Eric Holder actually does something right

Good day all. I was about to write up something in the Infernal Revenue Service when this came across the wire. Eric Holder, probably the most dishonest Attorney General in decades, has just put a stop to some forms of asset forfeitures.

First, a little background. For about the last 30 years, local and state police forces have been seizing people’s assets under the idea that those assets were the product of criminal activity, such as a drug dealer buying a car with his drug profits. Under the program, law enforcement didn’t have to actually prove that a crime had occurred. The person that had their property seized had to prove that they had gotten it through lawful means.

This system stood the entire constitutional process of innocent until proven guilty on it’s head, with the active connivance of the Judicial branch, up to and including the Supreme Court. Law Enforcement departments could then use the money and assets for their own departments. This has led to massive abuses by police, including raids on homes of innocent people. Several deaths and dozens, if not hundreds of injuries, both to citizens and police have occurred. Now, it looks like Holder has finally seen the light. Here are the details from the Washington Post:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without proving that a crime occurred. Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.

Pity this wasn’t done years ago, but, better late then never.

Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing. The program has enabled local and state police to make seizures and then have them “adopted” by federal agencies, which share in the proceeds. The program allowed police departments and drug task forces to keep up to 80 percent of the proceeds of the adopted seizures, with the rest going to federal agencies.

Just how bad is this program? Police departments have used it to go after major assets, such as homes, hotels and airplanes and other property of people who were only involved in the criminal activity by dint of actually owning the assets in question. In many cases, they weren’t even aware of the illegal activity and if they had known, would have put a stop to it and called the police.

For instance, Someone’s kid sells a little pot on his front lawn and gets busted. Then before the parents know it, the District Attorney seizes their home declaring it to be from the proceeds of drug sales. No one in their right mind would believes that they knew of or approved of their kids actions, let alone used the money to buy their house. The Philadelphia DA is notorious for pulling this stunt and has stolen seized millions of dollars in property. Now the ban isn’t total. There are a few things that can be used to take property.

“With this new policy, effective immediately, the Justice Department is taking an important step to prohibit federal agency adoptions of state and local seizures, except for public safety reasons,” Holder said in a statement.

Holder’s decision allows some limited exceptions, including illegal firearms, ammunition, explosives and property associated with child pornography, a small fraction of the total. This would eliminate virtually all cash and vehicle seizures made by local and state police from the program.

Local police have long used very minor traffic violations as an excuse to search people’s cars. Technically they have to ask for permission, but when people are pulled over for something, they tend to be a little nervous. Also, since they haven’t done anything wrong, like selling Cocaine, they don’t have any reason to think a search would turn up anything. They don’t realize that the whole objective is to literally steal the person’s car and any valuables in it. Now this ban doesn’t affect any states that have their own grand theft asset forfeiture laws in place.

While police can continue to make seizures under their own state laws, the federal program was easy to use and required most of the proceeds from the seizures to go to local and state police departments. Many states require seized proceeds to go into the general fund.

Yes, state governments find it far easier to steal from people then to either control their budgets or raise taxes. Now what was the reason given for this long overdue change?

A Justice official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the attorney general’s motivation, said Holder “also believes that the new policy will eliminate any possibility that the adoption process might unintentionally incentivize unnecessary stops and seizures.”

I hate to be the one to say this, but that horse has left the barn, frolicked hither and yon, knocked up a number of fillies and long sense died and been turned into glue. Furthermore, the barn burned down and was replaced by a strip mall. The timing of this announcement is rather interesting though.

Holder’s decision follows a Washington Post investigation published in September that found that police have made cash seizures worth almost $2.5 billion from motorists and others without search warrants or indictments since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Post found that local and state police routinely pulled over drivers for minor traffic infractions, pressed them to agree to warrantless searches and seized large amounts of cash without evidence of wrongdoing. The law allows such seizures and forces the owners to prove their property was legally acquired in order to get it back.

The problem with this law is that a simple reading of the Constitution by your average citizen, (Who the founders intended to be able to read and understand when they wrote it), violates several parts of that great document. Things like the 4^th Amendment for starters. Of course, the Supreme Court, which should have slapped this down hard, rolled right over and gave the Government everything it wanted.

News of Holder’s decision stunned advocates who have for a long time unsuccessfully sought to reverse civil asset forfeiture laws, arguing that they undermine core American values, such as property rights and due process.

Considering what a dirtbag Holder is, I can see why so many are shocked. I’m shocked at this. Don’t forget, this is the same person who allowed guns to go to the Drug Cartels in Mexico, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Mexicans and a Federal Border agent, has gone after reporters that don’t toe the Obama line and turned the Civil Rights division into a government sponsored offshoot of the New Black Panthers. Why shouldn’t people be surprised at this? He’s never done the right thing in his career as far as I can tell. As to why he’s doing it now, since he’s resigned and is only warming the chair for his replacement? Who knows? Perhaps he’s trying to protect his “Legacy.”

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~

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