US: Your Money Is Covered in Drugs!: Feds Can Declare a Load of Cash Forfeit Without Ever Proving a Link to Drugs

[CLICKHEREx]

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/730165-Your-Money-Is-Covered-in-Drugs!-Feds-Can-Declare-a-Load-of-Cash-Forfeit-Without-Ever


neversickanymore View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact
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Posts 10,492 Yesterday 01:51 Your Money Is Covered in Drugs!: Feds Can Declare a Load of Cash Forfeit Without Ever Proving a Link to Drugs
By Chris Roberts
Wednesday, Jul 9 2014

The cross-country flight from Newark had just touched down at San Francisco International Airport, and Brice Barton was already in trouble.

It was late January, and the Seattle-area man was making his sixth coast-to-coast trip since September. SFO was his layover before a one-way flight to Arcata in Humboldt County. He never made it north.

Within minutes after stepping off the plane, Barton encountered his welcome crew: DEA agents. They'd been tipped off by the TSA back east — the diligent luggage-scanners — that they might find something interesting in Barton's luggage.

Adopting a friendly tone, the drug cops asked if they could search his backpack. He agreed. Nothing. Escorting him to baggage claim, they asked him if he had any drugs in his checked suitcase. He said no, and he was telling the truth. A search, though, turned up $100,000 in cash.

That meant trouble. Barton knew it. "One way it's with Vaseline, and the other without," he told the agents after they fished out the cash, according to their sworn testimony, "either way I'm fucked."

He may be, and so are other people with money in their pockets, technically. Big or small, legitimate or not, any cache of money can be seized and forfeited by the federal government at any time, attorneys and experts say, and for a simple reason.

It's covered in drugs.

Check your pockets. Do you have any bills on you? If so, congratulations: You're carrying drugs.

As much as 80 percent of U.S. currency in circulation has traces of drugs on it, mostly cocaine and methamphetamine. This is not disputed: Even the U.S. Supreme Court takes this as gospel.

After identifying an amount of money they want to take, drug cops have a simple procedure. They get a drug-sniffing dog to tell them if there are drugs on the money, then seize it.

"If they want your money, they get Fido to alert to it," says a defense attorney who works on these cases. "And Fido alerts to everything."

Barton's case is not unique. "This happens everywhere — everywhere there's a major airport," said Rory Little, a law professor at UC Hastings who spent much of the coke-crazed 1980s as a United States Attorney in San Francisco. In those days, the forfeiture unit in the office was a quiet bunch, doing its work in an unglamorous corner of the office.

But members were always a hit at the annual Christmas party: They raked in millions, essentially providing the cash to keep the office going.

Forfeitures also work in another unique way that's stacked against the cash-carrier. In all other areas of law, the burden of proof is on the accuser: The prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt someone is guilty of wrongdoing.

With seized cash or property, it's the other way around. The government doesn't need to prove you're a drug-dealer to take your money. You just need to prove that you aren't, and provide an honest accounting for every cent. "The burden of proof is on the contestant to prove an innocent source," says Little. "That's crazy, in my opinion."

He has his own shaggy drug-dog story: He and a judge friend were returning from a conference when they encountered a dog in the terminal. The dog alerted police to the judge's briefcase. Sheepishly, the cop asked to check the case. There was nothing in the briefcase — except for probable cause for the cops to seize it, should the urge have struck them.

Most honest people would say that a person carrying a huge amount of money while headed to the capital of California pot country was up to no good. They might be right. But there are innocent people carrying cash — and it's not a crime to carry money, until the feds decide otherwise.

Exactly how much money the feds are seizing in this way is hard to pin down. This is because public records tell only a small part of the story. Courts handle "judicial seizures," currency forfeitures that are contested.

Of late, these are increasing. In the Northern District, which comprises most of the Bay Area and coastal California up to the Oregon border, the feds moved to take about $1 million in currency last year. That's up from under $500,000 the year before, and $778,000 in 2011 — but only six months into 2014 and the feds have seized $797,880, according to records.

