cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/13145612
(edit) Would someone please ship some counterfeit money through there and get it confiscated, so the police can then be investigated for spending counterfeit money?
Edit: the following only applies to USPS, so it’s probably a good idea to only use USPS for mail.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1708
Whoever steals, takes, or abstracts, or by fraud or deception obtains, or attempts so to obtain, from or out of any mail, post office, or station thereof, letter box, mail receptacle, or any mail route or other authorized depository for mail matter, or from a letter or mail carrier, any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or abstracts or removes from any such letter, package, bag, or mail, any article or thing contained therein, or secretes, embezzles, or destroys any such letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or any article or thing contained therein; or
Whoever steals, takes, or abstracts, or by fraud or deception obtains any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or any article or thing contained therein which has been left for collection upon or adjacent to a collection box or other authorized depository of mail matter; or
Whoever buys, receives, or conceals, or unlawfully has in his possession, any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or any article or thing contained therein, which has been so stolen, taken, embezzled, or abstracted, as herein described, knowing the same to have been stolen, taken, embezzled, or abstracted—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
A cop who commits a crime is a criminal. A cop who commits a felony crime is a felon. Arrest them.deleted by creator
Shit, you’re right. The only recourse here is a suit against FedEx I think, from anyone who’s had money stolen, and it would have to be based in how they present themselves as a mail carrier such that the average consumer thinks their mail is protected when it’s not. Risky.
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What are the dogs going to do with all that money?
I’ve never heard of cops being called dogs. Pigs, sure. Anyway, money confiscated in this way usually finances police station frills like high-end coffee machines.
Dogs is more accurate. Pigs are cleaner than dogs.
But, a dog’s got personality. Personality goes a long way.
You’ve clearly never chilled with a pig
Really? I thought pigs were 2-cycle animals (eat their own output on the first iteration, like rabbits), no? I mean, sure, some minority of dogs eat their excrement – the same dogs that end up in the homes of Blue Collar Comedy comedians. Tough contest I guess. I had a dog that rolled in every rotten dead fish it encountered by the lake. Not sure why… maybe it serves as a good cologne to attract the females.
(edit) dogs might have a better memory than cops.
pigs have much the same kind of diet as humans, so i don’t know of any reason for them to eat their own poo.
Rabbits do this because they eat fibrous plant matter and it needs to go through twice to be processed sufficiently, they don’t have multiple stomachs like other grazers do.
I meant the animals, but I guess that works too.
yeah, I was slow to realize that. Like a day slow.
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I was about to watch that tonight. I just want to see the scenes where the cops realize they fucked with modern day Rambo.
Oh yes, Civil Forfeiture. But I’m sure that they would never use the counterfeit money to buy new toys for their precinct.
You mean like… let’s say… A Margarita machine?
That movie was pretty good.
However, that is extremely difficult, because the assets themselves — inanimate objects — are listed as the defendants, and such cases often tie the money up in long and challenging legal proceedings.
The money is being treated as a defendant.
No surprise that FedEx isn’t union.
I could not reach that enshitified article but judging from the title, FedEx’s contemp for Black Lives Matter is consistent with their extreme right politics:
- FedEx is an ALEC member (thus opposes labor rights, women’s rights, environmental protection, gun control, taxation, consumer protection, financial regulation, public education, welfare…)
- FedEx used to give a discount to NRA members
- FedEx ships sharkfins, hunting trophies, and slave dolphins
- FedEx was founded by an ex military serviceman (a mostly right wing demographic)
Being on the extreme right would be consistent with BLM contempt. And indeed, fighting unions is FedEx’s core reason for being an ALEC member. Photos of DVDs were leaked and circulated on social media with FedEx on the label and some title like “how to mitigate unions”.
The money is being treated as a defendant.
Saw this shit in a movie last week, it sounded too dumb to be true…
I too watched ‘Rebel Ridge’ last week on Netflix.
First money being speech, now they’re giving money rights! /s
It’s a massive violation of our Constitutional rights, but it turns out it is fine to do because of playing some games pretending the object is the defendant.
I bet those good boys spend it all in toys and snacks. Lol
Edit: Nvm the dogs don’t get to keep the money.
So it is theft twice then. First from the sender, then from the good boys and girls who find it.
Edit: Nvm the dogs don’t get to keep the money.
I’m sure they get plenty of doggie treats, likely procured with civil forfeitures. Which motivates the dogs to find more. I’m not the least bit worried that the dogs are unfairly exploited from the dog’s standpoint.
Indiana law requires any assets seized in a civil forfeiture case to go directly to the school fund — likely to mitigate the moral hazard and incentive to steal citizens’ assets — but little money is actually going to that fund. Instead, police departments are keeping it for themselves, and a 2019 Indiana Supreme Court case upheld that, allowing police, prosecutors or private lawyers contracted to carry out the cases to keep a minimum of 90%.
Naked corruption.
