Oklahoma State Troopers Use New Device To Seize Bank Accounts During Traffic Stops (news9.com)

mi writes from a report via news9.com KWTV: KWTV writes, "You may have heard of civil asset forfeiture. That's where police can seize your property and cash without first proving you committed a crime; without a warrant and without arresting you, as long as they suspect that your property is somehow tied to a crime. Now, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a device that also allows them to seize money in your bank account or on prepaid cards. If a trooper suspects you may have money tied to some type of crime, the highway patrol can scan any cards you have and seize the money." But do not worry: "If you can prove that you have a legitimate reason to have that money it will be given back to you. And we've done that in the past," said Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. John Vincent.

Comments

What?

[sims 2]

Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

Re:What?

[reanjr]

We abandoned that shit here in the U.S. decades ago. We setup black sites to hold innocent people so they fall between the cracks of the constitutional system We even had to set up special courts specifically designed to circumvent constitutional rights and push victims through the system more rapidly and cheaply.

And the Republicans and Democrats just cry "terrorism" and "gun violence" and think that solves the nation's problems.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm....

I don't know what the current number is, but there is an income level below which most convicted criminals live. Below that level, lots of crime; above it, relatively little.

Now, below that income level, see what the proportions of the population are racially; what percentage of people living below that level are black, hispanic, white, etc.

Now, look at the numbers of those groups which are in jail/prison. You'll find that it almost exactly mirrors the general proportions of the population below that income level.

TL;DR—Crime is caused by poverty, not race. I know, it doesn't fit the narrative of the pampered children who frequent this site these days, but it is, nonetheless, true.

Re:What?

[AHuxley]

If found to be driving with any amount of cash a person is "structuring" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... to avoid the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Internal Revenue Code by using the banking system with much smaller amounts of cash over time.
If no cash is found after a search, the deposit was just made or the vehicle has been altered with cash hiding compartments.
To be found with any digital banking details while driving is now fair game in that state.
Even with local plates, facial recognition of the driver and passenger can induce a "random" pull over and chat down with the "discovery" of cash or banking details.
The ability to track a face, cell phone powered on, licence plate is now so cheap any county, city, state can afford to stop anyone. If a state/federal database sees any pattern of movement or a degree separation or three of 'hops' from any suspect.
Every federal digital tracking system is now cheap enough for local law enforcement. Add in civil asset forfeiture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... in many US states and just driving gets to be very interesting.

Re:What?

[rahvin112]

Civil forfeiture was instigated as a step up against the war on drugs during the early Reagan administration. After being litigated through much of the early 80's the supreme court gave it constitutional blessing. Many of the rights we've lost over the last 20 years are the direct result of prosecuting a war on drugs against our own citizens.

If we want to end these abominations of law we MUST end the war on drugs. End prohibition 2.0.

Re:What?

[Required Snark]

You are dumber then a box of rocks. Wake up, it's not the 18th century any more. You and your musket are powerless against what this represents. When the government can electronically seize you assets, track you real time, listen in on your conversations, read your email, and knows everyone that you know, having a gun is about as important as having a pile of stones to throw. Your stash of guns is about as useful in this context as stones are against a remote drone strike.

Prepper ideology and gun ownership just make it easier for the government to go about it's business of trashing the constitution. First, you have already identified who you are, and they can generate a list with you name on it in milliseconds. They know because of metadata: where and when you use your credit card, your phone records, license plate scanners, etc. Second, thinking that your gun will save you means that you are wasting time solving the wrong problem. It's a legal, law enforcement, information, and telecommunications threat, so sitting around counting your bullets and cleaning you gun means that you are a non-combatant.

You want to do something? Don't use software that requires signing a EULA. Tell your congress critter not to support the TPP. Join the EFF and the ACLU, use encryption and run Linux. That's where the conflict is occurring. Although it's a big stroke for your ego to assume that Manly Men with Guns Will Save the Day, that's just the fantasy of a little boy thinking he is Iron Man. The end of constitutional government is a bureaucratic conflict involving business and government, not a reenactment of the Revolutionary War.

Land of the fee

[Calydor]

Innocent until proven guilty, huh?

Alright, just gotta prove that the money is clean. You need to hire a lawyer to do that.

What are you gonna pay that lawyer with after all your money just got seized?

Oh, and better do it fast - rent is due soon.

Gee, I wonder why anti police sentiment exists

[FireballX301]

And the police unions wring their hands talking about how nobody trusts police anymore

Re:Gee, I wonder why anti police sentiment exists

[UnknowingFool]

And the police don't have to this at all; they are choosing to do this. But one thing that needs to be addressed is that previously the police seized the card (which they kept in their possession). Now they are seizing the money in the account. Don't you think that crosses an important line?

