Law enforcement should never be tied to profit for the police departments. Legal illegal has nothing to do with it. It's as obvious as the nose on your face.
Sigh. This is NOT an abuse, because they did not forfeit anything. The cops siezed the car to search for more evidence and hold it until trial. The COURTS have to take away property. This is what is called due process of law. Otherwise, after the trial, they have to return the car.
Okay, I give up. Where is it written into law that law enforcement is tied to profit? When the police seize something under the drug laws where does it affect the paychecks of the officers?
Amused
Elite Member
- Apr 14, 2001
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You guys are just now waking up to the complete abuse of the forfeiture laws in this country? Have you been under a rock?
This started over a decade ago with the war on drugs. There is not a freedom, or a right that has not been affected by the failed war on drugs. And it will only get worse.
Any property can now be seized if police "believe" that it was bought with the profits of illegal activity or used to further a crime. The only justification they need to take your property is "probable cause," which includes a tip from an anonymous informant. The police get to keep the seized assets or property. To get property back, the owner has to prove in court that the money or property was legally obtained.
In other words, they do not have to convict you of, or even CHARGE you with, a crime. The burden is on YOU to prove the innocence of your money or property.
Hell, people have lost all their assets, including home and car, because their CHILDREN had small amounts of drugs in the house or family car.
More often than not, the legal costs required to get back your property (tens of thousands of dollars) are more than the average person can afford, or worse yet, end up costing more than the property seized.
In most cases, the police departments are allowed to keep and auction the seized property. This is just asking for corruption and greed.
Take the Malibu Ranch case, for example:
Reclusive millionaire Don Scott was killed by a drug task force looking for marijuana plants at his ranch. Informants told them Scott's wife had been flashing hundred-dollar
bills in Malibu. Scott had further refused to negotiate a sale of his property to the government. DEA agents were ready to seize the ranch, but no marijuana was found.
The incentive to raid this man's home was the profit to be made by the sale of the ranch. It was worth millions.
Our rights to privacy and property are being pissed away in this failed war, and no body seems to care enough to do anything about it... until it happens to them.
This, folks, is NOT what our Founding Fathers had in mind.
This started over a decade ago with the war on drugs. There is not a freedom, or a right that has not been affected by the failed war on drugs. And it will only get worse.
Any property can now be seized if police "believe" that it was bought with the profits of illegal activity or used to further a crime. The only justification they need to take your property is "probable cause," which includes a tip from an anonymous informant. The police get to keep the seized assets or property. To get property back, the owner has to prove in court that the money or property was legally obtained.
In other words, they do not have to convict you of, or even CHARGE you with, a crime. The burden is on YOU to prove the innocence of your money or property.
Hell, people have lost all their assets, including home and car, because their CHILDREN had small amounts of drugs in the house or family car.
More often than not, the legal costs required to get back your property (tens of thousands of dollars) are more than the average person can afford, or worse yet, end up costing more than the property seized.
In most cases, the police departments are allowed to keep and auction the seized property. This is just asking for corruption and greed.
Take the Malibu Ranch case, for example:
Reclusive millionaire Don Scott was killed by a drug task force looking for marijuana plants at his ranch. Informants told them Scott's wife had been flashing hundred-dollar
bills in Malibu. Scott had further refused to negotiate a sale of his property to the government. DEA agents were ready to seize the ranch, but no marijuana was found.
The incentive to raid this man's home was the profit to be made by the sale of the ranch. It was worth millions.
Our rights to privacy and property are being pissed away in this failed war, and no body seems to care enough to do anything about it... until it happens to them.
This, folks, is NOT what our Founding Fathers had in mind.
I don't know how some of you are ignorant to the fact that rapists may see less prison time than a person buying a bag of weed.
That is not an exaggeration, and that doesn't bother you?
That is not an exaggeration, and that doesn't bother you?
I do not see where comparisons on sentences was made or how some might be ignorant to that fact. All I see was an agrument on police power and pot being a victimless crime.
However, to go along with your statement, I do not agree with rapists getting less prison time, in fact, I do not agree with posession of the controllod substence in question having a jail or prison sentence, or a punishment at all for that matter.
So what is your argument? Just the matter of the forfeiture of property? The man with the 100G benz loses his car as well as the 50 buck junkyard clunker? Yea yea you get it back blah blah so so.
