[hackuser]

The Washington Post provided excellent coverage in September:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/st...

IIRC, it was this article that described police being trained on how to obtain valuable assets, and police collaborating on message boards:

One example was an officer posting on a message board a car's description and license plate, and telling officers in a neighboring jurisdiction that the car was coming their way, and that he was unable to justify seizure when he stopped the driver but that they might have better luck.

EDIT: And here is the ACLU's page on the issue: https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/civil-asset-forfeit...

[kderbe]

The New Yorker's piece on civil forfeiture published last year, "Taken", is also excellent and also prompted a lot of comments on Hacker News.

The article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken?currentPa... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6161465