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by Vivtek 4704 days ago
Whether it goes to trial or not, whether the evidence is untainted or not, the primary problem with the war on drugs is the extrajudicial punishment system that is seizure of property on mere suspicion. Giving the DEA tips is paramount to simply declaring that anybody you dislike is no longer part of American society - and there's very little recourse, just as with the no-fly list.

I'm still not sure how it has come to pass that Americans simply blithely accept all this.
1 comments
tptacek 4704 days ago
This comment mixes up too many issues (the war on drugs, civil asset forfeiture, the DEA intelligence program from today, the no-fly list) for me to respond to. Some of these programs are much more problematic than others, and they're not actually all related.

If you wanted to find a quick way to synthesize a dispute where none needed to exist, taking a shotgun to the whole of American criminal justice would be one way to accomplish that.

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Vivtek 4703 days ago
Huh. I hadn't thought to be accused of manufacturing a dispute, and I note that you seem to have done just fine responding.

I suppose my point was that there is an underlying cause here, of encroaching authoritarianism in American jurisprudence that I find both alarming and surprising, but if you feel threatened by that, then by all means feel free not to take it as delivered to your address.

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ferdo 4704 days ago
> the war on drugs, civil asset forfeiture, the DEA intelligence program from today, the no-fly list

They're all related. They're all policies and actions of overly zealous bureaucrats with too much power and little to no accountability.

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tptacek 4704 days ago
They're not related. For instance, the problem with civil asset forfeiture is financial incentives; the problem with the war on drugs was a single major public policy error, &c.
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ferdo 4703 days ago
They're related in their origin.

If 4 different terror operations were coming from Al Qaeda affiliated cells, we'd say they were all Al Qaeda related. If 4 different drug dealers were busted that were all being supplied by one source, we'd call it a drug ring.

All of the operations mentioned - the war on drugs, civil asset forfeiture, the DEA intelligence program from today, the TSA - are a ring of government operatives that are terrorizing, robbing and imprisoning Americans.

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fnordfnordfnord 4703 days ago
Asset forfeiture can make it impossible to hire a competent defense atty, investigators, experts, etc.
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