Something similar happened to me. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) seized money from a bank transfer paying rent to my landlord (years ago). It took five days of calls to the bank to find out why the transfer didn’t go through. I got a case number and filled out paperwork disputing it (with OFAC) and the letter I received in response said they had no record of the case.
The best I could hypothesize what happened was that because my landlord had a Middle Eastern-sounding name, maybe this was suspected to relate to terrorism. I gave up. I knew it wasn’t worth my time to pursue because to get justice, I’d have to invest more time and energy than the cash was worth. I nearly got evicted because of this shit and I still judged the bureaucracy too great to address (I think I made the right choice; no sense fighting the government unless my freedom is on the line or it’s some huge sum of money).
I got money orders at the post office and deposited them directly into my landlord’s bank account after that. Huge pain in the ass to make sure my money went where I wanted. I live in a building owned by a corporation, now. I don’t think I’d rent from a private citizen again because of that bullshit. (It’s not like I’ll ever own a home, given that I like living in the Bay Area.)
Since it’s a small amount of money, the legal process would be with small claims court. You don’t need a lawyer for that. Small claims is cheap and easy going. It’s typically under $100 to file (which you get back if you win) and in some states a registered letter is sufficient to serve the other party.
You would not want to sue OFAC though. In this case you would ideally keep a paper trail of your payment attempt and carry on. Give your landlord the proof of payment (attempt) and wait for the landlord to act against you. That’s the easiest… you wait for the court date and show up with proof of your attempt to pay and a copy of your landlord’s payment procedure (which you followed). OFAC apparently did a money grab on the landlord, not you, so you would come away clean so long as you paid as per your landlord’s instructions.
That’s not going to work for long. Best you’re going to get is a stay until you pay. Might as well make it right with the landlord while you actually do take OFAC to small claims court. Because they’ll find it then.
But also, this is what your Congress critter is for. All kinds of things get magically resolved when the congressional office of the honorable so and so makes an inquiry.
That’s not going to work for long. Best you’re going to get is a stay until you pay.
Hold on. Who are you saying OFAC took the money from, the tenant or the landlord? You can’t have it both ways. The tenant complied with the terms of the contract to send the money as directed. OFAC targeted the landlord. A court would not have impose a higher expectation than following contractual obligations.
I could see if a check got lost in the mail, where the result is that the defentant retains possession and constructive use of the money, then a court would have enough descretion to rule fairly. But the OFAC case is not that case.
That’s not how contracts work. Unless the contact specified using that avenue, the only thing that matters is payment received.
But really I think this all smells because OFAC doesn’t actually seize money right away. They freeze it, so it gets deposited but you can’t do anything with it. Which would mean it got to the land lord’s bank account but that account was frozen.
For the money to get pulled into a different account, to actually be seized would mean they had definitely blocked this guy from dealing with Americans. In which case everything, money, buildings, company, is now frozen.
That’s not how contracts work. Unless the contact specified using that avenue, the only thing that matters is payment received.
You apparently believe OFAC took the money from the sender, not the recipient despite targeting the recipient. A court is not going to say that a payer owes money they already paid and must pay again in duplicate despite a government action to take money from the recipient. I have my money on the tenant prevailing in this case. Since OFAC targeted the recipient, the money likely would have left the sender’s bank and landed in the bank of the recipient. At that moment, the money is on the other side of the wall and outside of the sender’s control. The sender did not hire the recipient’s bank. The money grab would have happened after the money landed in the recipient’s bank. A sender cannot be responsible for a recipient’s bank paying their client.
If OFAC were some ransomware/cyber criminal gang running out of Nigeria, I would agree (as it’s not a government confiscating money from a recipient).
If I say in my contract: pay me by stashing cash under a rock at location X, and the payer complies, and then a bypasser takes the money, that’s a problem for the (foolish) person who drafted the contract that way. The drafter of a contract has a higher responsibility to flaws in the text of the agreement than the party who merely agrees to the contract.
For example, the US specifically has a law that states the benefit of ambiguity in contracts goes to the party who did /not/ draft the contract. This rightfully encourages contract writers to be diligent.
Otherwise you are left with penalizing people for faulty contract terms that they did not draft.
“I don’t think I’d rent from a private citizen again because of that bullshit.”
And this is where they won.
Yes, handily.
That’s wild!
You ever check OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals list for your landlord?
Two plot twists that come to mind: landlord was actually ISIS with a great cover story, bank manager stole the money and made up a case number.
Tbh strictly speaking the bank probably shouldn’t have told him anything about the OFAC intervention, they’re not supposed to tip off in these circumstances - so it could well have been a made.up number.
