NYC cops say they can't reveal figures on cash seized from people – the database is too shoddy

New York City cops claim they can't tell anyone how much cash they have seized from people under civil asset forfeiture laws – because its database is not up to snuff. The US city's police department is being sued for snubbing a Freedom of Information request from the Bronx Defenders advocacy group, which had asked for figures …

[Anonymous Coward]

Your 'justice' system in the US is corrupt

That is all.

[ecofeco]

Re: Your 'justice' system in the US is corrupt

No, no, "just us" is working fine. For the rich and powerful.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Your 'justice' system in the US is corrupt

We prefer to think it is the best that money can buy.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Your 'justice' system in the US is corrupt

You mean they didn't buy based on the lowest bidder?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Your 'justice' system in the US is corrupt

"You mean they didn't buy based on the lowest bidder?"

Hmm... IBM z10 & SAP ERP. That'll be a 'no' then.

[dave 81]

Re: Your 'justice' system in the US is corrupt

Don't forget that thanks to Tony bLair saying police can keep money from fines, It's on the same path in the UK. Policing for profit. Another great nuLiebour legacy.

[Paul 195]

Re: Your 'justice' system in the US is corrupt

It's a bit different - you can be sent a fine by the police, but you can appeal it in which case it has to be justified to a magistrate. And the system is public, so the police can't just vanish the money into their back pockets, which is what appears to be happening here. There was an idea that police should be able to march people to cash points and get them to cough up fines there and then, but that was rejected - by the police among others.

[james 68]

Re: Your 'justice' system in the US is corrupt

Don't forget that thanks to Tony bLair saying police can keep money from fines, It's on the same path in the UK. Policing for profit. Another great nuLiebour legacy.

A Conservative by any other name is still a Conservative. NuLabour is just the same old, tired conservative crap tied up with whalesong rebranding. They're about as far from the actual Labour party as any of the parties in our green and pleasant land are from the common electorate (read as: light years).

Funnily enough, the only people the rebranding seems to fool are the particular brand of "Conservatives" who confuse miss-spelling things in an attempt to belittle others as an intelligent and amusing endeavour, in reality it puts them on a intellectual level with a group of 3 year olds throwing a name calling hissy fit.

[ma1010]

Contempt of court?

Obvious bullshit!

The judge should tell the police that if they don't produce the documents, the police chief will go to jail until they DO produce the documents. Send in the New York State Police (or National Guard) if necessary to make the arrest.

Even our Congress here is taking bipartisan action to somewhat reign in this runaway asset seizure crap. IMHO no assets should be seized unless a felony arrest is made, and any seized assets should be returned unless there is a conviction related to those assets. Some folks here refer to the Russian or Ukrainian governments as kleptocracies, but until we fix this problem in our own house, that accusation rings a bit hollow.

[caitlin.bestler]

Re: Contempt of court?

Better yet. The Judge should simply believe their claims.

Of course, if they can't keep records, the Judge will have to enjoin them from make any future seizures.

Proof that the system has been fixed will be provided very prmptly then.

[Jamesit]

Re: Contempt of court?

"Proof that the system has been fixed will be provided very prmptly then."

The system IS fixed, that's the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Contempt of court?

> The judge should tell the police that if they don't produce the documents, the police chief will go to jail until they DO produce the documents.

If they can't produce any documentation for seized assets then they can't prove the assets were taken legitimately. Given that American plod carry guns this presumably makes any seizure straight up armed robbery...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Contempt of court?

well, if the police claim not to know how much money they took, they can't be even forced to "give it back" (to the victims' lawyers, presumably). Although the lawyers _should_ be able to do something about this glaring injustice, eventually...

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Contempt of court?

if the police claim not to know how much money they took, they can't be even forced to "give it back"

OTOH they can't prove they didn't take anything that was claimed. Consider a the possibility of a class action on behalf of all the citizens of New your who each had $1m improperly seized from them...

Oh, it's been repaired. That was quick.

[GrumpyKiwi]

There is a reason why in many parts of the world the cops are known as 'the blue gang' as there really isn't that much difference between them and any other group of street thugs.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a reason why in many parts of the world the cops are known as 'the blue gang' as there really isn't that much difference between them and any other group of street thugs.

