[yourepowerless]

How much more evidence do people need before we all readily conceed that America is a police state?

Before you can change reality you must first understand the reality that exists.

Police steal and murder without consequence. They are a gang of murderous thugs protected by a corrupt court and legislative body.

[slapshot]

When 65% of the amount that the headline uses came from Toyota and Bernie Madoff [1], I'm not sure that this article actually supports that conclusion. Reasonable people can debate whether Toyota should have paid $1.2 billion for the unintended acceleration debacle, but it's not in any material way related to being a police state. I'm not sure that reasonable people can debate whether Bernie Madoff should have disgorged his ill-gained profits, but it represents $1.7 billion of the $4.5 billion total. Taking from Madoff is hardly gangland material.

[1] http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/crime-and-justice-news/20... -- Linked from the link.

[MCRed]

That's %65 of the amount that would otherwise have potentially gone to pay liabilities to the people wronged. Instead of going to the victims of those accidents or that fraud, it went to the government.

This is the amazing thing about the government provided judicial system-- for many crimes, instead of making the victim whole, the "justice" system instead profits via fines, or denies the victim justice by incarcerating the criminal.

Which would be better for, say, a person convicted of stealing a car and then wrecking it-- going to jail for 5 years or paying the owner of the car 5 times its retail value (over the next 10 years)?

The "justice" system will put him in jail, making it effectively impossible for him to repay his victim and make the victim whole.

Whether this supports an argument for a police state or not, it certainly supports an argument for corruption-- denying victims compensation and taking it for yourself (in the form of fines, or more bodies for the prison industrial complex which pays you back in campaign donations) is corruption.

[maxerickson]

It's probably going to the victims:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-25641476

It also seems it was paid by JP Morgan.

[mrob]

Fines and imprisonment are intended to be deterrents as well as retribution. In America it's not politically viable to scale fines according to the perpetrator's ability to pay, so jail time is the only deterrent that will work on rich people. Wealth varies greatly but everybody gets roughly the same lifespan. Although in practice it doesn't work so well because rich people also have better ability to avoid prison time.

[Fezzik]

I am not sure this article leads to that conclusion. Most of this money comes from drug busts. You can argue about whether or not heavily addicting drugs like cocaine should be legal, but that $12 billion was not seized from John and Jane Doe for no reason. Is the rule misused? It sure seems like it is, occasionally. Should we as a nation abolish it? Maybe. but most of the funds are confiscated from drug dealers who would use the money... to sell more drugs. And to buy tigers and mansions, of course, but also to distribute drugs. Also, drug cartels have a penchant to murder a ton of people. Sometimes 20,000+ a year. Leaving the money with them seems like a poor choice.

Money seized in drug busts: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9149048...

Drug cartels and homicide: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defe...

[clarkevans]

You wrote: "Most of this money comes from drug busts... not seized from John and Jane Doe for no reason"

Yet, reports in the media [1] fit a common pattern: the officer encounters a person carrying several thousand dollars in cash, and takes it asserting it was drug related. This assertion doesn't require proof or even that the person involved be charged with a drug offence.

[1] John Oliver, Last Week Tonight, Oct 5, 2014 / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks

[rayiner]

There is zero evidence that any significant amount of the above number happened under circumstances like those you mention.

[yourepowerless]

Your equivocation of clearly immoral behavior is suggestive.

Is stealing wrong? Yes, yes it is. How many more decades of a failed war on drugs policy do you need before you accept and argue for a change of course?

When bad laws create the incentive which results in 10,000s of murders it is imperative to change those incentives, even the Mexican government is now clamoring for change, but the war on drugs is too convenient for the status quo and justifies all sorts of government empowerment.

But in the face of a murderous institution I'm happy we have some fellow Willing to equivocate and defend senseless murder, torture, and theft, good job dude.

[dang]

> I'm happy we have some fellow Willing to equivocate and defend senseless murder, torture, and theft, good job dude.

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News. We ban accounts that do this, so please (re-)read the guidelines and don't do this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

[Fezzik]

Sorry if I came across that way, I really do not think it is that black and white. At all. Nor do I think any person, police or not, is infallible. That said, the US is emphatically NOT a police state. East Germany and the Soviet Bloc were police states. North Korea is a police state. Applying that term to asset forfeiture shows a tremendous ignorance of what it means. You might not think so, but in an asset forfeiture case in the US you do, in fact, have access to courts. Courts where primarily impartial judges sit, that have no connection to the police force. Is the system perfect? Gosh no. But to say 21st century american police officers are like the Stasi is absurd, and seeing people up-vote those sentiments on HN is sort of terrifying.