But these are a small fraction of the overall seizures, most of which are "administrative seizures." These never see the inside of a courtroom.

A DEA spokeswoman declined to say how much the local drug cops are seizing via this route and directed SF Weekly to file a Freedom of Information Act request in order to take a peek at the ledger. By the time the FOIA process takes its course, it will likely be 2015.

By then, hundreds more people and millions more dollars will likely land in the feds' hands. Barton wasn't so special: His was the fifth case that day, agents told him. And his flight landed before noon.

http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco...nt?oid=2988711

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Once again we see that the very people creating the violent causing, life ruining, greed filled black market.. are also the ones reaping significant financial and professional rewards from there creation. Legalize it and tax it so the public can benefit from it instead of a bunch of thieving law enforcement, useless attorneys, slave profiting prison owners and workers. All of which have done nothing positive to curtail it. Why would they, they are on easy street.. billions from the taxpayers and millions from the black market. Last edited by neversickanymore; Yesterday at 03:45. RECOVERY FORUMS ~~~ADDICTION GUIDE~~~ CONTACT ME

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#2 iamthesuck View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact
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Join Date Sep 2013
Posts 247 Yesterday 02:32 This kind of shit is expanding as cops abuse their authority more and more. Someone needs to write a petition

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#3 MyDoorsAreOpen View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact
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Join Date Aug 2003
Posts 8,510 Yesterday 03:37 Why is no one doing anything about this? I keep a close eye on major media sources, and it seems to me the asset forfeiture racket is getting a lot of press and entering the public consciousness in the US. Seems to me we ought to be at a tipping point where there's widespread public outrage and a passing of new legislation. This shit is Supreme Court material, for chrissakes: there's an interpretation of a constitutional right at stake here: the right to property! Instead, it seems the problem is only getting worse the more press it gets!

This issue gets under my skin because I deeply respect, and plan to someday join, the ranks of people who use only cash, for reasons I've elaborated on elsewhere. I'm thinking about opening a solo physician practice, and offer some non-insurance-covered services for which I'll take only cash as payment. Believe you me, a chunk of that cash is getting hidden in a location only I know about and that no one would ever stumble upon. That fund will be for the day I get stopped on my bike by a law enforcement officer and have a chunk of cash in my pocket seized, to hire a good lawyer who'll be willing to help me take my case to the highest court in the land. If this ever happens to me -- which it sounds like if I go cash-only is a very real possibility -- I won't be satisfied to account for every penny on paper and get it reimbursed (never mind the large amount of time and additional money that takes!). No, I won't declare victory until an unjust law is struck down.

Be interesting to see whose wrath I incur if I end up being that guy. Betcha the DEA and IRS would be paying my doctor's office very frequent visits looking for dirt, and I wouldn't be surprised if the medical licensing board took the first opportunity to pull my license and wash their hands of me, even if no one found any dirt on me.

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#4 ro4eva View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact Send Email
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Join Date Nov 2004
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Blog Entries8 Yesterday 03:49 I find this article to be rather disturbing.

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#5 rickolasnice View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact
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Join Date Apr 2007
Posts 6,160 Yesterday 03:50 Should ask the cops to politely present the dogs with their own money..

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#6 toothpastedog View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact Send Email
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Join Date Dec 2010
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Blog Entries21 Yesterday 07:42 wow, a new pathetic disgusting low... warriors my ass

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#7 TheLostBoys View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact Send Email
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Join Date Aug 2010
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Posts 3,632 Today 16:22 What's the difference between the dea extorting money from.these people & the mob doing it? There is none except for the corrupt dea has the backing of the corrupt federal govt......

Its a complete joke of a system & its like the wild west where they make rules up as they go.

These people that are being extorted/robbed by these agencies don't all have money for good lawyers but any good lawyer can get this case won if there are no drugs involved.

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#8 CLICKHEREx View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles
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Join DateSep 2012
Posts116Today 18:46

And not before time, too, view: "Rand Paul Files Asset Forfeiture Reform Bill", at http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/...set_forfeiture

[nothinghead]

in other news, america is not the world