It’s really annoying that @[email protected] just took this on the chin. For me even a dispute over $100 would be worth the courtroom battle just to satisfy my curiousity of what happened. A landlord cannot evict without a court procedure, so the tenant would not have to spend a dime on court costs and bring the paper trail to the court. From there, since the banks (all 3 involved) did a shitty job of investigating, they could have been named as 2nd party defendants (sue them all, let the judge sort it out). The investigation should have revealed the bank where the money landed and the actual bank account from there. They could then use the court to subpoena the agency that has “no record of the case”, but who the bank says has the money. If there is no case, then they can return the money (a judge would say).
OFAC obviously benefitted from someone’s court phobia even though the tenant had nothing to worry about.
Yeah, well my mental health was a greater priority as I was in a shitty place for a number of years. I’m not here to be a crusader when I’m barely staying alive. (That time of my life has happily been in the rearview mirror for a while now.)
Are there actually legitimate use cases to send larger amounts of cash in a regular package? Typically, such packages are not insured or only up to a rather small amount. So, if you want to transfer a large amount in cash, most people would probably use a dedicated cash transfer service. Or even more likely, do it electronically.
Or do they also seize small amounts of money from birthday presents and christmas cards?
It doesn’t matter. The point of the way our laws are supposed to work is that the government can’t go looking at people and their stuff without suspicion. The stuff itself cannot be the suspicion unless its only common purpose is criminal. That’s why a stack of money should be safe in plain sight, but not a bong.
I would venture to say that the common purpose of money is criminal. Crimes defined by me are different from crimes defined by our criminal overlords.
You are allowed your opinion.
K. What’s the point of this reply?
What’s the point of talking about your opinion on the economic system as a whole when the topic is Civil Asset Forfeiture?
My reply directly related to your comment.
Not really. We aren’t talking about Mango’s personal opinion on what is a crime.
I don’t know about the US but in Germany the context of things is definitely considered to judge if something is common or suspicious.
It’s perfectly legal to own a clown mask and to wear it during carnival would be common. If you wear one outside carnival and walk towards the door of a bank, that’s pretty suspicious.
It’s perfectly legal to stand around in public. If you do it alone, at night in an area that’s known to have many drug dealers and you suddenly start to run away if the police strolls along, then that’s suspicious again.
And if the police considers you to be suspicious, they will ask what you’re doing and to explain your behavior. They won’t straight away throw you into jail obviously but they have the right to do a routine check.
For me, the cash in a regular package is really similar. If they seize your cash and you can proof that it was a weird way to pay for a car or that your aunt forgot her pile of cash when she visited you and you send it after her, then I’m quite sure, they’ll have to hand it back. If you object to explain who sent you $10.000 and why, then I agree to find that pretty suspicious.
Assuming criminals do use FedEx etc. to transfer illegally earned money anonymously from one place to another, what would be the alternative to intervene? Or would you just let it happen?
The problem here is the money itself has no intent. It’s not walking towards a bank wearing a mask. And there’s no law that says you have to use banks. It’s entirely legal to cash out all of your paychecks, keep the money in your mattress, and then go pay for a car in cash. Since the great Depression there are still Americans who distrust the banking system.
To confiscate that money based solely on the fact that it’s money should be illegal. It was illegal until the 1980’s. Then we convinced ourselves that although we have a right to due process and high standards for searches and seizures of our property; our property itself does not have any rights and can be detained on it’s own. That is, they can take your property, without charging you with any crime. They instead charge the money, house, car, etc, with the crime and you are now in the position of proving it’s not criminal without any of the court protections you would have if you were charged. No jury, no free lawyer, and no assumption of innocence for the state to overcome.
If that sounds like something that could be abused, it absolutely has been. Cities have used it to clear land for development without paying for it. Some small towns are notorious for taking any bundles of cash they can from people passing through.
So, if you want to transfer a large amount in cash, most people would probably use a dedicated cash transfer service.
“most people”. Luckily we know that it’s an injustice to marginalize minority groups.
Problems with xfer services:
① fees
② privacyIt’s really absurd, but money transfer services often charge a percentage of the amount transferred (esp.if forex is involved), as if sending more money somehow costs them more electricity to transmit. I feel like I’m being ripped off when charged a percentage of money that moves and even if the price is reasonable I will reject that option on general principle.
You potentially pay more to the transfer company than a courrier and give up privacy on top of it.
③ shipping is faster than electronic payment (no joke!)
I shit you not. I tried a payment service once to send a few hundred to someone for a laptop. Two days later I got a fraud alert demanding that I call a number. I was interrogated:
- how do you know the recipient? What is your relationship to them?
- what are you buying?
- why are you buying it?
WTF? When I send money in the mail, the postal worker does not pull this shit and snoop on me. After the interrogation, it took another day or two for the money to reach the recipient. The post would have been faster and hassle free.
④ we now live in a frenzy of AML extremists coupled with the masses being pushover consumers who will go along with being cattled herded. Non-criminals are being harrassed, inconvenienced, forced to overshare information, and generally oppressed in this fishing for criminals which is being carried out with total disregard for colatteral damage to law-abiding people. Why? Lazy law enforcement. They want /their/ job to be convenient. They want evidence of crime to fall in their lap, rather than to do clever good investigative work.