Oh no, there is. They wear uniforms rather than gang tattoos, and get to shake down the whole country rather than just the 'hood. I need to look up who (a) came up with Civil Asset Forfeiture and who (b) voted for it despite being so obviously defective, as these people are clearly fit to be labelled enemy of the people (and yes, that means I'd include ow golly Sessions in that, the man's a snake).

[Palpy]

How seizure laws ever stood --

-- the test of constitutionality is beyond me.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

[tom dial]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

While I upvoted, and concur, I would like to suggest that the fifth amendment provision requiring that "[no person shall be] deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" seems to me a possibly even stronger prohibition on the government theft described as "civil asset forfeiture," although either provision alone should, to my way of thinking, be enough to end this abomination.

If any US lawyers are present, please explain, if possible, how this gets by.

[Mark Zip]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

IANAL, but I think that they get around this by suing the *money or property itself*. Essentially treating it as a defendant in a civil trial. A defendant which, conveniently, cannot defend itself.

Techdirt had good stories about all this https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=asset+forfeiture

Today's story (Oct 18, 2017) is a doozy: "Use A Landline To Talk About Criminal Activity? The Government Can Seize The House Around It" https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171014/12113538401/use-landline-to-talk-about-criminal-activity-government-can-seize-house-around-it.shtml

[Christoph]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

"they get around this by suing the *money or property itself*"

Odd how they never use that on the Second Amendment.

[tom dial]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

The federal law (18 USC 981) covers a wide range of subjects and certainly would apply to weapons in some circumstances. One example would be goods involved in export contrary to the Arms Export Control Act (22 USC 2778), or any smuggled goods, including weapons. Federal asset forfeiture law is not limited to money, although that is what is most often discussed and, from a non-federal police perspective, by far the most profitable.

[tom dial]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

I also am not a lawyer. I understand the theory behind it, but the fact remains that a person to whom the fourth and, more importantly, fifth amendments apply has been dispossessed of an asset - property, with out a hint of what anyone reasonable would consider due process.

Even eminent domain, which often has been used to take away property for the primary benefit of eager and arguably avaricious developers, legal process that involves the owner. Asset forfeiture often, probably usually, is used against seize assets actually involved in criminal activity. But the controls are hopelessly inadequate; it is far too easy to use to take property from innocent people.

[Eddy Ito]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

They get away with it because the vast majority of seized property is of fairly low value and from poorer people. It doesn't make much sense to go through a thousand dollar legal battle to regain two hundred dollars or when you don't have the resources to fight back. While houses, cars, and hotels make the headlines and are often worth fighting for there aren't many starving folks who are willing and able to kick the cops in the court for a few bucks.

[Eddy Ito]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

Just to follow up, I found the story which gives actual numbers. The average seizure in Chicago is about $4,500 but the median is only $1,049 and the most seizures are done in poorer, largely minority sections of town.

Read the whole piece here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

it is far too easy to use to take property from innocent people.

Well, duh, that's the whole point. They can't afford to spend months fighting this in court because (a) justice is only for those with money and (b) it's not justice to start with, if justice still existed CAV would have never made it into law.

Consider it an extra tax on the peasants, but without having to bother with new rules or other legislation.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

Use A Landline To Talk About Criminal Activity? The Government Can Seize The House Around It

Cool. I suspect that Mueller already has evidence that Trump's fortune is mainly based on money laundering, so that will be a big help when we start rounding up all the scoundrels. That said, AFAIK you only need the suspicion, and I reckon we're well past that one..

[Roland6]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

Cool. I suspect that Mueller already has evidence that Trump's fortune is mainly based on money laundering, so that will be a big help when we start rounding up all the scoundrels.

Seems like reasonable grounds to direct the NYPD to seize Trump towers.

I mean it's not like the administration will have grounds for complaint, given "President Trump's Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a big fan of seizures."

[Eddy Ito]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

I mean it's not like the administration will have grounds for complaint, given "President Trump's Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a big fan of seizures."

Finally, a topic both sides of the aisle can agree on. The blue teams new Cali hope of Kamala Harris not only squashed AB 639, which would have limited civil asset forfeiture, in 2011 but actively lobbied to expand it only two years ago and not much has changed.

