U S GOVERNMENT now CONFISCATING Homes, Cars and ASSETS

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http://hotair.com/archives/2017/01/08/texas-looking-to-abolish-civil-asset-forfeiture/

Texas looking to abolish civil asset forfeiture
POSTED AT 6:31 PM ON JANUARY 8, 2017 BY TAYLOR MILLARD

Texas is looking to become the third state in the last year to abolish civil asset forfeiture, and replace it with criminal asset forfeiture. State Senator Konni Burton filed a bill last month which requires a felony conviction before law enforcement can gobble up someone’s property. It’s a major step in Texas’ fight for justice reform which has saved the state $3B (while crime rates are at record lows).

Civil asset forfeiture is a bit of a sticky wicket at times, because there are “tough on crime” groups fighting hard against it. The Federalist Society published a pro-asset forfeiture piece by then-federal prosecutor Stefan Cassella in 1997. Cassella called asset forfeiture very important because “federal law enforcement can employ [it] against all manner of criminal and criminals organizations.”

Forfeiture is also used to abate nuisances and to take the instrumentalities of crime out of circulation. For example, if drug dealers are using a “crack house” to sell drugs to children as they pass by on the way to school, the building is a danger to the health and safety of the neighborhood. Under the forfeiture laws, we can shut it down. If a boat or truck is being used to smuggle illegal aliens across the border, we can forfeit the vessel or vehicle to prevent its use time and again for the same purpose. The same is true for an airplane used to fly cocaine from Peru into Southern California, or a printing press used to mint phony $100 bills.

The government also uses forfeiture to take the profit out of crime, and to return property to victims. No one has the right to retain the money gained from bribery, extortion, illegal gambling, or drug dealing. With the forfeiture laws, we can separate the criminal from his profits — and any property traceable to it — thus removing the incentive others may have to commit similar crimes tomorrow. And if the crime is one that has victims — like carjacking or fraud — we can use the forfeiture laws to recover the property and restore it to the owners far more effectively than the restitution statutes permit.
Sounds pretty compelling, right?

There’s just one problem…the asset forfeiture laws are being misapplied in cases where people who are not convicted of crimes, end up losing their property because prosecutors and police believe they “may have” been involved in/had knowledge of a crime. A Philadelphia family was forced out of their home because their son was arrested on drug charges, even though it didn’t appear they knew what the 22-year-old was doing. A Texas man had over 53-thousand dollars in cash donations for an orphanage and school seized after he was pulled over in Oklahoma.

The home and money were eventually returned to their rightful owners after the cases got a ton of press. But Right on Crime Deputy Director Derek Cohen points out media attention doesn’t always happen, because the numbers aren’t really sexy (emphasis mine).

A case by case analysis of all 357 of 2014 forfeitures in Dallas County revealed that over 77 percent of all cash seizures were below $5,000, and of those, 61 percent were below $2,000, hardly worth the media’s time and energy investigating and covering. Even if the media were so inclined, only two proceeded to trial.

Lack of constant coverage does not justify perpetuating a vestigial system that offers no practical benefit and opens the door to opacity and abuse.
It should also be pointed out a Texas audit found former Dallas County DA Craig Watkins misused almost $80K in asset forfeiture funds, and $90K appears to have been legal but had “significant weaknesses” in how the cash was approved and tracked. Burton’s bill would crack down on this abuse in Texas, and could be a model for the rest of the nation.

The aforementioned Derek Cohen sure feels that way, telling me he’s all for Burton’s bill.

“SB 380 restores protections to property rights that have been chipped away using a legal backwater. The bill would bring Texas’s forfeiture law in concert with the standard established by overwhelming conservative consensus and the growing chorus of states in both protecting property rights and punishing criminals.”
There’s one thing that needs to be clear: most of the reformers I know don’t have it out for law enforcement, or have an ax to grind with them. Our anger is more towards the politicians who either coerce police to enforce laws which make zero sense, or are just looking to get more money to dupe voters into re-electing them (including elected sheriffs). The officers and deputies who are on the ground protecting citizens from bad actors are, more often than not, “good cops.” Yes, they can (and do) make mistakes, and deserve criticism when it happens. But it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the “bad guys.”