⑤ a sender may have to ship something AND pay money. I know jewelers. It’s common for someone who is buying new jewelry to pay partially in scrap gold. They give the jeweler their unwanted jewelry which has a melt value. The jeweler reduces the price of the new jewelry by the value of the scrap gold. If you are shipping scrap gold, why make a separate trip to a money transfer service and pay more fees? It’s cheaper and easier to put cash in the pkg if you trust the jeweler. Or a customer might want the very same gold or stones their great grandmother wore to be made into something else.
A jeweler told me uninsured packages have a very high rate of loss. Couriers apparently know when jewelry is being shipped, at least when the sender is “Bob’s diamond shop”. Insurance works as a great deterrant. A courrier knows there will be an internal investigation when an insured pkg does not reach the recipient. They can only steal so many of them before a pattern emerges. Insurance is so reliable for jewelers shipping gold and precious stones, they would just as well trust it for cash.
Thanks a lot for the detailed answer! It helped me to better understand your perspective.
Regarding (1) I can somehow understand why it’s often a percentage. The more valuable the goods that you transport, the higher the associated risks. Insurance costs are higher and also the employees are more endagered of being robbed.
Regarding (3) I would say that’s only in very specific scenarios like international money transfer from/to sanctioned countries or if the recipient is on some kind of watch list. PayPal, Credit Card, Crypto Currency etc. should typically all process within seconds. International bank transfer also shouldn’t take more than a few days. And if we’re talking about delays caused by sanctions, then physical deliveries are affected as well.
What is still hard to understand for me is that people would send ANYTHING valuable in a non insured package, especially money. As you mentioned yourself in point (5), there’s a huge risk of it being lost or stolen. Also independent of (potentially unlawful) police officers. Therefore, my intuitive feeling was, whoever is willing to take that risk, has a lot of money to transfer and is willing to lose some in favor to stay invisible.
If you use a courier service that’s specialized on valuables which offers also insurance etc. that’s a completely different story to me. But insured FedEx packages full of cash are still suspicious to me and I find it fair to question the legitimacy.
I can somehow understand why it’s often a percentage.
But luckily under the capitalist paradigm every consumer can decide for themselves what prices are reasonable and decide whether a transaction is in their interest. I don’t care how they justify their price. If they are charging me 1% to move 5 figures, I’m not okay with paying upwards of $100 to move money. If there really is $100 worth of risk in moving money electronically, then I don’t want a piece of that action.
PayPal, Credit Card, Crypto Currency etc. should typically all process within seconds.
PayPal shares your personal info with over 600 corporations:
https://git.disroot.org/cyberMonk/liberethos_paradigm/src/branch/master/rap_sheets/paypal.md
Credit card: there are only 3 to choose from in most regions.
- visa: member of the Better than Cash Alliance; pays merchants $10k to reject cash, thus whenever you pay for something with Visa you help an entity who is trying to impose forced banking on us. Visa also blocked payments to Wikileaks, thus taking away our autonomy.
- mastercard: member of the Better than Cash Alliance. Blocked payments to Wikileaks, thus taking away our autonomy. Sells offline transaction data to Google (and Google does business with the Israeli military).
- american express: ALEC member, thus supports Trump and US republicans, opposes labor rights, fights women’s rights, fights environmental protection and supports climate denial propaganda, fights gun control, fights immigration, etc. Also blocked payments to Wikileaks.
- credit card does not work in the other direction. A jeweler cannot expect customers who sell their scrap gold to accept credit card. An individual is not going to setup a squareup or whatever it is just to do a one-off transaction.
Cryptocurrency requires both people to use, which kills it as an option in most cases.
All of those options, including cryptocurrency, expose more data than cash and bring in risks with that exposure.
my intuitive feeling was, whoever is willing to take that risk, has a lot of money to transfer and is willing to lose some in favor to stay invisible.
Most people don’t have the insight that my fellow jewelers do. Most people think the risk of an uninsured pkg getting lost is the same as an insured pkg. They decide to save money and take the risk without understanding the heightened risk.
My reason for bringing up insurance was that insurance provides a way to secure valuables like cash. The best security is a good insurance policy. It gives a good option for the legit shipping of cash. The jeweler in the article most likely insured the $47k+ value. But if they didn’t, then it was most likely a young jeweler who has not learned that lesson. Either way, insurance does not likely protect victims from government actions, which is likely why the victims had to directly sue the state.
If you use a courier service that’s specialized on valuables which offers also insurance etc.
Something like that might exist in major cities but probably over 95% of the US is rural where some people are lucky if FedEx is within reasonable reach, much less anything special purpose. DHL abandoned the US, IIRC because they could not spread enough with enough reach to be sustainable. FedEx and UPS have a near duopoly.
