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CBC Warns Canadians of "US Law Enforcement Money Extortion Program"
jfbilodeau writes The CBC is warning Canadians about a U.S. program where America law enforcement officers — from federal agents to state troopers right down to sheriffs in one-street backwaters — are operating a vast, co-ordinated scheme to grab as much of the public's cash as they can through seizure laws. "So, for any law-abiding Canadian thinking about an American road trip, here’s some non-official advice: Avoid long chats if you’re pulled over. Answer questions politely and concisely, then persistently ask if you are free to go. Don’t leave litter on the vehicle floor, especially energy drink cans. Don’t use air or breath fresheners; they could be interpreted as an attempt to mask the smell of drugs. Don’t be too talkative. Don’t be too quiet. Try not to wear expensive designer clothes. Don’t have tinted windows. And for heaven’s sake, don’t consent to a search if you are carrying a big roll of legitimate cash.
Or you forced departments to pay back double or triple plus court costs for improper seizures.They'd suddenly be much more careful.
First the militarization of small town police departments, SWAT teams for serving routine warrants, rising incidents of shocking brutality and now law enforcement has devolved to the point of being little better than a band of petty thieves. This is getting pathetic and scary. Foreign countries are issuing warnings about the conduct of U.S. law enforcement personnel. Am I the only person who has a problem with that?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
My little brother had a gig at an auto rental place built into the side of a hotel. Once, they had to pick up a punk concert booker from the airport & they got pulled over by the 5-0 PO. There goes the $9K USD roll he needed to book bands in the city. They may have said something about picking it up from the evdience locker in a few months or something?
For the police departments, this kind of robbery is just a way to grab some cash. But I wonder if this is accepted on a political level to get rid of non-traceable monetary transactions altogether.
That's why I have a personal policy of always costing them more money than they seize from me. You confiscated $400 from me? I'm going to arrange to use more than $400 in police resources. I will mail you enough letters that you'll spend more than $400 just responding to them. I'll sue in small claims court so you have to send a representative to get it tossed out, then hire a lawyer to send fancy letters forcing the department to hire another fancy lawyer to send responses back.
I don't read AC A human right
What's the grid got to do with fleecing Canadians?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
The Supreme Court has ruled that civil forfeiture laws are, in fact, subject to the restrictions on excessive fines. Very specifically, and as I recall, on a case that involved seizure of money at the border.
Nobody knows about this, and a foreign tourist won't have any inclination to come back to the US - in a year or two, when it comes to trial - and spend more on legal fees than what was stolen.
The only way to stop this is to criminally prosecute corrupt cops. Which happens from time to time, but not nearly enough.
Is it? Because it seems to me that it's perfectly in line with the actual ideals US has embraced for its entire existence: to the victor go the spoils.
"Land of the Free" has never existed, except in the same realms of propaganda "Worker's Paradise" did. All that's happening now is that oppression is being doled out somewhat more equally than in the past. But this has always been the real face of America to anyone who's not powerful enough to defend themselves from it: a predator.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I have the pleasure of working with off duty police officers. We used to always get along well. Then one of them started telling stories about pulling people over. They were not flattering. I explained to them my policy of informing police officers, "I know you're just out here doing your job officer, but I don't consent to searches." I further explained that after stepping out of the vehicle (because that line always results in being asked to), that I repeatedly interject, "Am I being detained or am I free to go." Until finally they have to let me go. Despite explaining that I am as polite as can be about it, they chastised me for my approach. They were as upset as the cop that finally has to let me go. I still have to work with them, but they don't hide the fact that they now dislike me quite a bit. It probably didn't help that I combined it with a story about two cops that severely trampled on my civil rights a couple years ago and there was nothing I could do about it.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Hmm, 62K seizures in 13 years across the entire nation...
So, a bit fewer than 5K per year nationwide. Which is considerably lower than your chance of getting killed in an auto accident (about 33K per year).
So, while it's pretty clearly corrupt and of questionable Constitutionality, it's not so prevalent as to make it something to really worry about if I have seven times as much chance of being killed in an auto accident (or twice as much chance of being murdered).
Note that I am not endorsing this sort of behaviour by police/judges/feds. Merely pointing out that TFA is aiming to be rather more alarmist than reality requires....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It may help to remember how this current trend got it's legs.
Reagan is newly in office, and the country's mood is: we're tired of being ripped off and taken advantage of.
Pablo Escobar is bringing in tons of cocaine in broad daylight, and seemingly, no one can stop him. The Coast Guard has destroyer-sized ships and helicopters. The helicopters can catch Mr. Columbia's cigar boat, but are unarmed, and not allowed to shoot anyway. They can, and do, often wave at each other.