Let's be honest the only way there will ever be any sort of relief from this nonsense is if it makes it to SCOTUS. Even then I'd say there was an 80% chance Alito and Breyer would vote to uphold forfeiture, 50% for Kennedy and Sotomayor, 40% for Roberts and Ginsburg, and 30% for Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kagan. I hope I'm wrong and that it will eventually be a two minute discussion and a 9-0 vote to toss the whole rotten law but I feel a favorable outcome is far from guaranteed.

[John Smith 19]

" toss the whole rotten law, but I feel a favorable outcome is far from guaranteed."

Not a new observation.

Remember folks most people don't want to govern others.

So it's a question of who do you get to do it to you?

Unless you're prepared to carry out Plan B

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Re: " toss the whole rotten law, but I feel a favorable outcome is far from guaranteed."

With regards to the concept of the physical goods being accused of being involved in crime:

How is it possible to convict someone/something of a crime if they are not capable of a choice in the matter?

I refer everyone to the concept of children, the mentally ill, and objects that have no free will.

I thought that there was no accountability without responsibility? I.e. if you are found not to be responsible for your actions then you cannot be found guilty of the crime - why doesn't this extend to physical goods?

[Jtom]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

Apply that to all politicians, past and present, and we would need more prisons, and have no government. The biggest money lauderer in the last US election was Hillary and her Clinton Foundation.

[veti]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

Both the 4th and 5th amendments contain weasel wording designed to give maximum wiggle-room to the plod.

The 4th bars "unreasonable" search and seizure. Who's to say what's "unreasonable"? Well, a court obviously. If you can square the courts, you're clear.

The 5th requires "due process of law", but doesn't say anything about what form that "due process" should take. There's nothing (in this context) about a jury, or grand jury, or even a warrant. If the law says "police can grab whatever they like, provided they give you a receipt scrawled on the back of a takeaway menu", then that is "due process" and the 5th has nothing to say about it.

[tom dial]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

I am not a lawyer, so this s/b taken with some skepticism.

As I understand it, the form of civil asset forfeiture is that the asset is "charged" with participation in criminal activity, and therefore subject to forfeiture based on a preponderance of the evidence. Since the assets presumably say nothing in their defense, most of the evidence naturally would favor the government, making due process a fairly straightforward matter and the outcome fairly certain. That, even though the law does not allow the police to grab whatever they like as long as they provide a receipt. There is additional legal paperwork to be done to provide formal legal justification for the government taking the asset.

The fourth and fifth amendments apply to "persons" and not, at least explicitly, to things, and that may be the loophole that allows civil asset forfeiture to continue. If so, it is one that should be closed with as little delay as possible.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

I like this dissonance in (I assume, as an outsider) republican policy, take power away from government, but have this organ or government pay for itself by giving it more power

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

Laws are for little people.

[Potemkine!]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

Laws are for little people.

It's totally false. The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.

[John Smith 19]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood -- -- the test of constitutionality is beyond me.

Easy.

They just invoked the "Four Horseman." * and y'know, public outrage did the rest.

Naturally with the implied (but not actually stated) "promise" that "We'll only do it to bad people."

But hey, in times of budget cuts how you gonna keep the doughnuts supply coming?

*Drug dealers, money launders, paedophiles and terrorists

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood -- -- the test of constitutionality is beyond me.

They just invoked the "Four Horseman." * and y'know, public outrage did the rest.

Not quite. After all, all of this gets enacted on a mere suspicion, and that is very much the case with Trump and your second horseman. As a matter of fact, I think in Trump's case we're beyond mere suspicion, so I think it's well time they seize Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower under CAV..

[Chris G]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

I'm fairly sure that now the American Constitution in only intended for looking at and/or quoting, various acts including the Patriot Act have diminished it's potency almost to zero.

Your rights are the ones they let you have, the rest you have to fight for.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

Indeed. Especially as that sort of thing was one of the big triggers that led to the rebellion.

[Tikimon]

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

It's called Presumption of Guilt. If you are doing any of this list of things, you are clearly a criminal and guilty of [fill in specific crime]. Cops are terrible at solving crimes or catching criminals. Fact! So presumed guilt lets them arrest and imprison thousands and steal billions in assets without having to do any work or provide the least evidence. You Brits have these, such as anyone with a knife is clearly a dangerous murderer and must be sent to jail.

