Category: property rights

Categories
privacy property rights Update

Update: The “No Duh” Element in Private Property

Supreme Court, property rights, rent

In yesterday’s update, we directed your attention to a court decision that showed some progress in preventing the federal government from outright theft via the medieval civil asset forfeiture technique. The Epoch Times reported. But there was a passage we did not quote: 

“Plaintiffs do have a significant privacy interest in their safe deposit boxes, given that their conduct indicates they intended their items to be ‘preserved … as private,’ and society generally views the privacy expectations of items in safe deposit boxes as reasonable,” Judge Smith wrote.

Yes, Judge Smith, we do have “privacy interests” in our … private property.

It is right there in the term, private property.

The conceptual fight to reclaim our rights can be a tough slog through the obvious.

Categories
crime and punishment property rights

Stop Thieves!

thief, robbery, shoplifting, duty to retreat, self defense

In July, a King Soopers employee, Santino Burrola, was fired for filming shoplifters.

He even managed to get their license plate number; to do so, he had to peel off an aluminum-​foil cover on the plate as the thieves began driving away.

Burrola helped police quickly capture one of the suspects. But Kroger, the parent company, fired him anyway. See, Burrola had violated the sacred kick-​me-​again Kroger policy that employees must never interfere with thefts in progress.

The policy is like waving a flashing neon red ROB US MORE sign and, unfortunately, is common.

Fortunately, though, it’s not a policy that Michael Sullivan, operations manager of Roger’s Gardens in Orange County, California, had to worry about as he tried to figure out how to stop a months-​long series of thefts of expensive shrubbery and other items from the Gardens.

Security cameras weren’t helping. They recorded the thief but were unable to capture his license plate, which could be used to track him down. He kept coming back to steal more.

Finally, Sullivan hit on the idea of hiding AirTags on things that the thief might grab. The stratagem paid off. Sullivan discovered the location of the evildoer and relayed the info to police.

They found a yard clogged with $8,000 in goods stolen from Roger’s Gardens.

The stolen goods have been returned to the Gardens; the thief has been arrested.

Hard? No. Wrong? No. 

Thwarting thievery fends off barbarism. Doing it at low personal risk is good business.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
judiciary property rights

Greed & the Innocent Owners

civil asset forfeiture

“We know there are abuses of the forfeiture system,” Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declares. “We know it because it’s been documented throughout the country repeatedly.”

Civil asset forfeiture is a crime — if a legal one. I’ve devoted numerous columns to it, here, these past few decades. Interestingly, there’s no overt political reason for it not to stop, for opposition to it comes from both left and right — and middle.

The problem, explains left-​wing Justice Sotomayor, is that this legal practice of seizing property associated with crime does not have checks and balances in American law, since, until the 1970s, it had been used circumspectly, for the most part — against pirates and such. Since then, and in great part because of the War on Drugs, it has gotten out of hand: greedy functionaries in law enforcement have grabbed property and kept it, requiring even “innocent owners” — people not directly engaging in any crime — to go through absurdly difficult legal maneuvers, expending inordinate time and far too much money to get back what’s theirs.

It’s all very corrupt, as Justice Neil Gorsuch — no left-​winger, he — observes. “Clearly, there are some jurisdictions that are using civil forfeiture as funding mechanisms,” he said.

All this I glean from a terrific article by Jacob Sullum in Reason. Like many of my past columns, Sullum identifies litigation by the heroic Institute for Justice.

What strikes me now, however, is how unresponsive our governments have been. We are still dealing with this horrific practice year after year despite near universal opposition to it by citizens. Politicians could have stopped it cold years ago. 

Justice delayed is justice denied.

Why pussyfoot around this? Because politicians are not serving us. They are greedy, too. For power. They’ll even use our property for their cause.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Firefly

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
crime and punishment property rights

The Tide of Theft

shoplift, theft, store, thief, thieves, robbery

There’s a black market for Tide laundry detergent. Who knew?

Giant Food, a Washington, D.C., area grocer, can’t seem to keep national brands such as Tide or Colgate or Advil on store shelves. Not because customers are buying these products, but because they’re stealing them.