Regarding all the companies you’ve critized: isn’t that unfortunately the case for many if not most bigger companies?
I don’t live in the US, so I can’t guarantee that the following statements are all correct and up to date. However, after a quick research many of the issues apply to FedEx as well.
FedEx donates far more money to republicans than democats and did so historically (source).
FedEx critized Trump in 2018 on some specific ideas but couldn’t find anything like that in the recent past.
If you sign up with FedEx, they may share all your data with their partners. According to Reddit even including your including your credentials (wtf). (source).
FedEx may scan the ID of the recipient (source).
FedEx requires an ID when sending in store (source).
Cash shipments are officially forbidden as per the FedEx ToS, no matter if the package is insured or not. If money is shipped anyhow it is not covered by the insurance. (source .
Didn’t find infos on memberships but FedEx promotes digital payments and the ‘Better than cash’ alliance source).
According to this petition FedEx and Pfitzer are among the biggest funders of ALEC and Project 2025.
TBC. Just wanted to list a few of the quick findings.
Regarding acceptance of cryptocurrency or other forms of payments, I think that’s similar for sending cash in a box. Again, I don’t live in the US, but in Germany you’d be having a hard time to find a jeweler or other professional entity that accepts such a form of payment. First, they won’t want to have discussions if packages are lost or valuables are partly stolen from the package. Second, they don’t want to be associated with dubious businesses. Furthermore, there’s a legal limit for cash payments of 10,000€ to avoid money laundering.
I think to get back to the original topic, it’d be interesting to see some statistics on what percentage of the cases where police seized cash from packages were legal (although against FedEx ToS) and how many were related to criminal activities. If it’s like 90% crime and the 10% legitimate senders/recipients have a chance to reclaim their money after providing further details, then I’m fine with that. If the numbers are the other way around, I’m siding with you. ;)
Regarding all the companies you’ve critized: isn’t that unfortunately the case for many if not most bigger companies?
Yes but not equally so. As an ethical consumer I choose the lesser of evils. Also, this isn’t about me. Consumers have a right to make their own choices. Most do not give a shit about ethics and the masses tend to choose the best financial deal. Some are lazy but ethical. That is, they heard a negative blurb about one supplier and they boycott that one supplier not knowing that it leads them to support a higher detriment.
Cash shipments are officially forbidden as per the FedEx ToS, no matter if the package is insured or not. If money is shipped anyhow it is not covered by the insurance.
Either way, it’s the sender’s choice whether to take the risk as they understand it. And they may not understand the risk. A wise sender would insure the package regardless of the contents. Even if the insurance would not pay out, the mere flag that a pkg has insurance has the effect of deterrance. Staff mostly only steal packages that are uninsured because those do not lead to investigation.
However, after a quick research many of the issues apply to FedEx as well.
I have been boycotting FedEx over a decade for those reasons (but note that I see nothing tying FedEx to the Better than Cash Alliance). But this isn’t about me. A republican would happily support FedEx.
Regarding acceptance of cryptocurrency or other forms of payments, I think that’s similar for sending cash in a box.
Cryptocurrency is as close as you can get in a digital mechanism that respects privacy like cash, but there is still a big difference. CC is a public ledger. Everyone sees every transaction and identities can be discovered and doxxed.
in Germany you’d be having a hard time to find a jeweler or other professional entity that accepts such a form of payment.
Luckily it’s the jeweler’s choice.
First, they won’t want to have discussions if packages are lost or valuables are partly stolen from the package.
Not sure what the point is here. Of course when a package is lost the parties involved both have a mutual interest in a claim being filed. A supplier who does not do their part in filing a claim does not get off the hook for the missing package. They still owe the recipient a package, so it is in their interest to file a claim.
Second, they don’t want to be associated with dubious businesses.
That is exactly the harm that perpetuates when you tie a tool to a stigma. It’s not okay to take away useful tools and options from non-criminals on the basis that criminals use them. We do not ban cars on the basis that they are a tool for drive-by shootings.
Furthermore, there’s a legal limit for cash payments of 10,000€ to avoid money laundering.
That’s shitty indeed because it oppresses non-criminals with a policy of forced banking.
I think to get back to the original topic, it’d be interesting to see some statistics on what percentage of the cases where police seized cash from packages were legal (although against FedEx ToS) and how many were related to criminal activities.
Not really. Marginalizing and oppressing non-criminals is not justified by a hunt for criminals. If your approach to hunting criminals harms non-criminals, you’re doing it wrong.
The case at hand is even more perverse, as the civil forfeiture practice actually hinders enforcement of law. They do the money grab for the money. When you seize cash, you send a clear signal to criminals that they are being investigated. It tips them off with intelligence that helps them adjust their operations. When you seize money from a tax evader a year before they evade tax by filing their fraudulent tax return, you actually sabotage the opportunity to catch them (it’s crime-prevention prevention). You can only catch them by recording the cash and letting it go, then auditing their tax using that information a year or two later.