Here's an example close to home. "Possession of tools", where anyone but a licensed locksmith with a lock pick is presumed guilty of burglary. "No-brainer" law indeed. Most of these have been struck down, and lock picking is a growing hobby. I have opened dozens of locks for various legal reasons, it's a handy skill. For example, last month I picked the lock on our electrical room during a generator emergency because the key was missing.

Cops are stupid, greedy, and essentially without a collective conscience. I keep my wary distance from them.

[Anonymous Coward]

encryption

and they wonder why people don't trust government with encryption keys and are moving towards digital currencies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: encryption

Yeah, although fictional, I remember a Spooks episode where the police took over a suspect's bank account and emptied it by giving it all to charity, in order to pressurise the suspect.

But it would never happen in real life though :/

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: encryption

emptied it by giving it all to charity,

The police benevolent fund I assume.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: encryption

Who's moving towards digital currencies?

[TrumpSlurp the Troll]

Thank you

For the compelling and attractive tourism infomercial.

[goldcd]

So if they don't know what they've taken

They can't know what they owe if say one person takes them to court to claim back x amount of money that was seized.

There must be one innocent person, with only a vague idea of the number of millions on their card, that might decide it's engaging with a lawyer who'll take a percentage.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So if they don't know what they've taken

On average it cost $10,000 to get your stuff back.

[GrumpyKiwi]

Re: So if they don't know what they've taken

And the average amount seized is around $4000 in shocking "we're cracking down on major drug dealers and criminals" news...

[veti]

Re: So if they don't know what they've taken

Doesn't need to be someone who's actually had stuff seized, either. Anyone could make that claim.

Someone tell David Davis, he was looking for a way to come up with $40 billion in a hurry...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because dirty cops have stolen millions or billions

Whoever came up with these "civil forfeiture" laws had to have been a dirty cop before, because it has been a huge boon to having mountains of cash sitting around for the taking.

What money isn't stolen ends up buying military style gear the cops have no business owning. My city (population < 100K) owns an armored personnel carrier! Congress ought to pass a law making this illegal nationwide. They won't, of course, because defenders of dirty cops will claim limiting their ability to steal cash and cars and buy surplus Army gear is "weak on crime".

[Mark 85]

Re: Because dirty cops have stolen millions or billions

Good points but about that armored car... there is/was a federal program to GIVE the police these things.

[kain preacher]

Re: Because dirty cops have stolen millions or billions

Obama stopped it trump restarted it

[Anonymous Coward]

There are only two type of cops...

Bad cops and those who cover for bad cops.

Or put it another way, a police whistleblower is an oxymoron.

[Sgt_Oddball]

Re: There are only two type of cops...

I thought a police whistle blower was just a British plod back in the day?

I wonder what would happen if they try it on someone with seriously deep pockets willing to challenge it seriously?

Anyways, Mine's the one with the truncheon in the pocket.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There are only two type of cops...

I wonder what would happen if they try it on someone with seriously deep pockets willing to challenge it seriously?

They're sanctioned thieves, not idiots. Like any bully, they will stay well away from those who can bite back. This is one that is almost tailor made for poor people.

[Orv]

Re: There are only two type of cops...

As they say, there are no good cops, only bad cops and accomplices.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There are only two type of cops...

There are police whistleblowers and good cops. They're also known as former cops after they get run out of the force, or in especially corrupt cities, murdered.

[Lysenko]

I smell rampant mendacity...

... but setting that aside, the fact that they thought they needed a z10 to record the (evidently) colossal volumes of loot they were planning to blag is scary enough in itself. That is the sort of computing power the IRS use to handle asset seizure on a National scale.

Either there is vast corruption in the IT procurement department and they never needed such equipment in the first place, or there is vast corruption on the streets and the NYPD is the largest gang of armed robbers in history.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: I smell rampant mendacity...

"they thought they needed a z10 to record the (evidently) colossal volumes of loot they were planning to blag"

Well, they had all this seized money and it seemed a shame to spend it on something.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: I smell rampant mendacity...

"... but setting that aside, the fact that they thought they needed a z10 to record the (evidently) colossal volumes of loot they were planning to blag is scary enough in itself. That is the sort of computing power the IRS use to handle asset seizure on a National scale."