Perhaps it’s best to look at the laws on the books, and decide whether or not they should be changed, instead of painting all cops with a broad brush. Burton’s bill looks to do this, and she deserves praise for her work.

Tags: civil asset forfeiture, criminal justice reform, Department of Justice, Konni Burton, Texas

 

Here's more:

 

And the police wonder why they get no respect.....

Hopefully the Institute for Justice will get the man's money back.

 

Part of this may be the so-called "War on Cash". If an individual has a large amount of paper money it is automatically assumed it must be for some illegal purpose, since it didn't go through a bank where the government can track it. Since the Patriot Act (passed in 2001) the law requires banks to keep records of all accounts, and obtain identification from all depositors, so any transaction can be tied back to a person. Not surprisingly, since then it's just been seen as another tool to fight crime, rather than just exceptional cases involving terrorism like proponents of the bill claimed at the time. So it's had an unintended consequence of making cash more criminal. Since once the government gains control over one thing there's a tendency to want to close all the "loopholes" to gain complete control.

 

That was quick:

 

The irony, of course, that nobody talks about is that US currency has printed on it "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private"

So in this Orwellian society in the US, the stuff is legal and illegal, depending upon Big Brother's mood at the time. The law, sir, is an ass, as quoted from I think Uriah Heep in the Dickens story. This is a perfect demonstration of how asinine so many US laws are.

 

This is called "jeopardy assessment" by the IRS.

The IRS only does it when there is a flight risk.

The IRS has the broadest powers of any Federal or State law enforcement agency.

Nothing new here. This has always been the case.

 

It would not surprise me if DEA also has jeopardy assessment powers.

But I have not heard that they have.

 

The problem lies not in government but the absolute ignorance of those good little citizens (this also addresses another issue, immigration of low IQ people). This whole asset forfeiture thing has a basis on this ignorance. And Eleuthera's post is pointing at the very basis of that issue, the total lack of understanding of the worthless crap we call money.

Worthless crap, well it seems the founders thought so:

Seems a little problem with payment of debt and this is a huge consequence but without it the illusion of fiat currency would be exposed as the scam it is. But that is a different subject, let's examine this one in more depth by understanding what congress can do.

I guess that nobody can argue with clause 2, the government is a master at this one, but to what effect? If you understand the truth of fractional reserve banking then you understand why a 1913 dollar is now worth less than 4 cents.

Clause 4, bankruptcy, a form of confiscation designed right in the constitution.

It is at clause 5 that the problems of confiscation start. Today even the coins that are produced are worth less than face value, a fiat coin the violates the very next statement, regulate the value.

But the real problem lies in clause 6. Instead of punishing counterfeiting, they actively endorse the same and punish any that would dare oppose the chosen counterfeiters.

Now back to that printing on a piece of paper, "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private".

Note - an IOU
Legal - decision of man (lawful is in accord with law)
Tender - an offer
debt - that which is due from another
public - government (in common law the commons)
private - not government but still not free, little slaves.

So with this said, could it not be stated that all this confiscation is nothing more than a legal act by congress in pursuance of Article I, Section 8, Clause 6?

 

Actually everybody has those powers. It is the implementation of those powers that are at question. It is both a civil and criminal action called an injunction but injunctions are not free. The initiator of the injunction is normally required to file a bond that is subject to forfeiture should one lose the case.

However these forfeitures are not part of a legal proceeding but is done by coercion, armed coercion at that. This proceeding is a direct violation of the constitution:

Asset forfeiture without due process of law is the act of a tyrannical government. Having your assets seized normally precludes the ability to defend yourself by action of law.

 

Those are the broad powers that the IRS has been given.

To my knowledge nobody else has those powers -- to seize on sight without due process.

 

Given? Given by whom? A republican government is of numerated powers delegated from that infamous "We the People". So in order to delegate that power would mean it was a power inherent in the people.

Now we both should know that we have no such inherent power and you cannot delegate that which you do not possess. So the IRS has stolen that power under the threat of coercion.