It’s not okay to take away useful tools and options from non-criminals on the basis that criminals use them. We do not ban cars on the basis that they are a tool for drive-by shootings.
Again, I would say that should depend on statistics. If a tool is misused for criminal activities in the vast majority of cases, I think you have to make some compromise on personal freedom in favor of security and law enforcement.
Not really. Marginalizing and oppressing non-criminals is not justified by a hunt for criminals. If your approach to hunting criminals harms non-criminals, you’re doing it wrong.
Isn’t that the case for many preventive security measures? I mean the baggage checks at the airport are time consuming and restrict everyone on bringing liquids, large batteries, forks, knives etc. into the plane. And I’m pretty sure, the ratio of ‘terrorists carrying bombs’ to ‘just normal people bringing their water bottle’ is significantly worse than the crime : non-crime factor in case of FedEx cash.
Same with routine controls at a border or on the highway. It’s annoying for many people due to delays just to catch some few smugglers, overloaded trucks etc.
A security camera in a bank will film thousands of regular customers before it ever (if at all) gets to see a robbery.
I fully understand that people criticise all of these measures but to be honest I have some doubts that getting rid of everything would be a smart idea.
Law enforcement by definition deals with suspects not convicted criminals. So even if we moved to a purely reactive law enforcement, your measures will still affect the innocent suspects.
The case at hand is even more perverse, as the civil forfeiture practice actually hinders enforcement of law. They do the money grab for the money. When you seize cash, you send a clear signal to criminals that they are being investigated.
That point I see as well. But wouldn’t the alternative be even worse for you from a privacy perspective? They keep the practice of scanning packages but rather than seizing the money, they send investigators after the intended recipient. That wouldn’t only dramatically increase the costs of law enforcement but also lead to innocents being supervised.
When you seize money from a tax evader a year before they evade tax by filing their fraudulent tax return, you actually sabotage the opportunity to catch them (it’s crime-prevention prevention). You can only catch them by recording the cash and letting it go, then auditing their tax using that information a year or two later.
Not all money transfers are taxable income. So if police knows that you received 10,000 in a box last year but didn’t declare it that doesn’t automatically mean you invaded taxes. The criminal could say, that it wasn’t their money and they gave it to someone else, declare it as a gift or a returned loan from a friend. They could also just say that the package was stolen from the porch and never arrived.
Furthermore, the recipient on the label may not be real person. Maybe the money is shipped to “Mr & Mrs Activist Punk” but the real criminal is waiting in front of the house to intercept the delivery.
All in all, I still think seizing big amounts of cash from deliveries is somewhat acceptable as long as…
- Police can provide statistics to underline that the practice is used by criminals in a significant manner.
- All cases are well-documented and no money is going to the policemen themselves.
- There is a reasonable limit (e.g. don’t seize 100 USD that aunt Marty sends to her nephew for his birthday).
- The sender and recipient are informed about the money being seized and have a chance to reclaim it if they can proof the legitimate background.
Again, I would say that should depend on statistics.
Certainly that is a recipe for marginalizing minorities. In the US there is a principle that people are innocent until proven guilty. We could flip that and say guilty until proven innocent, but we don’t because we rightfully prioritize the well being of non-criminals above prosecution of criminals. It is unacceptible to say we can harm some non-criminals in pursuit of making it more convenient for cops to do their job. It’s better to overlook 10 criminals than to harm 1 innocent person. It’s not okay to sacrifice non-criminals for the sake of law enforcement.
Isn’t that the case for many preventive security measures? I mean the baggage checks at the airport are time consuming and restrict everyone on bringing liquids, large batteries, forks, knives etc. into the plane.
Passengers are rightfully allowed to bring knives and guns onto a plane, so long as it is in their checked luggage. This does not materially hinder people’s options. You don’t need a weapon when all potential attackers are also disarmed. But you still have a right to take your weapon to your destination, and rightfully so.
To equate a FedEx cash search with shipping batteries in a dangerous way with a precious payload (human lives) is an absurdity. If someone wants to commit suicide there are many better ways to do so than to carry a battery 10,000 feet up and then have it set fire on your vessel. You are not really materially hindering someone’s personal way of life by taking away the option kill themselves and others during a flight.
The passengers who share the plane with someone who wants to transport dangerous materials that compromise their safety directly mutually benefit from safety checks.
At the same time, if the person flying next to me carries a bit of cocaine, then no I do not benefit from a cocaine search and oppose it because it’s a violation of 4th amendment rights (if carried out by TSA). Such a search is looking for a crime against the state, not a crime against the person who sits next to a cocaine user. It’s extra perverse when non-criminals lives are hindered in an effort to enforce crimes against the state and victimless crimes.
Same with routine controls at a border or on the highway. It’s annoying for many people due to delays just to catch some few smugglers, overloaded trucks etc.