Have you seen those car body kits you can buy to turn your Ford Fiesta into a Ferrari look-a-like? I wonder if the do that for computers too? Who knows what's really inside the z10 box.

[tom dial]

Re: I smell rampant mendacity...

What's in the z10 can be found with a reasonable amount of searching from www.ibm.com. It is quite awesome.

The z10 that hosted the PETS application might well have been hosting a dozen or two equal or larger applications and databases and supporting 10,000 concurrent interactive users with ~1 second mean response time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I smell rampant mendacity...

Either there is vast corruption in the IT procurement department and they never needed such equipment in the first place, or there is vast corruption on the streets and the NYPD is the largest gang of armed robbers in history.

Those conditions are not mutually exclusive. For all we know, it could be spending most of its time mining bitcoins..

[Roland6]

Re: I smell rampant mendacity...

"... but setting that aside, the fact that they thought they needed a z10 ... is scary enough in itself. ...

Either there is vast corruption in the IT procurement department ... or there is vast corruption on the streets"

Or they could have just gone with the equipment supplier with the lowest upfront Capex price. It would not surprise me (having in the past purchased top end IBM mainframes, whilst having Sun quote for Starfires) if the z10 was priced at 1 USD. However, the service contract (Opex) is likely to be a totally different matter and depending on the amount of other IBM kit on site may be very difficult to determine the actual cost...

[Orv]

Re: I smell rampant mendacity...

Having worked in government, I suspect the answer is they had a blanket contract with IBM and buying from anyone else required pages and pages of justification. Either that or they bid it out, with an extremely detailed spec, and no one but IBM wanted to bother.

Nine times out of ten, if you dig into a case where a government entity seems to be wasting money for no reason, you'll find they're following a rule that was meant to prevent fraud. There's a strong tendency to spend five dollars making sure no one misappropriates fifty cents, because misappropriating taxpayer funds is a pretty easy scandal for the media to explain. So requirements to follow existing contracts (so no one can steer business based on kickbacks), and prohibitively complex project specifications (to make sure the vendor doesn't pull a fast one), are pretty common.

That said, depending on the situation (was anything else running on the z10? Were they sharing overhead with another department?) it might even make sense.

[Christoph]

The NYPD Motto:

Stand and Deliver

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: The NYPD Motto:

Nah, it' "sudo rm -rf".

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Re: The NYPD Motto:

Nah, it' "sudo rm -rf".

I can't seem to run that command again, could it be corrupted? (as corrupt as a nypd officer perhaps?)

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: The NYPD Motto:

Works best on the root directory with admin access.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Re: The NYPD Motto:

Works best on the root directory with admin access.

I forgot the icon ->

[tom dial]

I do not know anything of Mr. Pesner, his company, or his prior experience and its possible relevance to the issue presented here; and I have no knowledge of SAP ERP or what Capgemini might have built to intercede between the DB2 database and the PETS users. I do know from sometimes distressing experience that some of the DB2 (and Oracle, and SQL Server, and other) databases in use are no more relational than a pile of flat files with random occurrences of similar, and occasionally identical, data items across various sets of tables.

Developers and product designers sometimes use DBMS products as data stores for no better reason, apparently, than that they are portable (as between mainframes and commodity servers and also as between different commercial DBMSs), provide (somewhat) standard record access methods (SQL), have built in backup and fault recovery mechanisms, provide transactions to improve imagined consistency and allow rollback of partial updates, and other standard DBMS features. All of these, of course, are good things, but none of them even hints that the database design is any good or of much use outside the application built around it.

I know of commercial products and purpose-built applications that use relational databases in which some or all of the tables have no keys or have generated keys unrelated to the data; in which there are no DBMS enforced relational or data validity constraints - in which all relational integrity is at the mercy of application programmers who may or may or may not understand the concept and incoming data often are lightly validated at best.

Some of these were developed by government or private sector employee and contractor staff and some were done on top of commercial products like Peoplesoft, Documentum, and others. In general, government employee developers, with or without contractor support, did a reasonably good, though imperfect, job working with internal DBAs to specify the database and include constraints as appropriate. Products developed under a contract, as apparently was the case with PETS, tended toward DBMS-as-a-portable file system, with database documentation implicit in the documentation of a commercial product like Peoplesoft or the application system or program specifications.

