of 4,400% in seven years. At the current rate of growth of confiscations, all property in America will belong to the state within seventeen years.

Beginning of the End of Justice in America

Civil-asset forfeiture is the harbinger of a police state in America. When police and government agencies can loot from innocent citizens at will, it is the beginning of the end of justice and liberty. Increasingly, police are focusing their energies upon what assets can be confiscated rather than what actual crimes have been committed. And, even worse, more asset-forfeiture laws are being proposed and enacted.

The 1992 Omnibus Crime Act ? vetoed by former President Bush for being "too soft on crime," and strongly supported by Bill Clinton ? increases from 6 months to 6 1/2 years the time government agencies have to return improperly seized assets. (How much would your car or house be worth after six months without maintenance or repairs?)

Pending federal medical-forfeiture legislation allows the government to confiscate all of the business or personal assets of doctors who "overcharge" or who prescribe "unnecessary treatments" ? with the government defining after the fact what is a proper price and a necessary treatment.

The Crime Control Act of 1993, now before Congress, allows the government to confiscate homes, cars and bank accounts of individuals and groups whose publications, speeches or assemblies might encourage violence or "coerce legislation." A similar law has also been introduced in Arizona.

Modeled on existing drug laws and asset-forfeiture laws, under the new political-forfeiture legislation, all the government would need to confiscate your property is to "suspect" that you or your organization tend to encourage violence. You are then presumed guilty, your property would be confiscated, and you, penniless, would have to prove your innocence.

Besides, what's wrong with police seizings from drug dealers..?

The incremental disassembly of your freedom has begun.

When did it end on the last one? Didn't the same thing happen in WW2 when they rounded up the japanese. After the war was over they reverted back to business as usual.

Except there's no one that isn't a power grabbing scumbag running for office, except Ron Paul.

He's running for president and he is not power grabbing, Hmmmm?

It don't make sence to me. "He doesn't want to run our lives." so he wants to be president to he can run our lives. So if he were to reduce the government to levels he would prefer, who has all the power? POTUS is the answer, Hmmmm come to mind again.

Can't get around the fact that he is grabbing at power. He has you convinced it for you but all the while he is the one in the driving seat? If anything it's typical politics.

He doesn't want to run our lives. His whole platform is limiting the scope of government in our daily lives, and cutting out programs, and agencies that are bilking taxpayers billions of unnescessary dollars, no, he is not power hungry, we wants to return power to the states. The biggest problem we have had the last 50+ years are politicians that want more and more control over the populace. If he pulls a Bush, than you best bet your bottom dollar that I will be the first to want him run out of office.

Wow. First, I need to ask if this is an original composition from your own research?

My father began as a beat cop on the streets of Oakland, CA after WWII. It was common knowledge at that time that the police would beat the hell out of the small time thugs that ran in the neighborhoods and confiscate their weapons and keep them for their own. No arrests or reports, just the promise that if they ever appeared in the neighborhood again they would get a more severe beating. It worked pretty well.

Those were the good old days of Law Enforcement, no reason to clog up county with petty bullsh-t if you can handle it better yourself. Today if a cop does that there will be one less good cop on the beat.
In Italy they do it just like that, get caught stealing the cops take you around the corner and beat the **** out of you. It works on the small crimes.

The fact of the matter is that the power brokers on both sides of the aisle will never allow any candidate that sincerely espouses less government waste to ever become POTUS.

See, you think that the POTUS is a position of power, in that he, she, it, will be running your life. That's not how it works. That's not how it was made to work, and that's not how it was working. The federal government has been extended into our lives so far that people are institutionalized to think that it the way it is, you can't even comprehend what freedom means anymore. WHen you can, you will understand.

Yeah, let us sheep mow the grass and let the politics be handled by the big boys. Problem is you need us supposed sheeple to get him in there. All my imputs are valid, some of which Ron nor you can defend. I agree that Ron has been in a position of power for a long time and he has made some good choices. But he's not perfect or God's gift to the sheeple. He has seriously flawed ideas and untill he either changes them or gets ride of them he ain't got a chance. I wouldn't find it too hard to lean his way but not as it stands, and that holds true for most Americans.