Last week, we discussed the revelation by Dick’s Sporting Goods that thievery was a key cause of falling profits. The National Retail Federation believes that $95 billion is lost each year to public pilfering — something other retailers, including Target, Dollar Tree, and Ulta, are acknowledging is a very serious problem.

“Growing losses have spurred giants such as Walmart to shutter locations,” The Washington Post informs.

If we cannot police our own neighborhoods, and police can’t seem to do it, then we rely on … big corporations. With 165 supermarkets, Giant has yet to close any stores. Instead, the chain is “hiring more security guards, closing down secondary entrances, limiting the number of items permitted through self-​checkout areas, removing high-​theft items from shelves and locking up more products.” 

Most vulnerable is “the unprofitable store on Alabama Avenue SE — the only major grocer east of the Anacostia River in Ward 8,” a poor, largely black area of the city.

“We want to continue to be able to serve the community,” explains Giant’s president, “but we can’t do so at the level of significant loss or risk to our associates …

“During the first five months of this year,” Target’s chief executive recently leveled with investors, “our stores saw a 120 percent increase in theft incidents involving violence or threats of violence.”

Apparently, folks who pocket other people’s stuff are more likely to also be violent. 

Who saw that coming?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder​.ai

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
crime and punishment ideological culture property rights

Shrink Shrank Shrunk

shoplifters, private property, civilization

“Shrinkage.” A big problem.

I’m not talking about the delicate issue identified in the classic Seinfeld episode, “The Hamptons.” I refer, instead, to the business lingo for theft.

It’s rampant and taking a sad toll. 

Dick’s Sporting Goods is the first major retailer to blame declining profits on the “shrink” of its inventory because of mass theft. “The sporting goods and athletic clothing seller reported second-​quarter results Tuesday morning that included a 23% drop in profit, despite sales that rose 3.6% in the period,” CNN explains. 

But it’s not just a Dick’s problem. “Retailers large and small say they are struggling to contain an escalation in store crimes — from petty shoplifting to organized sprees of large-​scale theft that clear entire shelves of products. Target warned earlier this year that it was bracing to lose half a billion dollars because of rising theft.”

The cause?

No mystery.

Leftists have long been uncomfortable with private property. Their socialism seeks to replace private property with public property and private control over the means of production with governmental control. No wonder they often excuse private thievery as something like a revolutionary act.

When Pierre-​Joseph Proudhon put the idea boldly onto paper in 1840, that private property is itself theft, he really meant landed property, not personal property. Today’s leftists, unburdened by subtlety, keep coming back to opposing what is the core institution of civilization: respect for other people’s things.

Which allows for everything from privacy to progress.

Encouraging petty theft, as the left has knowingly, and organized theft, as the left has unwittingly (I hope) is not without consequences.

Our wealth, our liberties, our peace — they shrink.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Midjourney

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
crime and punishment general freedom property rights

Guilty of Claiming Innocence

civil, asset, forfeiture, police, robbery

Some gangsters take it personally if you object to being railroaded. So they railroad you some more.

That’s what happened to Robert Reeves, a Detroit auto mechanic and construction worker. In 2019, Wayne County confiscated his Camaro after police saw him visit a site that supposedly contained stolen equipment. The police did not formally accuse him of the alleged theft or try to convict him of it.

Nevertheless, the county wanted Reeves to pay $900 to retrieve his car.

Instead, Reeves went to court to end what Institute for Justice, which has been representing him, calls a “seizure-​and-​ransom policy.”

Soon the county was accusing Reeves of made-​up felonies of receiving stolen property and telling the court that he had no right to challenge its forfeiture policy while being accused of these felonies.

Reeves challenged the county’s dishonest challenge, and the court dismissed the charges for lack of evidence. Two weeks later, though, the county did the exact same thing, making the same fake charges and asking the same judge to dismiss the same case on the same grounds. The judge again refused.

Now, years later, Reeves is suing Wayne County for the way it further violated his rights when he challenged its initial violation of his rights.

Although this again makes Reeves a target, “Robert will not be silenced,” says IJ attorney Christian Lansinger, and the Institute will continue to hold accountable governments that seize the vehicles of individuals without evidence of wrongdoing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder​.ai and DALL-E2

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts