Holder Bans Asset Seizure By Local Police

[pnac]

This is the only thing I've ever agreed with Holder on, excluding the firearms part. Nothing should be actually seized without a person being convicted of a crime. Makes me think there's more happening here than we're being told.

Link to Reuters article:
http://news.yahoo.com/u-attorney-general-bans-asset-seizure-local-police-195542428.html

Link to another article, same topic:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/16/7...iture-limited-by-attorney-general-eric-holder

 

[thallub]

Holder acted at the request of a bi-partisan group of US senators and congressmen.

Friday’s letter was signed by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), House Judiciary member Jim Sensenbrenner (R., Wis.), Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.), and Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah).

http://freebeacon.com/issues/senato...tment-to-stop-sharing-asset-forfeiture-funds/

 

[pnac]

Thanks thallub, I knew there had to be pressure from somewhere. But, it's not like Holder to do anything decent without there being a BIG benefit to him or his agenda. I can't help wondering what the tradeoff was!

 

[WVsig]

Finally!!!!!!

 

[punkinhead]

It's about time we started turning back some of Reagan's big government policies.

 

[Armed_Chicagoan]

This only affects a tiny percentage of seizures. The vast majority (90+%) are done under state law, which is unaffected by this.

 

[kilimanjaro]

The 'trade off' is, it's mainly for show. The states have their own laws and won't quit funding themselves absent repeal.

 

[Colt46]

Yeah, it seems a lot of forfeitures will be unaffected by this

Too many alphabet soup agencies still have a license to steal.

 

[pnac]

This seems better, until we learn more at least, because it gives the states the power to decide about forfeiture seizure instead of the feds. We have a lot more influence over our state legislatures than the unseeing, unfeeling, federal government leviathan. If states had more control, like they're supposed to, voting with our feet and our dollars would be much more effective.

P.S. I found this article about asset forfeiture seizure … interesting read:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/asset-forfeiture-and-cycle-electronic-surveillance-funding

 

[Madcap_Magician]

This is good though because one of the major issues about asset forfeiture is that in those states where the people decided they wanted to make a state law limiting forfeitures in some way, some agencies were doing 'collaborative' seizures with federal agencies so that they could do the seizure under federal law instead of state law. That was a clear attempt to circumvent the meaning of the legislature.

 

[KyJim]

This only affects a tiny percentage of seizures. The vast majority (90+%) are done under state law, which is unaffected by this.

That may depend upon the state. While we do have state laws on seizure and forfeiture of property used in the commission of some crimes, its use does not appear to be as common as in other states.