Category: property rights

A New Way to Steal

ERAD, gift card, civil asset, forfeiture, stealing, theft, drug war

The fight against government theft of private property, through “civil forfeiture,” just got a little harder.

There’s a new technology available: ERAD card scanners.

And the Oklahoma City Police Department’s joint interdiction team has them, and can use the scanners to take money from you without your consent.

What money, in particular? The money you have stored in pre-paid debit cards.

ERAD stands for Electronic Recovery and Access to Data, and the ERAD Group, Inc., stands to make a lot of cash from the technology. Police around the country want to be able to take the funds secured in debit cards. It’s the latest thing in the war against the war against the War on Drugs.

Drug traffickers, we’re told, hide dozens of such cards in vehicles transporting drugs.

It’s not enough that police can, in the course of investigating a crime — without conviction, mind you; indeed, without charges being filed — confiscate the cards themselves.

The police also want to be able to siphon the money out of those cards.

Which leads to corruption. Which is already rife in civil forfeiture usage, as a recent Oklahoma state audit found — missing money, misused funds, that sort of thing.

The cavalier way in which government officials defend expropriation by ERAD scanners is chilling. In an Oklahoma Watch article, reporter Clifford Adcock relates the official explanation: “These cards are cash, not bank accounts. . . . Individuals do not have privacy rights with magnetic stripe cards.” Why not? Because the information on the strip “literally has no purpose other than to be provided to others to read.”

That’s so open to logical criticism you could drive a confiscated truck fleet through it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags abuse, asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, civil forfeiture, Drug War, ERAD, police, theft

Accountability folly free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights responsibility too much government

Fatherland, Socialism and Death!

Post author By CS Admin
Post date May 23, 2016
6 Comments on Fatherland, Socialism and Death!

The fall of Venezuela is an atrocity.

The comic elements are clear enough — the further you remove yourself from the poverty, chaos, and collapse. We can wallow in a bit of Schadenfreude, taking glee as some American leftists squirm to explain why the socialist paradise they ballyhooed a mere three years ago now tail-spins to the grave.

The collapse of this socialist experiment offers an enormous level of tragedy. It’s not pretty.

The country’s leader, President Nicolas Maduro, makes his predictable desperation play. Rather than confront his own errors, and the futility of making socialism work in anything like a rigorous form, he boasts. “Venezuela Leader Says US ‘Dreams’ Of Dividing Loyal Military,” reads yesterday’s Reuters report. While no doubt true, this is one of those cases where whatever we dream to the north, our dreams are better than their current reality.

Of course the Venezuelan military should turn on Maduro, Hugo Chavez’s inheritor, protecting the right of recall, which Maduro is denying. By painting the U. S. as the bad guy, Maduro hopes to unite his people — especially his armed forces — around him. That’s what a desperate demagogic dynast does. Citizens and subjects traditionally abandon skepticism about their leaders when they feel threatened from the outside.

Which is one reason it would be a mistake for the U. S. to intervene.

Reuters poetically reports that the military is still united behind the socialist government, and resists the recall referendum, singing “Fatherland, Socialism, or Death!”

Wrong conjunction. Not “or” but “and” . . . if you insist on socialism.

The government, military pressure or no, should allow the recall vote, and soon.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags creeping socialism, poverty, rationing, shortages, socialism, Venezuela

Accountability crime and punishment moral hazard national politics & policies property rights too much government U.S. Constitution

Return to Robbery

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

Last week, the crooks in Washington proved themselves nice enough to let us know that their rip-off machine is back in action. The Obama Justice Department announced the resumption of the “equitable sharing” program, whereby the Feds sing Kumbaya with state and local police while sharing the loot they snatch from innocent folks through “civil asset forfeiture.”

Yes, there again is that strange three-word, legalistic, police-pocketing term: civil asset forfeiture.

Free country? Not so long as local police and federal government agencies seize people’s stuff without ever charging or convicting those people of a crime. Simply by claiming suspicion . . . about their stuff.