I do not know this is the case with PETS, but it seems possible or even likely that there may be more justification for NYPD's response than would appear at first glance or that Mr. Pesner, hired by the plaintiff, would be likely to support in his affadavit. That doesn't let NYPD off the hook, of course; in the end, they probably will have to deliver the data. But it may be that suggestions of misfeasance should be directed to a larger group than the current application and database operators.

[TechDrone]

Simple SQL queries against SAP can be anything but...

Disclaimer: I'm not a programmer. Mucking about in a SAP database using SQL is also somewhat risky - as quite a few organisations have found out the hard way (funny how they don't like to talk about it either).

While there's a lot that's straight forward and open to messing with at SQL level there are huge amounts that's abstracted, encoded and buried in internal data structures that have to be interpreted by SAP function calls. And that's before you figure on any encryption.

There's a reason that ABAPers tend to go a bit strange after a only a few years in the job.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Simple SQL queries against SAP can be anything but...

The environment as described is a bit odd. If it was simply described as SAP with a DB2 database then it would be much simpler to completely refute the NYPD statements, rather than assuming they're simply FOS. It's not clear that the "Property and Evidence Tracking System (PETS)" is actually the "integrated ERP system from SAP", although one could assume that. That it runs on a mainframe is sort-of odd also: more like R/2. But whatever.

Assuming that it is a SAP system on DB2, there are many, many SAP system administrators who might wonder what the problem is with accessing a backup or data. There certainly are enough SAP tools available to run queries without opening up the DB.

[a_yank_lurker]

Important Enemy

The NY flatfeet apparently ran into a judge with some technical knowledge. When the judge is questioning why do not have backups I suspect you might in a bit of jam.

[kain preacher]

Re: Important Enemy

Don;t worry the judge will have a broken tail light and violently resist with military grade weapons that will never be found.

[Captain DaFt]

Re: Important Enemy

Don;t worry the judge will have a broken tail light and violently resist with military grade weapons that will never be found.

New York's finest would never do anything so unscrupulous!

Obviously he'll be shot by a 'Druggie with a grudge" who'll be immediately dispatched in a hail of bullets by several officers who "just happened to be nearby".

[kain preacher]

Re: Important Enemy

Don't forget that their body cams will just happened to fail too.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason for forfeiture laws

The real reason for the law was the total incompetence of law enforcement back in the day of Al Capone. They were unable to ever convict him of any of the horrendous crimes he committed so they used the IRS. They figured that since he never reported all of his income to buy the big homes and cars, etc. they would get him for tax evasion. And since all of his assets came from illegal income that they would confiscate them. This principal was applied to the drug dealers and gangs/mobs that would make huge amount of money from stealing and selling drugs and gambling and using that money to buy houses/cars/jewelry, etc. That is the real reason to confiscate anything that was purchased with illegal money.

Where the principle went south is when they started confiscating money/assets that just happen to be in a car/house/on your person that you earned legally and reported the income and paid taxes on. Just because you have $500 in your pocket that you legally earned and you are using a small part of it to buy drugs should not mean they have the right to take it all. Take the drugs, arrest you, charge you, find you guilty, sentence you and be done with it.

In the USA if you carry around any amount of cash over a $100 and you get stopped for any reason and you get search, they can take the money even if it was legally earned. They can claim anything.

There are a number of times where you need large amounts of cash to buy stuff directly from business and individuals that only want cash (i.e. craigslist). If you are going to buy a used bandsaw mill for milling up lumber from an individual who will only accept cash and it is $15000 US, it is a risky business to take the cash out of the bank and carry it with you to buy the bandsaw, not because of real criminals robbing you, but from the police stopping you and wanting to search your vehicle. If they find you with the $15,000, there is not a single police officer in the USA (none, zero, period) that will not confiscate it, period. Then you have to get a lawyer and in the end they will blame you for the trouble you have caused them and expect you to pay half of the amount to them for their trouble. They will confiscate your car as well if you just happen to be driving it when they find drugs, even though the car could have been bought and paid for with legal cash your earned from working a legit job.

If the police take it, they should be required to charge you with a real crime and if you are found not guilty then not only should they return it but they should have to pay it back with interest for the amount time they have it. If you are convicted of a crime and you can prove it was not income from illegal activity, then they should also have to return it with interest as well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The reason for forfeiture laws

"The real reason for the law was the total incompetence of law enforcement back in the day of Al Capone. "

The law they are referring to in the article was enacted about 50 years after Al Capone.

