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 Freedom Network News April-June 2001
— You Are The Target —
POLICE CONFISCATIONS
STILL OUT OF CONTROL
by Jarret Wollstein
The recently-passed federal forfeiture reform does almost as much harm as good. Even worse, under hundreds of new state and local confiscation laws, your car, home, business, and bank accounts can be seized more easily than ever.
The next time someone plays their car stereo too loud or commits a crime in your neighborhood, watch out: Under new local asset-forfeiture laws your property could be seized for the acts of criminals you have never met.
It's called 'community responsibility' and it's one of the fastest-growing trends in asset-confiscation law. Here's how it works in Colorado Springs, Colorado:
According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, owners of businesses and other property in high-crime areas are now required to "abate crime" in their area. "Crimes" explicitly included in the new ordinance include prostitution, drug deals, drive-by shootings, and even playing a car stereo too loud.
What happens if property owners don't do enough to abate crime in the eyes of the police? Under the new ordinance, their businesses, homes and other assets can then be seized by police without any form of due process.
The Gazette explains, "Seizure would last a minimum of three months. To reopen, [a business] owner would have to prove no violations took place or that a remedy to the problem is in place" While the city controls the property, the owner would remain responsible for the mortgage, maintenance and other costs. If after one year the owner is not eligible to regain the property, the city could sell it. The city gets to keep the proceeds, and private homes can also be confiscated under this ordinance.
"What in the world is the general public supposed to do to stop drive-by shootings?" asks Nancy Ryan, President of Jubilee Real Estate Services and manager of some 35 homes in Colorado Springs. "Surely you're not expecting us to sit on our front porches with AK-47's and shoot every car that approaches because they might be one?"
Colorado Springs Police Chief Lorne Kramer has promised that property would only be seized from owners who are 'not doing enough' to alleviate crime.
What the new "community responsibility" ordinance in Colorado Springs means is that ordinary citizens who are simply trying to live their own lives and make a living are being told that they must stop crimes that the police can't, or lose their homes and businesses.
A few years ago I joked that US civil asset-forfeiture laws – which charge property rather than individuals with crimes – were so absurd that if your car was stolen and then recovered, the police could keep your car as "guilty property." I'm not laughing any longer. This is precisely what these absurd new laws will do. The Colorado Springs ordinance is not an isolated case. Similar laws have been passed throughout the U.S. – and they're being enforced:
- In New York City, police confiscated Mariscos del Caribe – a popular Puerto Rican restaurant – because one regular customer, Samuel Aponte Vega, was allegedly a drug dealer. At first the police claimed that Vega was the owner of the restaurant, but even when that was proved to be a complete fabrication, they still refused to return the property. The police argued it was the owners' responsibility to monitor and screen their customers. (See Brenda Grantland, Your House Is Under Arrest, pp. 72-74.)
- In Montgomery Alabama, police seized the home of 69 year-old Gussie Mae Gantt after video-taping police informants purchasing drugs in her yard. Ms. Gantt had previously called the police, complaining about drug-dealing in her neighborhood and had posted no-trespassing signs on her property. But – not surprisingly – the drug dealers ignored her signs.
In Westminster, Maryland, police arrested Pamela Davis and both her son and daughter, after her daughter signed for a UPS package delivered to her home which turned out to contain marijuana. It was later revealed that the package had been mailed by the police, who wanted to confiscate her home – a large 18th Century farmhouse – for use as a police retreat. (See Brenda Grantland, Your House Is Under Arrest, p. 164.)
In California, under a new law that went into effect last year, entire businesses can be seized if the owners employ any illegal aliens – even if they don't know that they're illegal.
But What About The New Federal
Forfeiture Reform Law?
The Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (HR 1658) does provide some relief for victims of federal asset forfeiture. However, it does absolutely nothing to change local and state forfeiture laws, which in many cases are even worse. Further, the new federal law actually makes things worse in several respects. Here's a quick summary:
Seven Improvements
Improvement #1: The Feds must now prove a substantial connection between the seized property and any crime. Hopefully that will put an end to such outrageous practices as seizing cash, jewelry and cars "because a drug dog barked at it." Drug dogs will bark at just about anything, and some 90% of all cash in circulation in the US - including new currency – has a detectable drug residue.
