[tptacek]

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.

[Vivtek]

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.

[ferdo]

> 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.

[tptacek]

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.

[ferdo]

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.

[fnordfnordfnord]

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