To get their money or property back, the victims must hire an attorney and sue the government. Guilty until proven innocent. Only those raking in the ill-gotten gains are shameless enough to defend this completely un-American practice.

Which more than doubled in use during President Obama’s first five years in office, according to The Washington Post. Today, police and various government agents actually take more value from innocent Americans through civil asset forfeiture than do burglars through burglary.

“As President Obama counts down the days of his last year in office,” the Cato Institute’s Adam Bates wrote back in January, “one positive step he could take for his legacy would be to halt the federal government’s use of civil asset forfeiture and make the suspension of the equitable sharing program permanent.”

Yet, despite Mr. Obama’s talk about criminal justice reform, and despite his ability to bring justice with a stroke of his pen (and actually within his constitutional authority), last week the Feds instead went back to business as usual, ripping people off.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, corruption, crime, law, police

crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard privacy property rights too much government

Taking Our Stuff Back

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

There’s been a big push for criminal justice reform, with some recent progress on civil asset forfeiture.

This is the process through which police and government agencies grab a citizen’s money or property — even if the citizen is never charged with a crime, much less convicted. Then, to get one’s stuff back, a citizen must sue to prove the stuff was innocent of being involved in criminal activity.

Asset forfeiture without a criminal conviction turns our system of justice on its head, encouraging bad behavior by police — ahem, stealing — by rewarding departments and agencies that get to keep the loot.

Reform legislation passed through an Oklahoma House committee earlier this week and now goes to the full House. Television News 9 in Oklahoma City began its report by acknowledging that, “A watered down version of the civil asset forfeiture bill has crossed another hurdle in the state Legislature.”

That’s because a bill to end civil asset forfeiture outright had already failed in the Senate. The currently pending legislation requires that citizens who sue to recover their property and win be awarded their legal fees.

It’s progress . . . but still not justice enough.

Late last month, Wyoming’s Gov. Matt Mead signed reform legislation mandating that there be a probable cause hearing before the legal forfeiture process can begin. Good. But that was after Gov. Mead vetoed a better bill, which stopped all official, convictionless snatching of stuff.

Police taking people’s stuff without having to prove a crime must be ended altogether, abolished. That means we better stop waiting for politicians. Instead, petition this important principle directly to the people — use ballot initiatives in cities and states across the country.

No time like the present.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags asset forfeiture, ballot initiative, civil asset forfeiture, law, police, police abuse

crime and punishment folly general freedom ideological culture meme property rights too much government

Human Interest Story

Income inequality, newspaper clipping, humor, satire, social justice, socialism, Common Sense, meme, illustration, Jim Gill, Paul Jacob

“Local Moralist Doing His Part to End Income Inequality”

Click below for high resolution version of this image:

Mugger photo by Flikr user cometstarmoon

Tags income inequality, socialism, theft

folly free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights responsibility

Climate Changelings

Paris, climate change, global warming, natural gas, fracking, Common Sense, illustration

Worried that the world is going to sacrifice progress for the mess of pottage that is “global climate change”?

Don’t. Years ago, economists specializing in game theory recognized that the governments of the world would be extremely unlikely to agree to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The incentives are all wrong for that.

Last month, the great debunker of junk climate science, Patrick Michaels, reporting on the recent Paris talks, concurred. The international agreement going forward is so worded as to be “free to be meaningless.” Countries can claim to be “doing something,” but effectively accomplish nothing. Which allows “the world’s largest emitter (China) and the third-largest one (India)” to balk.

But the ole USA? It is doing something . . .

and it’s going to cost. Here’s one reason: Under Obama’s Clean Power Plan, substitution of natural gas for coal in electrical generation isn’t going to increase, even though it produces only half the carbon dioxide per kilowatt of electricity as coal. Instead, his EPA says power companies have to substitute unreliable, expensive “renewables,” mainly solar energy and wind. These are mighty expensive compared with new natural-gas power. And even the Clean Power Plan won’t meet our Paris target.