[MCRed]

Your argument that the victims were drug dealers has several problems that I can see:

1. Presumption of accuracy Just because the cops claim that the money is "Drug money" doesn't make it so. As a victim of asset forfeiture, that money was claimed to be "Terrorism" money but it was laughable on its face.

2. Presumption of guilt. Even if it was taken from a genuine drug dealer, the dealer is innocent until proven guilty, but the money is taken before this proof is achieved. Thus this denies the dealer the opportunity to provide for his defense.

Someone I went to high school with was the victim of this. He was not a drug dealer, he was a doctor. An oncologist who had a great many terminal patients. He was raided by the DEA because he was giving these cancer patients "too much" pain medication. His assets and house were frozen, he was taken to jail and his wife and kid were left homeless while he had to try and defend himself...with no money to hire a lawyer. His wife worked part time as a receptionist in his office- so the prosecutor threatened to put her in jail as an accomplice, forcing his kids into the "Care" of the state if he didn't take a plea deal. He had no money for counsel, and no choice so he plead guilty. This is a doctor whose "crime" was caring for his patients. You would say he must have been guilty because he was convicted. And therefor this is drug money, but that's a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and misses the point that he was forced to plead guilty by having his ability to hire a defense team denied to him via the theft.

Finally, you're being absurd to say that you have access to the courts and that they are impartial. As my case showed me, the judge knew that the affidavit for seizure of the property was fraudulent-- he knew it, because he had been presented proof of it the week prior-- yet he still authorized the theft. The cops and the judges and the prosecutors all work for the state, and the judges are not independant. They are dependent on keeping their job by towing the line.

This is why cops and judges are almost never prosecuted. No cop would dare testify, no prosecutor will bring charges and no judge would allow the case in his court.

[xixi77]

civil asset forfeiture is getting there, though. What good is access to courts, if a conviction in that court is not needed to confiscate your property? After all, the Soviet block had courts too...

[bostik]

There may be a better term to use. Kleptocracy.

It's also somewhat wrong for this purpose, but it's less wrog. Traditionally the word has been associated with banana republics and politically unstable nations whose heads of state and ruling elite sell off national assets, rob their citizens and otherwise stripmine their entire countries, before fleeing.

In this case you have police turning into criminal gangs, protected by the justice system. And with civil forfeiture they are literally engaging in legalised highway robbery.

[dropit_sphere]

" If he can unilaterally declare a Worst Argument, then so can I. I declare the Worst Argument In The World to be this: "If we can apply an emotionally charged word to something, we must judge it exactly the same as a typical instance of that emotionally charged word."Well, it sounds dumb when you put it like that. Who even does that, anyway?"

http://squid314.livejournal.com/323694.html?page=1

[alasdair_]

At the present time an average police officer can shoot an average unarmed person, kill them and will likely face zero criminal charges for the act.

In all seriousness, that is getting very close to a police state.

[DrScump]

"At the present time an average police officer can shoot an average unarmed person, kill them and will likely face zero criminal charges"

Do you have an independent reference for that, by any chance?

It would also be interesting to hear your opinion as to typical motive for doing such a thing.

[xiaoma]

How can you afford legal representation if the police just seized your money (or even house)?

[DrScump]

In a criminal case, you would get a Public Defender.

In a civil case, there are public-interest agencies who may be interested, or with a strong case a skilled attorney could take your case on contingency.

[wfo]

So your answer is "You cannot, but you are free to beg for charity, the state has decided you aren't allowed to hire an attorney with the time and skill necessary to defend you so you won't be needing a trial, here is a public defender who will happily help you agree to a plea deal since we've already decided you are guilty, don't waste our time and money by asserting your 'rights'"

[mcherm]

Have you read anything about the quality of public defenders? If not, here's a recent article:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/our-public-defender-...

What public-interest agencies are you talking about? As far as I can tell, the ACLU, EFF, and a handful of others provide no-cost support for a negligible portion (way less than 0.1%) of civil cases.

[YokoZar]

With any luck, you have a group legal plan.

[AnimalMuppet]

I am also troubled by "asset forfeitures". But if you think that makes the US a police state, it's very clear that you've never lived in a real police state.

Note well: This comment is not a statement that everything is fine with police in the US.

[arbuge]

They are also protected by the goodwill of the general population. Voters in the USA have real power, but by and large believe that delegating that power to law enforcement without any real checks and balances is a good thing. "Tough on crime" wins elections. If America is a police state, it is one imposed more by your fellow citizens than from some dictator on top.

[Gibbon1]

The word you are looking for is kleptocracy