This is a good example of harm coming to non-criminals in the hunt for criminals. They violate everyone’s 4th amendment rights to go on a fishing expedition because the cops are too lazy to get a warrant and properly do a targeted search of suspects.
A security camera in a bank will film thousands of regular customers before it ever (if at all) gets to see a robbery.
That’s private sector. I give less of a shit about that because a bank has a right to secure their premises however they see appropriate in their business model, and as a consumer I have a choice whether or not to use a bank. If I don’t like the way they operate, I can opt-out, (unlike Europe where you now have forced banking).
Law enforcement by definition deals with suspects not convicted criminals.
No we are not dealing with suspects. Indiana is performing a general search without a suspect and without a warrant. If Indiana were to say to FedEx “we have a warrant to search pkgs to and from Bill Harvey at address X, please set aside those packages for us to search”, and then the sniffer dogs were used only on Bill Harvey’s payloads, that would be dealing with suspects and I would not object to seizing those pkgs. But still likely dubious for the police to simply pocket the money, rather than tag it and put it in the evidence room.
But wouldn’t the alternative be even worse for you from a privacy perspective? They keep the practice of scanning packages but rather than seizing the money, they send investigators after the intended recipient. That wouldn’t only dramatically increase the costs of law enforcement but also lead to innocents being supervised.
First of all, whether or not to inform the customer that their pkg was flagged is not obviated by the decision to not confiscate. Some TSA workers will search a bag and insert a tag. When you arrive at your destination you might open up your luggage and see a tag that essentially says “TSA was here”. Apart from whether the search was appropriate in the first place, the transparency is proper when the target is vindicated. They found nothing, but they owe it to the subject to be transparent.
Non-criminals rightfully have an expectation of privacy under the 4th amendment. Criminals do not, as it is 4th amendment compliant to search when there is just cause to do so. They should not be searching pkgs of non-suspects in the first place, but if they do and they find no actionable evidence of crime they absolutely should be doing what TSA does and they should do so without keeping the person’s possessions. If it’s a business transaction that includes indications of taxability, and they can also see no history of tax declarations that exceed electronic revenue (or whatever clues are justifiable as cause for action such as past offenses), then the police should be competent in their trade, which is to get convictions, which implies not tipping off the criminal suspect.
Under the status quo, the police are both tipping off criminals and also creating victims out of non-criminals.
Not all money transfers are taxable income. So if police knows that you received 10,000 in a box last year but didn’t declare it that doesn’t automatically mean you invaded taxes.
Of course. If the metadata (sender & recipient + their criminal records) and other items in the package do not suggest that it’s a taxable transaction, they have no cause to treat the pkg as suspect. In this case, they should not have searched it in the first place but on top of that there is no cause for further action either.
Furthermore, the recipient on the label may not be real person.
This would be cause for suspicion of a crime. But Indiana is not limiting their action to pkgs that give cause for suspicion.
In a drug case, indeed you cannot assume the parties on the pkg are accurate. Someone once received a package of mj. Police staked out the house, saw him accept the pkg, waited breifly, then stormed into the house. The pkg was left inside the door, unopened. The recipient argued that he was not expecting the pkg and did not know what was in it. He rightfully won that case. The mistake the cops made was to raid before he opened it. He needed time to open it and then react by calling the police.
Confiscating the evidence before the pkg even reaches the destination is terrible police work. That is not how you enforce crime. It only creates victims from non-criminals.
Low value foreign currency, i.e. for collectors?
You can buy a lot of issues in packs of 100 or even 1,000 notes for a few tens of dollars, and it’s not worth calling Brinks for some old Soviet roubles or Zimbabwe dollars. Would likely still smell like money.
Okay, valid point. But is the police seizing such packages? If we assume the police is stealing it out of greed, that wouldn’t be too profitable for them to steal 5 USD in Zimbabwe dollars.
I thought they’re confiscating cash with a higher value, like bundlSe of USD/CAD/EUR/AUD etc. In the article they wrote 6 million USD and on the picture I see only US notes as well. And if that’s the case, I somewhat agree that that’s a bit suspicious.
Still, they shouldn’t just take and keep it, but if they confiscate it and then contact the recipient to explain the background of the transaction, I’d be fine with that.
If you carry large amounts of cash on a flight you also have provide reason and papertrail for that.
So people should sue FedEx and let FedEx either stop transporting through the state or sue the state with those deep pockets. Or idk maybe the doj should fucking take this up as they are now fucking with interstate commerce and committing felonies as a state.
The institute for justice FIRE and a couple other major civil rights organizations have been working working on getting civil forfeiture over turned and made unconstitutional for decades now
Yea it’s taking too long
Conservatives love civil asset forfeiture. They will fight like hell to keep it.
for decades now
When obvious criminal activity requires decades to solve you should kind of take the hint…
I take it you have never been involved in the legal system
IIRC, New Mexico banned civil forfeiture. But the cops kept doing it anyway. So a law change is not enough… enforcement is also needed. Yes, against the police, sadly enough.