The fact of the matter is why they forfeit their property at all. They were buying not selling weed when busted. How can it be justified that evidence needs to be brought that the car wasn't acquired with drug money?
It's bullsh!t and you know it.
Didn't I see a COPS episode where a couple guys used a company truck to pick up a (undercover) hooker. The cops ended up taking the truck. Did they take it to look for used condoms?
If you don't cultivate, posess or sell illegal drugs you don't have anything to worry about.
What's your problem?
The problem is that marijuana is a plant, first and foremost, with spiritual and medicinal value.
Freeing slaves was illegal at one point to. Where do you draw the line?
What's your problem?
The problem is that marijuana is a plant, first and foremost, with spiritual and medicinal value.
Freeing slaves was illegal at one point to. Where do you draw the line?
I'll bet it took you a few hours to think up that one.
I really can't stand it when people know something is against the law, they know the penalties for getting caught, they do it anyway, they get caught, and then they go into a rage bitching about the penalties. Guess what, that isn't the way to get them changed!
You have to be kidding!
It has a commission based system involved... Since value is calculated by weight.. this is why plants are weighed with the dirt/roots intact. It nearly doubles the results. Why would they falsify results unless it had some beneficial gain involved? Ever heard of slush funds?
An officer I know in my town.. (3 small towns of 2k people, so I know who all the cops are)... said that if pot was legalized, he'd be out a job.
Amused
Elite Member
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I don't smoke pot, and I think the seizure laws are a complete perversion of our Constitution. In fact, I disagree with the entire war on drugs and resent the freedoms that are being sacrificed in it's name.
Most people here aren't advocating the use of pot. They are only decrying the tactics of our government. Can you not see the difference?
I never said I agree with the laws all the time either, my only gripe is with idiots who know what the law is, break it, and bitch like little babies about the consequences they KNEW they would face.
Amused
Elite Member
- Apr 14, 2001
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If you got a speeding ticket, and were sentenced to death, would you not bitch? Would it make it any better if you KNEW you'd be sentenced to death for speeding?
I know that's an exaggerated example, but it does bring home the point. The penalties and seizures are excessive, and breed corruption.
The problem is, most people who don;t do it think they have nothing to worry about. Tell that to the Malibu Ranch guy, or anyone else that has had their property seized, and had to prove their innocence to get it back... if they could afford years of legal fees.
I don't know what kind of corruption the officer in your town is into, but in mainstream America cops don't get pay raises for busting drug dealers. When I say pay raises I mean all the cops get a raise.
Excellent point. It is not the government's business to dictate what a citizen does with his/her life. I don't blame the police for cracking down on drugs... The police are just doing their job and enforcing laws.
Ryan
I really don't see what the big outrage is here. I saw the episode of Cops being discussed, and it was an undercover sting. Obviously they had gathered enough information to see there was a big enough drug problem in this particular area to justify that a sting like this was necessary. How would you like to live in the neighborhood where the sting took place? I guarantee that those of you whining about this sting operation wouldn't be bitching about it, if you owned a home in that neighborhood. If you can do the crime, you can do the time. I particularly like the guy in the Nissan. He had obviously seen the police doing busts earlier in the day, so what does he do? He comes back and asks the undercover cop posing as the dealer "Are the cops gone now?" What a dumbass, he, and all the other drug addicts who whine and complain about the laws, deserve everything that happens to them. They don't seem to grasp that no matter how harmless they may think pot is to them, it's still an illegal narcotic and could be punishable with jail time.
Originally posted by: aphexII
I bought pot the other day for a friend
Granted, its tolerated here...
i bought pot for a friend just last night...
Amused
Elite Member
- Apr 14, 2001
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And you don't seem to realize the danger in giving the government the power to seize property, and keep it even if you are not charged, or convicted of a crime.
The outrage here is not for the individuals who were busted, but in the powers the police and government were able to assert.
Just remember what happens to an accused criminal BEFORE conviction can happen to you, too. Even if you've done nothing. Our Founding Fathers did not create rules on how our government treats the accused for nothing, you know.
Amused - <<Most people here aren't advocation the use of pot. They are only decrying the tactics of our government. >>
Then again...most of the people here who are decrying the tactics of our government are pot smokers.
Then again...most of the people here who are decrying the tactics of our government are pot smokers.
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