Uuh, did you skip a whole bunch of content to get to this point? What about all those sheriffs, imagine a constitutional officer acting outside his office? Modern highwaymen, only these come with a badge and a pretense of authority. But theft is theft.

 

The IRS is given those powers by Title 26 USC.

Congress gave them these powers.

You just need to read more.

 

I ask about the horse and you discuss the cart. But when given lemons, make lemonade.

Are you referring to 26 USC 7608 (a)(4)? Well no where in Section 78 does it support your illusion.

The question still remains as you have not answered, where did congress get the power? Until you can prove this point all else is moot, doesn't exist except in fantasyland.

It isn't really a matter of reading, it's a matter of comprehension. You can read all you want but unless you can comprehend it is a waste of time.

 

The way it works is that the people create the government, like we did, our ancestors. All power flows from the people, we are the fountainhead of civic powers. We surrender certain of them and grant the government certain specific powers.

Federal agencies are empowered to collect taxes, as it must be. I cannot remember if Title 26 empowers the IRS

 

Actually you would be grossly mistaken. During the whole process of the constitutional negotiations, it was the states, not the people. The only place the people were involved from what I have read to date was in Rhode Island. Rhode Island put it to the popular vote in a referendum, it lost resoundingly by some 10 to 1. It was the state that overrode the wishes of the people and ratified by convention barely by two votes. Imagine that a government overriding the desires of "the people".

Empowered by whom?

 

Stop being an alarmist and believing every video out there.

 

Right after you prove you are somehow qualified to make that statement.

 

I don't wear tinfoil hats panicking over everything I read.

 

So I guess you are suggesting that Title 26 as enacted by Congress is unconstitutional ?!

Maybe and maybe not.

But nobody has challenged Title 26 or any part of it since the passage of the 16th Amendment.

 

Yes, the states did, in that they eventually ratified what 40 some odd private citizens as designees to the Philadelphia Convention had written. Yes, the states did, despite the opening part of those writings saying in their Preamble. Carry on with your semantics if you don't accept that, at least in theory, the people, however romantic and sentimental such a notion might be, created the government.

As to who or what empowered the IRS, I suppose we could say the same about any other number of federal agencies. Terms and definitions are certainly important, but at what point do semantics tend to spoil discussion?

 

So your have no qualification other than you ran out of tin foil.

 

Title 26 was never enacted by congress, none of the titles are. What congress has passed and signed by the president is published as Statutes at Large. I would suggest you start with 1913, might want to stop by that old Federal Reserve Act while you are there, interesting reading.

No maybe or maybe not about it. With that remark it becomes blatantly obvious that you have no clue as to what you are trying to discuss.

Based on Title 26 and all the statutes at large it encompasses, there are tax courts in every major city of every state and the possessions. At any one time there are probably between 10 to 15 million or more cases active.

Amendment XVI has been challenged so many times over the more than 100 years of it's existence those mystical beings in black robes refuse to issue a writ of certiorari for any other challenge. I have to admit that those mystical beings in black robes have been consistent over the years. And what has these mystical being opinionated?

That Amendment 16 confers no new means of taxation not consistent with the constitution and is voluntary. Now the IRS says that the voluntary part is voluntary compliance with the law to file your returns.

I agree with both of them and quit volunteering and life is good. I would strongly suggest that you not do this as the level of research that you have show here, the IRS would have a lot of fun with you.

 

You need to start by reading Section 101 of Title 1 U.S. Code.

"The enacting clause of all Acts Of Congress ...".

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2010-title1/pdf/USCODE-2010-title1.pdf

"... resulting in the approval of the U.S. Code by Congress in 1926."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Code

 

Actually there were 55 delegates of which 37 where lawyers. They were all there as delegates of the individual states. These individuals overthrew the confederation and started a whole new government without the involvement of the people. I would suggest that you perhaps read a history book here and there on occasion.

There is no discussion when the whole premise is based on false information. Language is the means of communication between intelligent beings only when language means something, otherwise it is just idiotic rants. If you prefer to ignore language, that is your choice.

As an example, you ask about all the other agencies. Eliminate the IRS and most would be gone. Therefore, under what authority does the IRS exist?