They can still perform asset forfeiture if they believe there is criminal probability. So they only need to have weak evidence criminal activity is at issue, to search, and confiscate things. Since this is the majority of what they did already, it didn’t do too much. This was mostly an attempt, by the state DA, to get ahead of the movement against asset forfeiture. A way for them to keep doing what they are doing, while paying lip service to civil rights. However their argument didn’t work as all forms of asset forfeiture are in the sights. They hoped having more cause, and a stricter documentation, would give them the leeway needed, but the case being brought is that if the item isn’t specifically evidence, it can’t be seized, if it is evidence it can’t kept, or there are other laws determining what is to be done when a conviction is had. So FIRE has said while it is nice it is a little more strict there, it is in no way outside of the scope of their lawsuits.
I’ve been boycotting FedEx for over a decade. Not for this reason but for the other reasons I mention in this thread.
It’s quite hard because many sellers do not disclose who they use for shipping. I can sometimes add a comment to my order saying “Do not use FedEx. If that’s the only option then cancel my order.” This makes online shopping tedious, so I’ve been driven to just shop locally.
Most criminals know to use USPS as unlike others a warrant is required to open any mail.
Always ship usps
Cash is commonly banned by most logistics companies. As it is openly stated that it will not be carried by FedEx, it’s no stretch that the police will consider it contraband.
Source: I work for a competing company that also will not ship cash. Any of our employees will tell you no. Ship cash at your own risk.
As it is openly stated that it will not be carried by FedEx, it’s no stretch that the police will consider it contraband.
It is a stretch. Enforcing contractual agreements is not the job of the police. And it’s also a stretch to say the police are looking to protect the contractual interests of FedEx.
It’s also strangely inconsistent with FedEx’s anything goes practices, whereby FedEx is known for shipping morally dubious payloads:
- #sharkFins (illegal in countries that have a shred of respect animal welfare and the environment)
- hunting trophies
- slave dolphins
Normally, FedEx could normally claim that they are simply maximizing the bottom line in their duty to their greedy shareholders. But the cash ban is not consistent with that. Unless FedEx believes that anyone who loses an insured pkg would claim the pkg included cash as a way to max out the insurance payout. But in that case, it is not in FedEx’s business interest to enforce the policy – just to be able to point to the policy when an insurance claimant say cash was lost.
(update) In fact, police are preventing crime prevention by grabbing the cash. This inspired me to propose a new rule.
Pack your shit up tight, and send it with USPS. They need a reason (real suspicion) to open your package, so don’t give them any.
But wouldn’t a particular dog with particular training who then becomes very interested in your unopened USPS package be a real reason to open the pkg?
Only if the dog is meant to detect illegal substances. The USPS system doesn’t allow local police to go fishing.
USPS is federally regulated and have different protections. Mail shipped through USPS cannot be opened by anyone other than the recipient for any reason besides a warrant. A dog indicating on your package would mean nothing to postal inspectors. Fedex and UPS are private companies and your packages do not have the same protections.
I have never heard of dogs being used to mass inspect USPS packages. I’m unsure if that would qualify as a reason for opening USPS packages. I can tell you as someone who lives in a community infamous as the source of many illicit packages (and the destination of the subsequent illicit payments), common knowledge here is to use USPS.
Hey, that’s “Civil” Forfeiture in 2024.
“We have guns and riot gear. Wtf you gonna do about it?” – Signed, Bullies with Badges
Is it illegal to mail cash or something? Or are they just blatantly stealing from people?
It is against FedEx policy. These are terms you would agree to if signing for a shipment.
It’s not illegal. It’s also not illegal for the police to claim it’s criminal profits and seize it. The courts decided your money, (and other property), does not enjoy the same rights you do. So you have a right against search and seizure but your money and other property does not. This does three things. It opens your stuff up to be seized without a warrant, it makes it a civil case to get your stuff back, and you have to prove you’re not a criminal and your stuff wasn’t used by criminals.
It is absolutely unconstitutional on the grounds that it’s a naked evasion of our 4th, 5th, and 6th amendment rights. But good luck explaining that to the guys with the guns.
This is why everyone should have guns. Steal my rent then, assholes!
I know that feels good but you will not survive it. Don’t shoot at the police.
Yeah it only works if everyone shoots at the police.
At which point we’ll have disarmed them via political means anyways.
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Neither will they. What’s the point of surviving with them around?
You might get a couple but there’s thousands of them.
More people like me need balls. Especially me. More importantly, I need to be armed and can’t just go buy at a store because of them.
By the time you have enough buy in to seriously threaten the cops in an area, you also have enough buy in to just elect politicians that will disarm them.
No it’s not illegal. Yes they are blatantly stealing. Fuck cops. Fuck Republicans voting laws to allow this shit.