Improvement #2: If your property is seized, you may now be able to get it back before the seizure case is finished if you can prove that the government's keeping it will cause you substantial harm. Forfeiture cases often drag on agonizingly long before they're resolved. Two to five years is commonplace. Meanwhile you're out of business, your home deteriorates, and the cops get to drive your car until it's completely worn out. This new law may help curtail such practices, although note that the burden of proving "substantial harm" is on you.
Improvement #3: If you win in court, the government must pay your legal fees.
Improvement #4: The requirement that you must post a "cost bond" before you can contest confiscation has been eliminated.
Improvement #5: The new law creates a uniform "innocent owner" defense. That will make it more difficult for the feds to seize your property for the alleged crimes of your employees, tenants, and relatives. However, it won't put an end to this practice entirely. Police are very creative in coming up with "evidence" tying you to the crimes of associates, relatives and friends.
Look at what happened to farm-owner Tina Weaver. One night she got an urgent call from a man who said her father – who had been missing for a week – was in a hospital in Lafayette, Louisiana. Tina was told to immediately wire $1,800 for her father's medical care. The day after sending the money, five car-loads of police showed up at Tina's farm. It turns out the urgent "hospital call" had come from a drug cop posing as a hospital collection agent. The money wired by Tina was then cited as evidence that she was a participant in her father's marijuana business. Tina's farm was seized and she and her children were evicted. (Information from written statement and court filings by Tina Weaver.)
Improvement #6: The federal government will have to pay for any damage to your confiscated property while in their possession, unless you're found guilty.
Improvement #7: The law better defines which alleged "proceeds of a crime" are subject to seizure.
Unfortunately that's not all the new forfeiture law does. To get support from the Clinton Administration and his Department of Injustice, Congress had to agree to some horrendous new provisions.
Five Horrible Provisions Of The New Law
Provision #1: The amount of time that feds have to officially file to seize your property has been increased from 60 days to 90 days.
Provision #2: All property subject to federal civil forfeiture is now subject to federal criminal forfeiture as well. In plain English, hundreds of minor federal civil offenses have been turned into criminal offenses at the stroke of a pen. That means minor mistakes on Medicare forms, insurance applications, mortgage applications, and possibly even your tax return, could be used to seize your bank accounts or home!
Provision #3: The "crime" of money laundering (otherwise known as trying to keep your finances private), was vastly expanded to include minor paperwork errors. What, you say you just forgot to declare $100 in an inside pocket of your wallet on the currency report you filed when leaving the U.S.? Too bad. All $4,100 you're carrying can now be seized.
Provision #4: The US government will now enforce all foreign confiscations. If this law had been in force during World War II, the U.S. government would have been legally obligated to seize the property of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany and give it to Adolph Hitler!
Provision #5: If feds seize your property and you leave the US, you won't be allowed to challenge their seizure in court.
Worse of all is what the new law does not do:
- It doesn't end confiscation of property without trial.
- It doesn't apply to state and local seizures.
- It doesn't eliminate the odious process of "adoption" of forfeiture cases. State officials can adopt what was originally a federal forfeiture and impose more draconian state standards, splitting the proceeds with the feds. Adoption simply means that police enforce the most draconian forfeiture laws possible, be they state, local or federal.
This one omission could nullify much of the good the new law does on a federal level, by allowing police to circumvent all of the new restrictions on federal confiscations.
- It doesn't decrease the number of alleged offenses which can be used to seize property, which now includes gambling, soliciting a prostitute, shoplifting, playing a car stereo too loud, hiring illegal immigrants (including maids), tax evasion, money laundering, and conspiracy, which simply means discussing violating any law even in jest!
Asset Confiscation Continues To Expand
It should be clear that the new reform law will not end asset confiscation in America, or even necessarily slow it down. In fact, by several measures asset forfeiture continues to expand.
In the last 10 years, the number of federal offenses for which your property can be seized has increased from 200 to over 400. In addition, states, cities and local communities continue to pass new asset-forfeiture laws at a breakneck speed. Today there are thousands of local confiscation laws which didn't exist a few years ago. For instance, state laws have been recently passed allowing the seizure of cars for such "crimes" as transporting illegal fireworks, playing a stereo too loud, and driving on an expired license.
