Re:FBI is hiding details about a raid on Americans’ safe dep...
by nicoburns on Thursday July 28, 2022 @07:47PM
(#32271449)
I think it's much better than Civil Asset Forfeiture. Civil Asset Forfeiture regularly ends up confiscating money that the owner can readily prove they have via legitimate means. This won't happen here. It's only if you can't come up with a good reason that your money will be confiscated (and that process is happening through a court not just with a random police officer).
Re:FBI is hiding details about a raid on Americans’ safe dep...
by cout on Friday July 29, 2022 @02:14AM
(#32273723)
The issue with CAF is not forfeiture of assets without evidence of a crime; with CAF there is evidence of a crime, but not necessarily evidence that the forfeited asset is related to the crime, with little or difficult legal recourse to recover the assets.
Sometimes the case is never brought to trial [1]; in other cases the owner of the assets is never even charged with a crime [2]. When the forfeiture creates a financial burden [3] or the asset has the potential for depreciation [3], the accused may have even a financial incentive to settle rather than go to trial.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31446215
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8588268
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10365463
[4] https://cre.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/37_2_3_Federal_Fo...
Triggering the investigation is fine and reasonable.
Confiscating the wealth without evidence of a crime is the issue.
Civil Asset Forfeiture in the US is regularly confiscating not tens of millions of dollars, but mere thousands of dollars for the simple reason of it being in cash. And this case is even worse - the cash was not on anyone's person out in public, but in a safe deposit box, not doing anything in particular.