The Sheriff and even State police don't have boats to catch them, don't have helicopters available to just patrol, and if they do catch them; they have revolvers and shotguns against Uzis and AKs. In the face of all that, they catch a few anyway. But it turns out that it doesn't hurt the cartels at all to imprison their mules. Hell, it's their retirement plan, and keeps wages & seniority under control. Heh.
So the state auctions off the confiscated speedboat, and guess who's there to bid on it? Guess who cannot bid on it under any circumstances? The Sheriff himself. Not that I'd want him to, using my tax money that I'd rather go to schools or whatever. Pablo buys it back for a quarter of the new price. But sometimes he has to buy a new one. How much do you think that hurt his business? He can outspend the sheriff ten to one, and worse than that, it would be a stupid strategy to try and outspend the drug lord on guns and boats. The exact same strategy we were about to begin using on the Soviets, and it works.
In 1976, cocaine was a rich person's drug, or at least a big-city drug. in 1981, everybody and their 15 year old cousin in Mississippi could get it. Cocaine is suddenly everywhere, and it's profitable as shit; $100 1980 dollars a gram. (Of course that's not even pure cocaine; that's street cut).
What was pitched to us, and what we agreed to, was that yes; the Dade Sheriff could keep the cigar boat if he painted law enforcement colors on it, and used it to interdict the guys that used to own it. And while he's not allowed to sell the captured cocaine himself, he was allowed to keep the cocaine money, since it was bound for Columbia anyway, forever to disappear from our economy.
At that time, that was what was meant by the phrase, the "War on Drugs". They begged for the authority to take possession and shoot back with a quickness, just like real soldiers do in a real war. And hell, these were foreigners bringing AKs in, and didn't care who they shot. Of course, shoot them and take their stuff. What the hell are you thinking; waving? Sounds like Carter. We're done with that.
Things have come a long way since we had that mindset. I'll leave you with this thought: All government always grows, always; and sooner or later, it morphs into something you didn't expect.
This isn't news to Canucks, we've been dealing with this in our own country from Quebec for years. It's gotten better since the RCMP started an investigation on it though, but I got one a few years back. The last time I was in Quebec was in 1988 when I went there I was in middle school, and it was part of the "tour the capital" bit. Quebec is like NJ, full of slime, corruption, and fully broken.
Om, nomnomnom...
Buy a small fire safe and weld it into your trunk. Inside, put a smaller fire safe with a different type of lock. Then inside of there an even smaller locked box.
Finally the last small box contains a piece of paper that says "Fuck the police!".
Lock it all up and throw away the keys. You don't need them. You will never need to open that box. It's only there so you can "win" next time you're harassed by the PD.
Install multiple cameras and hidden microphones on the car so you'll be able to sue when they threaten you with violence upon discovering your little note. Then walk away with a six figure department budget as a winning fee.
First, it's all the same commission. It has a large mandate. Also, while it is popular (especially since that Globe and Mail article fulll of mistruths) to bash Québec for its corruption, I'd argue that we merely are more distrustful of our government, and so we tend to speak out more about these things. Anglophones seem like they want to sweep that stuff under the rug. I mean, you think your politicians are squeaky clean? The conservative party broke election laws with their robocalls, yet it's just one dude who's responsible for it, no one else knew about this in the party? And you really think the oil industry hasn't been "contributing" here and there to encourage Harper to not give a shit about the environment and sabotage climate change international conferences? What about that gun lobby shirt MacKay was wearing the other day? Makes the conservatives' insistence on getting rid of the gun registry quite interesting...
Let's not be naive here. All governments are corrupt. You need to be wary of these things and root out this corruption. That's what our commission is doing. I'd also remind you that the article was about policemen illegally taking tourists' money. That has nothing to do at all with what you typed. You just saw an opportunity to bash your favourite target.
Also, you might have guessed that I am actually a Québécois and that I live there.
I find it funny how Canadians always jump to the "Québécois aren't a race!" defense whenever they get called out on their Québec-bashing (an all too common practice). As if defining us as not a race somehow makes your discrimination less problematic. Call it whatever you want: racism, xenophobia, whatever. Some people in Québec have started calling it francophoby, which I guess is a pretty accurate term. The name doesn't matter. The concept of hating an entire people because their culture is distinct and different fom yours, and because they refuse to give it up and adopt your culture, that's certainly an attitude we need to get rid of.
A particularly interesting fact about Canadians' denial that this is racism is that they made it about racism first. "Speak white!" is something many francophones has been told by anglophones. There has been an association in the past for a long time in the minds of some anglophones between the white francophones of Québec and the black population of america. I wouldn't claim that we have had it as bad as they did, but it's not hard to see why this association was crated in the first place, if you know anything about our history.
Anyway, I take solace in the fact that it's mostly older generations of Canadians who are francophobic. When I lived outside Québec, most people my age were cool. Hopefully this trend keeps going, because there is no doubt that we will never feel home in Canada if we're always hated in this fashion.