Send to a friend How Police Confiscation Is Destroying America, Part 1 by Jarret B. Wollstein, October 1993
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.
Mr. Wollstein is Associate Editor of The Financial Privacy Report, PO Box 1277, Burnsville, MN 55337, and the co-author of two recent books just published by the Report — The Rage of Islam and What Really Happens When They Confiscate Your Gold. He is also a director of the International Society for Individual Liberty, 1800 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. Send to a friend back to top
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