Bank Accounts not mentioned in TFA

[cfalcon]

I see no reference to the bank accounts, only the prepaid credit cards. Can anyone site something that actually talks about the attacks on bank accounts?

Re:Bank Accounts not mentioned in TFA

[Quantus347]

The device specifically does not work if the card is directly tied to a bank account, it only works on prepaid debit cards, gift cards. From the the FAQ on the device from the manufacturer's website (https://www.erad-group.com/faqs):

Forbes has a slightly more informative write-up: http://www.forbes.com/sites/in...

Catching the bad guys.

[monkeyman.kix]

This just proves how far law enforcement thinks that can go to tread over the rights and civil liberties of citizens in their pursuit of 'catching the bad guys'. This will not end but it has to. If a patrol officer has the authority to seize your bank accounts based on suspicion, whats to say they can't seize any and all assets based on nothing more than a "gut feeling". There is no requirement of proof on the officers part. Justice has deteriorated in the US. Crime has dropped to all-time lows, yet the headlines scream that there are rampant criminals stealing and profiting from drugs, terrorism, arms, whatever fits the headline of fear mongering. It is not right.

When will the citizenry of the US wake up and take back the power that has been slowly bled away form them over the last 50 years?

Don't get me wrong, I want the cops to get the bad guys. But do it right, not slimy, not by taking away the rights of free people.

Re:4th Amendment?

[ArylAkamov]

I've never understood the reasoning behind this. How can in inanimate object commit a crime?

IT WASN'T ME OFFICER! MY COMPUTER DID THE HACKING WHILE I WATCHED IN HORROR!

Re:4th Amendment?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

They were rolled in as part of The War On Drugs; so they've been afforded a very generous hearing.

It didn't help that, after Reagan signed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act in 1984, the police departments doing the seizing got to keep a substantial cut of the take. The legal theories involved go back considerably further; but the change in incentive structure was what created a...downright gleeful...enthusiasm for the practice among LEOs.

Some of the most visible characters involved either run or work with the "Desert Snow" outfit which does training on how to identifiy the juicy targets; and the associated "Black Asphalt Electronic Networking System", which is essentially a cop social network for trading tips and tales of highway robbery.

It's classy stuff.

War on drugs

[Okian Warrior]

Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

It was thrown out with the bathwater for the war on drugs.

The perception was that drug dealers were living high off of their ill-gotten gains: owning houses, boats, off-road trucks... and flaunting their wealth in the community.

We didn't have enough evidence to charge them with drug-related crimes, so we invented civil asset forfeiture to compensate: if you even *looked* like you could be a drug dealer, you could have your assets confiscated and sold.

And the proceeds can go directly to the police department to further their anti-drug campaign. Under this new law, drug crime became a self-correcting problem as the proceeds went to fund ever-more expanded police operations. ...except that it didn't. Drug use is as high as it ever was, police can confiscate anything you own on a whim, and the action is not tied to evidence or charges, and neither the police nor the prosecutors can be held liable for mistakes and errors.

This was a problem for 20 years, and eventually the US attorney general made a ruling that in general, you can't sieze cash as civil-asset forfeiture.

(But the OP is apparently about state-sponsored seizure, not federal.)

This will to go to the supreme court, will cost about $2 million in wasted effort for some poor schmuck, cost about 10 years wasted time for some poor schmuck, and be overturned. In the meantime, OK state cops get a free pass to steal money from anyone.

And of course, when the government is eventually found doing something illegal, they are told to stop. When a company is found doing something illegal, they pay a small fine and don't admit to any wrongdoing. When a citizen is found doing something illegal, they go to jail.

And when a citizen is wrongly accused, it costs a lifetime of wages and a year or two of life effort just to escape the state's error.

What I don't understand is why more police aren't being shot in this nation. The police are trashing lives on a whim, and some of those trashed lives will have nothing to lose. I haven't had a polite interaction with a cop in 20 years, and most people say that the best policy is to avoid them at all costs. Parents are starting to teach their children not to call the police for help.

The police hurt a lot of people, unnecessarily, and a lot of people are getting desperate.

It surprises me that we're not in full-out revolt.

Re:War on drugs

[currently_awake]

The biggest lie in American politics: Voting third party is throwing away your vote. In reality when the major 2 parties see votes going third party they adopt policies from those parties to try and get those votes. Voting third party actually gives you more influence in federal politics than voting R or D.

Re:HO.LY.FUCK

[Applehu Akbar]

"The source article says specifically it lets them take the funds off of a pre-paid card. It says nothing about bank accounts, credit cards, etc."

ERAD does not transfer money from banks, but the cops can use it to scan your ATM card referncing a bank account. That means that if you get caught by Oklahoma cops in a civil forfeiture stop, immediately close any bank accounts represented by cards in your wallet and transfer them somewhere else before the cops get a signoff from some compliant local court on tapping the bank accounts they found.