Justin Amash Introduces Bill to End Civil Asset Forfeiture Nationwide

Re:Justin Amash Introduces Bill to End Civil Asset Forfeitur... by matheusmoreira on Friday December 18, 2020 @02:19PM (#25470796)

What do you suggest americans do? Democracy doesn't work because several powerful groups lobby to keep civil forfeiture. There's no way they can resist this. Their government can label any citizen a threat to national security and strip them of whatever rights they still have. Their dragnet surveillance allows them to monitor and stop any organized opposition. Attempting revolution is unwise since that'd probably result in the "terrorists" getting curbstomped by the US military forces.

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Re:Justin Amash Introduces Bill to End Civil Asset Forfeitur... by defen on Friday December 18, 2020 @02:33PM (#25470945)

I don't think it's due to corruption per se. Americans just have to be convinced to care about civil asset forfeiture more than they care about other things. Most people probably think of it as something that happens to other people who were probably crime-adjacent anyway (I don't agree with this line of thinking). If you got enough single-issue voters who cared about civil asset forfeiture, it would go away.

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Re:Justin Amash Introduces Bill to End Civil Asset Forfeitur... by what2build on Friday December 18, 2020 @04:26PM (#25472251)

Well, you asked so...

Sacrifice time at digital “salons” and non-essential economic activity.

When 40% of jobs are work from home, strike is a matter of closing a laptop.

Jumping straight to lock and load is ridiculous. SOPA blackout and teacher strikes have gotten results. Police budgets are being redirected.

Encryption is a thing; stay out of cloud services if you do not want to be snooped on. General home computing and k8s+kilo, torrents... teach people to use them in support of the effort. They’re open source; improve the UX.

To be frank, McConnell and the rest are well aware of the French Revolution. Serious discourse in that direction, a show of organization effort would unblock legislative capture.

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Re:Justin Amash Introduces Bill to End Civil Asset Forfeitur... by underseacables on Friday December 18, 2020 @05:12PM (#25472708)

In America it’s illegal to speak of overthrowing the government, or rising up to defend rights by force. There’s really nothing you can do. The elections are over, the citizens and what they think doesn’t matter anymore. There is absolutely nothing any one of you can do, short of a Revolution, that will change anything over the next 2-4 years.

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Re:Justin Amash Introduces Bill to End Civil Asset Forfeitur... by boogies on Friday December 18, 2020 @08:41PM (#25474193)

> In America it’s illegal to speak of overthrowing the government, or rising up to defend rights by force.

IIUC this is partially true. Advocating for overthrow of government seems banned by 18 U.S. Code § 2385 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2385) (Thanks to https://nitter.net/crimeaday for teaching me this https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91IzF+claGL... — appalling it hasn’t been struck down as unconstitutional).

But OTOH, IIRC people can, have, and have won in court after defending certain rights by force — eg. shooting police officers breaking into their homes without clearly identifying themselves and presenting a warrant. Eg. Kenneth Walker IIUC has not been convicted of any of the charges against him, and though the legal drama drags on, there’s precedent in his favor.

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Re:Justin Amash Introduces Bill to End Civil Asset Forfeitur... by karaterobot on Friday December 18, 2020 @03:15PM (#25471364)

Vote different people into office.

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Re:Justin Amash Introduces Bill to End Civil Asset Forfeitur... by garmaine on Friday December 18, 2020 @03:20PM (#25471417)

Americans aren’t given a free choice thanks to their two-party system.

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