Some of you in here may disagree with my stance on this, but I feel most of you are with me.  At any rate, I wanted to post it here for your perusal, discussion and/or outrage is encouraged.

"It's a proud day for law enforcement.  The Birmingham News/Post Herald Saturday edition printed a story about the Hoover Police Department pulling over some female motorists for going too slow, and fortuitously discovering that they were involved in the horrible crime of carrying too much "inexplicable" cash.  While it is assuring to know that Hoover may now rest easier in the knowledge that their streets are rid of the scourge of this terrible cash, we need to examine what's really going on here.
Under the ruse of the "War on Drugs", a system has been established that for certain "crimes", the perpetrator is presumed guilty until proving  innocence, with their property and/or assets being stolen from them and the onus being on them to establish their innocence.  This totally upends our supposedly cherished system of innocent until proven guilty, and it should terrify anyone.  Exactly where this road will lead is uncertain, but it's not hard to guess.  That local, state and federal law enforcement have used and abused this system to pillage the citizenry for their own gain is a well documented fact.  That someone could have their property and assets seized from them under the auspices of suspected criminal activity, yet be charged with no crime, then be dared to come and prove it's indeed theirs is both vexing and infuriating to ponder, yet it happens every day.
The seizure of property and assets under this guise can be defined as nothing short of criminal, yet we have given our law enforcement carte blanche to participate in this activity.  Shame on them.  And even more shame on US as a society for believing that this crime is acceptable or even moral.  Our law enforcement is committing a crime, pure and simple.  They say you don't notice that trouble is ahead if the water is boiled slowly, well it's coming to a boil and seemingly we are commenting on how pleasant the water is.  We're allowing this, even touting this.  Shame on all of us!"

We have lost far more rights because of "The War on Drugs" than we will ever lose because of "The War on Terror", yet on here and elsewhere, like Congress, all you hear is moaning about the rights that might be lost because of "The War on Terror".  Many on here fully support the "The War on Drugs" while bemoaning "The War on Terror", as least as far as rights go.  The "War on Drugs" smacks of the old Prohibition, which was also a failure but it also cost some rights and made some bad people rich.  The NFA was a direct result of bootleggers using Thompsons in their gang wars.  If one can't see the similarities, woe be unto you.

About a year ago, PBS aired the results of a study showing that people are getting longer jail terms for possession of pot than they are for murder.  Boy, that's really got our priorities straight.  Of course, for these career violent criminals, prison is just a revolving door anyway.  Hell, if these violent felons would just stay stoned, we would have less violent.

[url=http://www.fear.org]Forfeiture Endangers American Rights.org[/url]

As far as I know, they can only seize cash and property if it is found in close proximity with drugs and you are charging the offender with a drug offense..  After that, if the offender is convicted of a drug charge a federal agency/judge turns the $$ or property over to the agency that claimed it at the time of arrest..  That's the basic rules per a local federal attorney...  Or at least what they tell us in AZ.

This is false.  There are numerous cases, including the one above, where there are no drugs involved whatsoever, where large sums of money have been consficated simply because it was a large sum and it 'must be drug related'.  I don't have any links but I remember clearly a case about 10 years ago in Louisiana where a little old lady who did not like banks kept all her cash at home.  She was on her way to trade in her current car and pay the difference in cash, $10,000.  She was pulled over and her money was consficated under the forfeiture laws and she never got it back.  You need to read the Federal forfeiture laws.  Your propery CAN be seized with no charges being filed and no proof of wrongdoing.

I knew "THEY" lied..  OK !  Well, that's the way they tell us it's done here..   Hmmmmm...

I do not have words to properly describe the range of emotions I feel when I attempt to comprehend this subject.  To parse it, it's just plain evil.  Evil, evil, evil.

If you blood pressure is getting low, try this:

[url]http://www.kcstar.com/projects/drugforfeit/[/url]

Believe it or not, some actual journalism - the old way...

I think it is time that law enforcement follow the suggestion of the great Republican John McCain and establish checkpoints at the entrances of gun shows to search potential domestic terrorists for large amounts of cash. This would be an important law enforcement tool to stop the supply murder weapons.

To the Hoover Police Department, I thank you for your heroic service to the country.

There is a guy at this thread [url]http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=123987&page=1[/url] that says that if you don't believe in the 'war on drugs', you are a 'flaming liberal'.  Ain't it wonderful how some people support their rights, but the hell with everyone else's.  Of course, they don't realize that eventually, even the lost rights that they don't think affects them come back to bite them right in the ass.

The_Camp_Ninja -

Those Hoover cops are the worst, man!  Those guys don't fvck around.  They all look like ex-body-builders (courtesy of the City of Hoover's generous monetary donation for their "training facility"), and every one of them that I had to deal with acted like they had a chip on their shoulder.

It's certainly one thing that I do [b]NOT[/b] miss about living in Birmingham.

the_reject

You live in Birmingham or are you from there?  I was raised in B'ham, my sister lives in Hoover, and have lived in GA since '67.

Lived there from '97 - '99.  Went to UAB, then moved to Suwanee, about 30 miles northeast of Atlanta.  I visit my friends in Birmingham about every 3 months or so.

the_reject

[sarcasm] OH, for goodness sake Imbro!! That will never happen here! We have a Constitution! Besides, the American people wouldn't allow the govt. to infringe on the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of a citizen born here!! NEVER HAPPEN!! [/sarcasm]

Roger THAT!!!  YEARS ago, when I was 19 or 20 I think, I was pulled over in Hoover for having a truck with no tags.  I bought it in CA, had a MT driver's licence, and was in AL awaiting the tags.  That was FUN to explain.  But to make matters almost worse, when he asked me for registration, I flipped down my sun visor to get it, forgetting that I had a baggie of "Unapproved Vegetation" tucked away there.  Well, it fell directly on my lap, but at that MOMENT a horn honked, distracting Bluto long enough for me to secure it.  I simply don't want to imagine what would've become of me had I been popped.  Say, remind me to to tell y'all what happened when I was pulled over in my Grateful Dead sticker-covered bug with no licence, registration or driver's licence in Hoover back in '91, it WASN'T pretty!!![:)]

It's about as stupid as the laws saying it's against the law to [i]appear[/i] to be avoiding federal money laundering laws.  The government doesn't have to prove that the money was either made or spent illegally, only that you divided it up into less than $10K pieces to avoid having the transaction reported.  One local politician got "caught" doing that to buy a car.  He took-out a little less than $10K from each of three accounts to buy a Mercedes (yes, this was a few years ago).  The government claimed he did that to keep any part of the bank transactions from being reported.  He pleaded guilty to keep from getting jail-time.  What a crock.  They never once said he made the money illegally only that writing three checks made it appear as if he was.z

Its just about as bad as having your gun confiscated for a misdiminor (sp?) and them taking it permanantly even though it is not writen anywhere that I know of (in the NCGS) so if you get convicted of a crime with a punishment of a $150 fine they also get your $2000 wilson.

And WE'VE let it happen.  Like I said, shame on ALL of us.  Shame, shame, shame.