Category: government transparency

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crime and punishment general freedom government transparency judiciary moral hazard national politics & policies property rights too much government

Government Burglars

civil asset forfeiture, police, abuse, robbery, Common Sense

If you try to compare those police who take people’s money and property through civil asset forfeiture laws to burglars, who rob folks in more traditional ways, you are just not being fair.

To the burglars.

The Institute for Justice recently released an updated Policing for Profit report showing that federal asset forfeiture topped $5 billion in 2014. The FBI disclosed that in that same year $3.5 billion of value was lost in burglaries.

Then, folks did the math.

Steven Greenhut’s piece at reason​.com was headlined, “Cops Now Take More Than Robbers.”

At The Washington Post Wonkblog, Christopher Ingraham explained there was an especially big haul in seized assets in 2014, including $1.7 billion from Bernie Madoff. Moreover, the dollar figure for burglary doesn’t include larceny, motor vehicle theft, etc. All such theft combined totaled more than $12 billion that year.

So, law enforcement isn’t stealing quite as much from citizens as the criminals they are supposed to be protecting us from are. Sort of a backhanded compliment, though.

Recent polling finds more than 70 percent of Americans opposed to seizing assets without a criminal conviction, i.e. innocent until proven guilty, but taking cash and cars and stuff from folks never charged with or convicted of a crime has become a big business for “our” government.

When legislation to mildly reform civil forfeiture failed recently in California, Mr. Greenhut called legislators’ votes “about money, not justice.” Ferocious lobbying by the California District Attorneys Association and the California Police Chiefs warned money-​grubbing legislators that budgets would take an $80 to $100 million hit.

Theft is apparently quite lucrative. Who knew?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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civil asset forfeiture, police, abuse, robbery, Common Sense

 

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free trade & free markets general freedom government transparency national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Post Dated

USPS, Postal Service, Post Office, Mail, bankrupt, government, inefficiency, Common Sense, Illustration

What does a business do whose market share is decreasing, is billions of dollars in debt, and which incurred one-​third of that debt just last year?

Realistically, it cannot be sustained. Not as a normal business.

Of course, the business in question has been struggling to reform, has been cutting costs. But can’t cut enough.

I’m referring to the United States Postal Service. Not a “normal business,” either: no “normal business” is authorized in the U.S. Constitution — or must suffer with the 535 members of Congress as its board of directors.

Kevin Kosar, writing at the Foundation for Economic Education, says the “existential crisis is already happening.”

And by this he doesn’t mean that the organization is going through a bout of anxiety leading to Nausea, or is so estranged from humanity that on a beach the company will kill an Arab — though that may be indeed true, “going postal” and all. He means, simply, what his title says: “USPS Is Going Down, and It’s Taking Billions with It.”

Many on the left say the problem is Congress’s insistence that the enterprise fund its employee retirement program. Kosar quotes an economist who figures that, even without current (and still inadequate) levels of pension contributions, the post office would have “lost $10 billion over the past seven years.”

Besides, those pensions must be paid for at some time — postponing them just delays the inevitable, making a future bust that much bigger, less manageable. (Current level of unfunded liability? $54 billion — which is not accounted for in its official debt.)

The Internet is more important than the post, now. Could it be time to junk mail?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment general freedom government transparency moral hazard national politics & policies property rights

Equitable Stealing?

civil asset forfeiture, asset, forfeiture, police, abuse, stealing, theft, property, Common Sense

Is freedom a simple matter of drafting a lofty document about respecting the rights of citizens?

Alas, no.

Our Constitution does that, as does Turkey’s and, for that matter, so did the now-​defunct Soviet Constitution. Obviously, vigilance is also required. Keeping powerful government agencies respectful of the law — our liberties — and, when not, fully accountable for transgressions, is crucial.

That necessary vigilance is lacking here in America, today.

Your local police — the guys and gals who might respond if, heaven forbid, your home were broken into, or come upon your spouse broken down on a dark, rainy highway — are being encouraged to take people’s stuff … for “profit.”

It’s called civil asset forfeiture. This “legal” ability to stop people and snatch their money (or car or what-​have-​you) without ever charging anyone with a crime forces victims to hire a lawyer to sue the government to prove their stuff is innocent. 

Last Friday, I heralded a new Institute for Justice report on the growth of this dangerous practice of official police thievery. At Townhall on Sunday, I pointed out that even when reforms are enacted at the state and local level, federal law enforcement still facilitates civil forfeiture. The Feds encourage locals to continue taking stuff through a federal program known as “equitable stealing.”

No, my bad, it’s actually called “equitable sharing.”

But it’s the same thing, just with the Feds and locals splitting the loot.

We need new laws at the federal, state and local level that abolish forfeiture without a criminal conviction. If our “leaders” won’t act, we can petition at the local level to end this pernicious policy, forbidding any involvement with the Feds.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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civil asset forfeiture, asset, forfeiture, police, abuse, stealing, theft, property, Common Sense

 

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crime and punishment folly general freedom government transparency

Candid Camera

body cam, body cameras, justice reform, feds, federal agents, U.S. Marshals , police, Common Sense

Support for criminal justice reform, especially the common sense use of body cameras for police, marks a bright spot for the Obama Administration.

