Policing For Profit: How Civil Asset Forfeiture Has Perverted American Law Enforcement

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The current state of civil asset forfeiture in the United States is one of almost naked tyranny. Don’t believe us? Listen to the latest Resistance Library Podcast.

Picture this: You’re driving home from the casino and you’ve absolutely cleaned up – to the tune of $50,000. You see a police car pull up behind you, but you can’t figure out why. Not only have you not broken any laws, you’re not even speeding. But the police officer doesn’t appear to be interested in charging you with a crime. Instead, he takes your gambling winnings, warns you not to say anything to anyone unless you want to be charged as a drug kingpin, then drives off into the sunset.

This actually happened to Tan Nguyen, and his story is far from unique. On this episode on the Resistance Library Podcast Dave and Sam discuss the topic of civil asset forfeiture, a multi-billion dollar piggybank for state, local and federal police departments to fund all sorts of pet projects.

With its origins in the British fight against piracy on the open seas, civil asset forfeiture is nothing new. During Prohibition, police officers often seized goods, cash and equipment from bootleggers in a similar manner to today. However, contemporary civil asset forfeiture begins right where you’d think that it would: The War on Drugs.

In 1986, as First Lady Nancy Reagan encouraged America’s youth to “Just Say No,” the Justice Department started the Asset Forfeiture Fund. This sparked a boom in civil asset forfeiture that’s now become self-reinforcing, as the criminalization of American life and asset forfeiture have continued to feed each other.

In sum, asset forfeiture creates a motivation to draft more laws by the legislature, while more laws create greater opportunities for seizure by law enforcement. This perverse incentive structure is having devastating consequences: In 2014 alone, law enforcement took more stuff from American citizens than burglars did.

You can read the full article Policing For Profit: How Civil Asset Forfeiture Has Perverted American Law Enforcement at Ammo.com.

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Did I hear you on the radio last night?

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They been doing it a long time. They’d use the cars and stuff for the PD in the city.
City BA +bigs liked to drive seized luxury cars also back when. PD was smart.
Family had a run in with this “asset seizer” in the 90’s
At least the worms got the chicken shit &^%#.

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Well damn! I police here, that mean I can start seizing everybody’s guns & ammo here? :thinking: I’ve been seizing @Belt-Fed 's $$$ for some time now…

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Come and take it
stephen king clown GIF

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I doubt any radio station would play our podcasts. Thankfully YouTube hasn’t banished us to the nether realm just yet, though.

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Actually your resistance library is top notch, I have an idea for an existing show than may help, if interested PM me and we’ll see if there’s more to discuss

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OK, I was half asleep, but I heard someone on a late-night talk radio show and thought he said he was from ammo.com, talking about Bitemes new EOs. The guy knew what he was talking about so I thought it might have been you.

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There was a local man and son who owned a landscaping business/nursery and often traveled to houston to purchase tens of thousands of $$$ worth of items at a time.
They had 50k stolen from the father’s money belt boarding a flight for another trip.
Last i heard was they were still fighting for around a decade. This was years ago.
Probably still don’t have it.

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