[Swarthy]

Re: The reason for forfeiture laws

"The real reason for the law was the total incompetence of law enforcement back in the day of Al Capone."

The real reason for this law, is that if you take enough of someone's property, they don't have the funds to hire a lawyer to get it back or fight whatever charges the police will bring.

[tom dial]

Re: The reason for forfeiture laws

Civil asset forfeiture has its roots in English law dating back to around 1651. See the Forbes article at https://www.forbes.com/2011/06/08/property-civil-forfeiture.html.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: The reason for forfeiture laws

Civil asset forfeiture has its roots in English law

Which doesn't mean it's valid under modern law. Here in England and Wales[1] we have something called "The Proceeds of Crime Act" under which stuff can be recovered from someone who has been found gulty in a Court of Law..

It's about time the US modernised their laws into the 20th Century..

[1] Dunno about Scotland. I suspect they have something similar.

[MonkeyCee]

Re: The reason for forfeiture laws

"That is the real reason to confiscate anything that was purchased with illegal money."

But that's the kicker here. It's not.

The assets are seized WITHOUT any evidence of their provenance. The state is allowed to assume they are illegal until they are proved legal. Since proving that to a court of law is in the region of thousands (10k being quoted here, I'd expect at least 2k), it provides a perverse incentive to seize smaller amounts.

If you seize a million bucks of a drug dealers property, you can bet that they will have a well paid lawyer (and accountant) who can sue and get some amount of the assets back (or just pick the cops up on procedural failings). If you seize $500 from Joe Public, then Joe Public either sucks it up orforks out even more.

I'm not against the principle, going after the proceeds of crime seems very reasonable. But that typically requires (in my mind) to at least prove a crime happened first.

Or, if we're going to use this to police our potentially dodgy but unconvinced not-crims, then lets start at the top. Going by estimated wealth, starting with the richest, every American has to prove they legitimately own their own property. Anything they can't fully demonstrate being paid for by legitimately earned and taxed monies gets seized.

Oooh, and how about corporations? They commit crimes and gain profit from them. Bugger all this fines and compliance nonsense, you made illegal income, seize the whole corporation....

[The Nazz]

Dosh

What a wonderful word. Lovely usage.

Most days, and in most articles, i have to refer to an online dictionary to understand a word that's new to me.

But "dosh" i'm familiar with.

Many thanks.

I shall now return and read the rest of the article.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to say this is an obvious example of police corruption...

But then the story mentioned the system in question is a "custom solution" provided by C(r)apgemini, so now I believe it is just vendor incompetence and venality.

[sysconfig]

Lock them away...

...and conveniently lose paper trail and jail door key. Let's see how quick the database is fixed and/or a previously unheard-of backup found.

The mere fact that a law allows to snatch assets because somebody (police officer) thinks they might be connected to a crime, sounds very Wild West. Sad that these laws actually exist.

[kain preacher]

Re: Lock them away...

But who is going to arrested them since NYPD are the bailiffs in the new york? Oh and they run the jails.

[LaeMing]

Re: Lock them away...

China handled a massive corruption problem in Laoning Province a few decades back by busing in a bunch of police from 3 provinces away to make sure they were outside the local corruptives' sphere of influence. I assume States Rights would stop that happening in the US, though.

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: Lock them away...

State or federal police should do.

[kain preacher]

Re: Lock them away...

The States can do that. Under Jeff Sessions the feds have stopped enforcing anti corruption and civil rights agreements with police Dept. The Federal gov can shut down police dept.

[Doctor Syntax]

Yet another reason I will never visit the US.

[LaeMing]

Like we needed another!

[Slx]

This is like something you'd expect to see in an underdeveloped country!

[Anonymous Coward]

And your point is? :)

[Chairo]

It's just a programming blunder

Somewhere in the software they probably calculate the ratio of seized funds versus returned funds.

Obviously the software crashes with a division by zero error.

[Mark 85]

In 2014, police across the US seized $4.5bn under civil asset forfeiture rules... By contrast, in that same year, the FBI reported that burglars stole $3.9bn from American citizens.