Or so I thought.

The president has called on local police to don the video devices. He has even offered $75 million of his own hard-​earned money to help communities pay for the cameras. No, wait — turns out that $75M is not his personal stash but rather our tax money.

Oh, well. While I think local taxpayers should fund their own police forces, without federal subsidies, at least President O’s administration supports the right policy. No?

“The Justice Department is publicly urging local police departments to adopt body cameras, saying they are an important tool to improve transparency and trust …” reports The Wall Street Journal. “But privately, the department is telling some of its agents they cannot work with officers using such cameras as part of joint task forces …”

Weeks ago, the U.S. Marshals “announced that the agency wouldn’t allow any local law-​enforcement officers wearing body cameras to serve on Marshals task forces.…”

I’m only surprised that I’m surprised. I should have known that while preaching to others to use body cameras, the Obama Administration would completely ignore camera use for federal police agencies. I shouldn’t be shocked that it even failed to establish rules for working with local and state police who might be required to wear cameras, at the administration’s urging.

It’s a very candid snapshot of the utter hypocrisy we’ve come to know and loathe from Washington.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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body cam, body cameras, justice reform, feds, federal agents, U.S. Marshals , police, Common Sense

 

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Accountability general freedom government transparency local leaders porkbarrel politics tax policy term limits

The Reign of Trickery

Arkansas State Senator, Jon Woods, tricks, deceive, elections, Common Sense

Arkansas State Sen. Jon Woods’s reign of trickery is ending. As reported Monday, he has chosen not to seek another term in the legislature.

It’s ironic. Woods defrauded Arkansas voters with a deceptively worded 2014 ballot measure. His successful scam weakening term limits allows him to stay in the Senate for 16 years, instead of just eight. But now, angry voters won’t allow Woods another term.

At least, that sure appears to be the case.

If voters in next year’s March primary could possibly be as uninformed about Woods’s record as they were about last November’s Issue 3, he would have gotten away with it. But Woods has made enemies: term limits supporters and Conduit for Action, a group sharply critical of him for gutting the Arkansas Ethics Commission, to identify two. He not unreasonably fears they would communicate with his constituents.

In effect, “tell on him.”

Fool the voters once, shame on Woods. Fool the voters twice … well … ’tain’t going to happen. That’s not to say the sly schemer didn’t have another unethical, underhanded, anti-​democratic trick up his sleeve. Of course he did.

“I’ve had serious conversations with my family about leaving … since April,” Woods told reporters. Yet, the incumbent didn’t bother to announce publicly that he was vacating the seat until the November weekend before a Monday filing deadline.

Seeking to pick his replacement, Woods informed insiders of his intentions, while leaving the rest of his district in the dark until it was too late.

Luckily, Justice of the Peace Sharon Lloyd, had already stepped up to challenge Woods — and his insider political games.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

P.S. Circumventing meaningful elections to provide a leg-​up to a crony by waiting until the last moment to announce a retirement, as Sen. Woods did, happens far too often. It’s another good argument for term limits.

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Arkansas State Senator, Jon Woods, tricks, deceive, elections, Common Sense

 

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Accountability general freedom government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders nannyism porkbarrel politics term limits

Cheaters Never Prosper

Arkansas State Senator, Jon Woods, term limits, Arkansas, pay raise, disgrace, election, illustration

“I want to go home,” Arkansas State Senator Jon Woods whimpered.

The poor, pitiful politician — announcing he would not seek election to another legislative term — cried that he had not “been fishing with [his] brother in a year.”

“I have friends in my district who I miss,” he further lamented.

Before reaching for a tissue, realize that the legislator lives a little over three hours from the capitol in Little Rock and the legislature has only been in session for about 100 days in the last two years.

Certainly, that Senator Woods has any friends left is news — at least, non-​lobbyist, non-​legislator friends.

Woods infamously authored Issue 3, which narrowly passed last year and is now Amendment 94 to the state constitution.

Woods tricked voters by wording the ballot title to claim it was “PROHIBITING MEMBERS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY … FROM ACCEPTING GIFTS FROM LOBBYISTS.” But now, lobbyists buy legislators lunch pretty much every day.

He misleadingly told voters the amendment was “ESTABLISHING TERM LIMITS FOR MEMBERS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY,” when in reality term limits were weakened, allowing pols like Woods to stay a whopping 16 years in a single seat.

The slippery solon’s amendment also created a so-​called Independent Citizens Commission — a majority appointed by legislative leaders — that has since rewarded legislators with a whopping 150 percent pay raise.

The Arkansas Times’s Max Brantley called it “strange” that the “full-​time legislator … would drop out of the race at this point.” Now that it’s time to face the voters with all his mighty “accomplishments,” the senator decides “to start a new chapter in [his] life.”

Dejected, befuddled, limping home as a martyr to crony politics, Woods knows he can’t win.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Arkansas State Senator, Jon Woods, term limits, Arkansas, pay raise, disgrace, election, illustration