Civil Asset Forfeiture Is A Blatant Violation of the U.S. Constitution. Why Is That So Hard To Grasp?

Editor's Note: Monday was the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta. This was a law that was to govern government, just as the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land to govern the U.S. Government. It's failing horribly because legislators have come to believe they can pass laws that ignores Constitutional protections and rights....rights that are supposed to be unalienable bestowed on us by Almighty God and not granted to us by the U.S. Government and be taken away by the whims of government officials.  It’s failing because leaders are simply ignoring their oaths of office to protect and defend the Constitution.  That makes their actions criminal and therefore impeachable as ‘high crimes”.  A high crime is a crime of high office and includes failing to meet the obligations of their office to which by oath they swore.   If there ever was an obvious case of this failure are laws regarding “civil asset forfeiture”!

Road Pirates -- Assemble!"Desert Snow" is Coming to Idaho
By William N. Grigg

It isn’t often that honest people receive detailed intelligence about a planned gathering of violent men who steal for a living and kill with impunity. An event of that kind will occur from August 10-12^th here in Idaho.   In fact, I can provide the specific address of the armed robbers’ summit -- 700 South Stratford Drive in Meridian. The location is conspicuously marked and easy to find: It is the Idaho Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST) Academy, which will host a two-day session of Desert Snow’s “Phase 2015” asset forfeiture workshop.

“Civil asset forfeiture,” for the mercifully uninitiated, is a procedure in which police officers and the agencies that employ them steal money and property from people who have never been convicted of a crime, and quite often never face criminal charges. The agency designates the desired property as “proceeds” of illicit activity and then files an “in rem” civil lawsuit against it – not the owner of the property, but the property itself. In this process, the burden of proof is placed on the victim, rather than the perpetrator.

Fighting an act of state-licensed larceny of this kind is prohibitively expensive and frequently futile, which means that the privileged plunderers generally make out like the bandits they unfailingly prove themselves to be.....To Read More.....  

How Philadelphia Law Enforcement Makes Millions By Seizing Cash and Property From Residents

Melissa Quinn /@MelissaQuinn97/June 13, 2015/13 comments

For Philadelphia law enforcement, a tool known as civil asset forfeiture has proven to be a boon to the city’s coffers, according to a new study that found $2.2 million in seized cash benefited the Philadelphia district attorney’s office.  The report from the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania examined forfeitures taking place in the City of Brotherly Love, which is known for its rampant seizures of cash and property from innocent citizens.  In 2012 alone, Pennsylvania law enforcement officials seized nearly $14 million through civil asset forfeiture laws, according to a report from the state attorney general’s office.

Additionally, through the Justice Department’s Equitable Sharing Program, which enables local and state law enforcement to share in up to 80 percent of the proceeds from forfeitures, Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies generated $10.8 million from seizures that same year.....To Read More....