It would appear that the average US citizen would be better off dealing with a burglar than a cop. Shooting a cop is bad but shooting a burglar is ok in most places.

Icon ---> because this is legal piracy.

[tom dial]

The great majority of assets seized under civil forfeiture rules probably are, indeed, proceeds of criminal activity. Moreover, they are taken according to processes and rules with roots that go back well over 350 years in US and English law, and approved by competent courts along the way. Describing it as "theft" comparable to burglary (although it more strongly resembles robbery) is not quite appropriate.

However, in the US, even burglars, robbers, and other miscreants are entitled to due process, and just as much so as those who are not, or are not charged as, criminals. The fact that the law permits this activity, or that the courts have so far found it consistent with the Constitution, is not sufficient justification, and the law clearly comes up seriously deficient in respect of what nearly everyone would consider due process. It is far too tempting and subject to government abuse. I would much prefer a judicial finding that the practice, as now done, is barred by the Constitution to legislative correction, because such findings are much harder to change. However the Congress can rein it in, or even abolish it, with legislation, and should.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a very good episode of Last Week Tonight about civil forfeiture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks

Shows nice examples of everything being wrong with this system. It's just not that the whole idea is bonkers and that you have to go to court to get your stuff back, the court dealing with this is sometimes run by the same people taking your stuff.

[Winkypop]

Balls !!!!

The money is only resting in the Policeman's Ball account....

[Anonymous Coward]

Thin green line

Bag that cash, Bill.

[Alistair]

police across the US seized $4.5bn under civil asset forfeiture

--- Given the circumstances of this case, we can expect that number to be slightly low since it clearly does not include NY State's figures.........

[Anonymous Coward]

Spent on hookers and blow

Always spend where you work!

[Swarthy]

Re: Spent on hookers and blow

"They spent most of it on hookers and blow, and wasted the rest."

[Sanguma]

More it changes, more it stays the same

Now what was that interesting little snippet in the US Declaration of Independence? Ah, yes, here it is:

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

Whodathunkit?

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: More it changes, more it stays the same

And another bit:

-----------

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

---------------

Sounds remarkably like the current system no?

[tony2heads]

Only in america

Cops steal more than the burglars

[Potemkine!]

Police everywhere, Justice nowhere

" police across the US seized $4.5bn under civil asset forfeiture rules [...]. By contrast, in that same year, the FBI reported that burglars stole $3.9bn from American citizens."

Add to this that US policemen kill around 1,200 people per year.

By the numbers: US police kill more in days than other countries do in years

I thought that US were tougher and tougher on people wanting to come on the US territory because of xenophobia. I was wrong, it's in fact to protect foreigner's life.

[Dan 55]

As I have to work with one, I can readily believe that their DB2 database is broken.

[Maty]

Major crime?

There was an article in the NY Times a while back where a woman sued to get back a gold crucifix that a cop saw dangling from her rear-view mirror and rather fancied. It was the only item of value in the car when it was stopped.

The crucifix was worth <$100 but the woman wanted it back for sentimental reasons and had to spend thousands to do so. And no, she was not stopped for, or accused of, any crime, or even a driving offense (other than driving while being black).

[rtb61]

Not Money Stolen

What you will find it is not likely that money was stolen post seizure. Sure some was stolen during seizure but post seizure what was likely scammed was the sale of stolen assets. Cars, furniture, electronic goods, boats planes, you name, much of it sold on the cheap, real cheap, to insiders who keep or onsell what they get hold of.

This done apparently to the tune of billions of dollars of assets. The cash they to reduce police budgets to ensure US police are not police but for profit law enforcers, much the same as MAFIA enforcers, in fact telling them apart, based upon behaviour, would be difficult nowadays.

[Anonymous Coward]

Farked

If you're wondering why your server is so busy, Fark greened this story.

[diodesign]

Re: Farked

We have waaaay more readers than Fark. Like, at least 5x. Fark.com got 793,800 uniques in Sept 2017, according to its official analytics.

C.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Re: Farked

Who the fark is Fark?

[Tigra 07]

Re: Diodesign

Jolly good farking response!

[Tigra 07]

Seems legit...Not...

Ello ello ello, got any cash on you?

"Yes"

Seized! Proceeds of crime.

"Wait, let me just phone my"

Phone? Seized! Proceeds of crime