In his book, Freedom in Chains, James Bovard explains:
"Many local and state governments actively target and confiscate cars of drivers who
violate one of a rapidly-multiplying list of offenses. In 1996, Chicago suburbs enacted
ordinances to authorize seizure of automobiles if a car radio is too noisy, or if the cars are
being driven by teenagers out past 11:00 p.m. Detroit officials seized 3,000 cars in 1995
from drivers who allegedly used their vehicles for trysts with prostitutes. They even
seized the cars of innocent owners who had no involvement or knowledge of the crime."
(Freedom In Chains, pages 26 & 27.)
Another big growth area for asset forfeiture is alleged environmental offenses. Again quoting Bovard:
"The Office of Code Enforcement in Alexandria, Virginia, sent certified letters to 22
homeowners – threatening to condemn their properties unless they fixed chipping paint
on their windowsills or door frames. In Skaneateles, New York, the local government
responded to one couple's zoning violations by sending in sheriff's deputies to drag out
and jail the owner's wife and raze their $350,000 lakefront home." (Lost Rights, p. 20.)
- More property than ever is being seized. Most states now have monthly police sales at which thousands of cars, boats, and other government-looted property is sold. At least $9-billion in assets has been seized from American citizens since the late 1970s. Most of the dispossessed were never charged with any crime.
- Targeting doctors for confiscations: increasingly, government regulatory agencies have been seizing the offices, bank accounts and homes of independent doctors without any trial or hearing, for alleged violations of Medicare and other government health rules. These violations often consist of making mistakes on confusing government paperwork or charging "too much" for health care, where government bureaucrats decide after the fact how much is too much.
- Confiscating your guns. Completely legal guns are now routinely confiscated by police whenever cars or houses are searched, but that's just the beginning. Under SB-2099, now pending before the Senate, any handguns you own would have to be registered with the IRS and you would have to pay a tax of $50 for each handgun you buy. Although the bill doesn't spell this out, any unregistered or untaxed guns in your possession could probably be confiscated under the IRS code.
According to the person who informed us of this bill: "SB-2099 is an amendment to the Internal Revenue Act of 1986. This means that the Finance Committee can pass this without the Senate voting on it at all."
- Confiscation is going international. The option of protecting your property by placing it outside the U.S. is increasingly being closed off. Under strong U.S. pressure, Canada,
Australia, England, Russia and dozens of other countries have passed draconian asset forfeiture laws modeled on our own worst laws.
In addition, the U.S. has recently signed reciprocal confiscation agreements with dozens of other countries. President Clinton even threatened 35 sovereign countries that refused to abolish their bank secrecy and other privacy laws, with financial and even military retaliation! Bush has done nothing to change this. Countries on the government's "hit list" include Andorra, Antigua, Aruba, the British Virgin Islands, Guernsey, Monaco, the Netherlands Antilles, Samoa, St. Vincent, the US Virgin Islands, and Vanauatu. (See Llewellyn Rockwell, "Invade Vanuatu!" at www.lewrockwell.com). The new federal reform law does provide some badly-needed reforms. But it is only a small, first step. Many of its provisions can be side-stepped by state or local adoption. The seizure of property without trial or any real due process of law is an abomination in a free society. When the government can seize your property for thousands of offenses without charging you with any crime, the government – not you – really owns your property.
Confiscation Will Continue To Grow
Unless We Stop It
We very much need a powerful, effective grassroots movement to end the scourge of government confiscation. The first step is to inform the American people of how their property rights are being forfeited. Then we need to form anti-confiscation groups in every state and city, dedicating to publicizing, blocking and repealing confiscation.
The only alternative is to watch helplessly as police and government agents seize more and more cars, homes and businesses, until we are living in a total police state. Current property seizures are very similar to what occurred during the early days of Nazi Germany, only in the U.S. it's not just one class of citizens being dispossessed, but everyone.
There is only one real solution to this abomination: Total abolition of all confiscation laws and return of all seized property to confiscation victims, plus damages. We must also eliminate sovereign-immunity laws, which let police and government officials steal with immunity and personally profit from their seizures. Don't be fooled by federal confiscation reform. We have a long way to go before our right to property is again respected.
Jarret Wollstein is a director of ISIL and author of many ISIL pamphlets, including "The
Looting of America" (on civil forfeiture)
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