[lolc]

The fact that we read about single instances like this means some important things are not that fucked. Namely reporting on police misconduct happened and finally the money was returned.

Looking at this the US is not particularly fucked. I wish I could set a higher bar for the world, but don't expect this to change fast.

[elp]

This. In my country a stop for a traffic offense is more likely to be for a bribe than for a ticket and if they found the money the officers would just keep it for themselves.

On the other hand we clearly have much better banks the the USA does. Out of interest why other than crime or dodging tax would you ever carry large amounts of cash rather than just do a bank transfer?

[ninalanyon]

A bank transfer requires both parties to reveal their account number. I have been told by several people in both the US and the UK that this is a risky thing to do. In fact in those countries where there is no national register of residents and identifying oneself relies on things like utility bills that show your address rather than on a unique ID (personnummer in Norway) that a bank, for instance, can verify online they might actually be right, or right-ish at least.

I rarely hear of identity theft in Norway where banking relies on common ID services (BankID for instance) and the folkeregister (population register) but it seems to be a major problem in, for instance, the UK where there is no equivalent.