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Joined: May 2003
Posts: 43,951
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Officially "too old for this shit"
15000+ posts
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Officially "too old for this shit"
15000+ posts
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 43,951
Likes: 6
Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes: Behind the rise in seizures is a little-known cottage industry of private police-training firms that teach the techniques of “highway interdiction” to departments across the country.
  • There have been 61,998 cash seizures made on highways and elsewhere since 9/11 without search warrants or indictments through the Equitable Sharing Program, totaling more than $2.5 billion. State and local authorities kept more than $1.7 billion of that while Justice, Homeland Security and other federal agencies received $800 million. Half of the seizures were below $8,800.
  • Only a sixth of the seizures were legally challenged, in part because of the costs of legal action against the government. But in 41 percent of cases — 4,455 — where there was a challenge, the government agreed to return money. The appeals process took more than a year in 40 percent of those cases and often required owners of the cash to sign agreements not to sue police over the seizures.
  • Hundreds of state and local departments and drug task forces appear to rely on seized cash, despite a federal ban on the money to pay salaries or otherwise support budgets. 298 departments and 210 task forces have seized the equivalent of 20 percent or more of their annual budgets since 2008.
  • Behind the rise in seizures is a little-known cottage industry of private police-training firms that teach the techniques of “highway interdiction” to departments across the country. One of those firms created a private intelligence network known as Black Asphalt Electronic Networking & Notification System that enabled police nationwide to share detailed reports about American motorists — criminals and the innocent alike — including their Social Security numbers, addresses and identifying tattoos, as well as hunches about which drivers to stop.
  • Agencies with police known to be participating in the Black Asphalt intelligence network have seen a 32 percent jump in seizures beginning in 2005, three times the rate of other police departments. Desert Snow-trained officers reported more than $427 million in cash seizures during highway stops in just one five-year period, according to company officials. More than 25,000 police have belonged to Black Asphalt, company officials said.
  • State law enforcement officials in Iowa and Kansas prohibited the use of the Black Asphalt network because of concerns that it might not be a legal law enforcement tool. A federal prosecutor in Nebraska warned that Black Asphalt reports could violate laws governing civil liberties, the handling of sensitive law enforcement information and the disclosure of pretrial information to defendants. But officials at Justice and Homeland Security continued to use it.

Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 24,971
Likes: 29
brutally Kamphausened
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brutally Kamphausened
15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 24,971
Likes: 29

I've never feared the potential corrupt misuse of the police until recently.

These are the kind of corrupt extortion tactics one expects from Mexico or some other banana republic, not in the United States. Score another one for the enemies of the Constitution who gave us the Patriot Act (and renewed it under Obama), as well as NDAA 2012 and NDAA 2013.



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