Obviously, what we have to worry about are our martyrdom-prone environmental zealots and their power-hungry (political power-hungry) friends ensconced in government.

They just can’t leave well enough alone, for, as Michaels notes, even CO₂ emissions improve with industrial progress — when markets are free and property rights established.

But anti-capitalists in and out of government don’t want improvements to come naturally. Apparently, they would rather make things worse even by their own standards than let markets work.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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$Paris, climate change, global warming, natural gas, fracking, Common Sense, illustration$

Tags China, climate change, global climate catastrophism, global warming, Paris

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

Government Burglars

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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Tags asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, law, police abuse, robbery

free trade & free markets general freedom individual achievement property rights responsibility too much government

Roman Rockets?

Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, rocket, private, privatize, Common Sense, illustration

Is Big Government necessary to accomplish Big Things?

Big government built the pyramids. Big government erected the Great Wall of China. Big government put Man on the Moon.

But humanity could have reached Luna over a thousand years ago, had Roman civilization not gone into a death spiral.

Bill Whittle made this point in some recent talks on Afterburner and guesting on Stefan Molyneux’s philosophy show. He blames the fall of past civilizations on “sexual strategies”: the sociobiology of r/K. (The “r” strategy organisms make lots of babies, invest little in them, accept widespread predation; the “K” strategy makes fewer babies, invests heavily in each, and suppresses predators and parasites.) Civilizations start K-style and decline with r.

It’s a theory.

Whatever the biology, Big Government was integral to Rome’s decline, with its exploitative systems and corruption, monetary inflation and “handouts.”

Rome wasn’t destroyed in a day. There were delays and cost-overruns, like any government job.

But Whittle’s right about progress. Humanity would be a lot further along if it didn’t get caught in government/conflict/exploitation traps. Private companies might be on the Moon today were it not for Big governments that destroyed promising civilization in the past.

But hey: private enterprise is catching up.

“In an historic first,” Popular Science informs us, “the private company founded by Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos has become the first to land a re-useable rocket that’s traveled to and from space.” The rocket lands as envisioned in old science fiction flicks, vertically — though with the aid of “drag brakes” (parachutes).

Let’s hope our civilization doesn’t once again collapse before we witness (and contribute to) further progress.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Amazon, government, Jeff Bezos, rockets, space, space tourism, SpaceX

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

Equitable Stealing?

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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Tags asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, crime, feds, police, property, property rights

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

Our Innocent Stuff

civil forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, crime, theft, police, abuse, property rights, Common Sense

The Institute for Justice’s new report, Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture, details a “big and growing problem” that “threatens basic rights to property and due process.”

Through both criminal and civil forfeiture laws, governments can seize property used in — or the proceeds of — a crime. Criminal forfeiture requires that a person be charged and convicted of a crime to transfer title to government. Civil forfeiture, on the other hand, allows governments to take people’s stuff without being convicted — or even charged — with a crime.

No surprise that 87 percent of asset forfeiture is now civil, only 13 percent criminal. And governments are grabbing more and more. The federal financial take has grown ten-fold since 2001.

“Every year,” IJ’s researchers document, “police and prosecutors across the United States take hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, cars, homes and other property — regardless of the owners’ guilt or innocence.” Then, the innocent victim must sue the government to have his or her stuff returned.

Incentive to steal? “In most places, cash and property taken boost the budgets of the very police agencies and prosecutor’s offices that took it,” an accompanying IJ video explains.

IJ’s report concludes that, “Short of ending civil forfeiture altogether, at least five reforms can increase protections for property owners and improve transparency.” Those five reforms are improvements, sure, but let’s end civil forfeiture completely.

It’s the principle!

Two principles, actually.

Civil forfeiture laws pretend law enforcement is taking action against our property, and that our property has no rights. But what about our property rights!

We’re innocent until proven guilty, too . . . and so is our stuff.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags abuse, asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, crime, feds, police, police abuse, property rights, theft