Talk-Polywell.org

Guilty until proven....who needs to prove anything anymore?

Welcome to the world of "civil forfeiture". Property has no rights, so charge the property with the crime. The DEA's done it for about two decades now.

That said, the present case does seem to go a bit further than even that - At least in normal civil forfeiture, If by some miracle you can prove that the property had nothing to do with a crime, you can theoretically get it back; With Megaupload, the government hasn't even allowed for that nigh-impossible standard of winning.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/07/28/ ... -dismissed

Lucky hardly anyone made a stink when they were doing it to dopers. Now with precedent set they can do it to anyone, anywhere, for anything.

First they came for.....

LMAOROTF

But you have to admit the dopers got it good and hard. So there is that. Deserved it too.

Freezing assets because of an unresolved conflict is not forfeiture. Assets have been frozen for many reasons over many decades, but they remain the possession of their owner until confiscated. By contrast, forfeited assets can and are sold for profit.

The King used to do these sorts of things when we were part of England. We had a war over it. Wrote a Constitution to prevent a reoccurrence and a bunch of fools gave it all up to go after dopers.

I predict that 20 to 50 years of totalitarian rule in America will cure Americans for a while. And then some one some where will find some people who NEED to be punished and the cycle will start over.

GIThruster wrote:Freezing assets because of an unresolved conflict is not forfeiture. Assets have been frozen for many reasons over many decades, but they remain the possession of their owner until confiscated. By contrast, forfeited assets can and are sold for profit.

Good idea. I hope they freeze yours until you don't need them any more. Given that you are probably guilty of Three Felonies a Day they will have ample reason to hold your assets while they investigate all the felonies you have committed.

Let me assume you are 41. Say 20 years worth. That is 20X365.25=7,305 felonies that will need to be looked into. At a months investigation per that is 600 years give or take. You are going to need to borrow money for lawyers of course. If anyone will lend to you.

Worth it to beat up on dopers don't you think? I do.

What is too funny is that the Dope War appears to be on its way out. But it has done its job. And done it well.

The pretend conservatives like Diogenes and GIThruter still haven't gotten around to slighting the right to a speedy trial in their pursuit of teh drugs, and seizures pursuant to a criminal case must be resolved with the case. The gov's claims here will not be allowed to stand.

Unless this is the start of that right's erosion...

You two aren't making any sense. Since you're both so horribly confused, take a shower, drink a pot of coffee, and without taking any drugs, sit back down and try to understand.

Freezing assets has nothing to do with forfeiture. Assets that have been frozen have not been taken, and freezing assets is not something commonly used in drug cases. Freezing assets is something the federal government is empowered to do under very specific conditions that concern international entities that would otherwise escape American justice.

In the link above, the issue is that the feds froze the assets of an international company that was making a living through piracy and theft of American IP's such as major motion pictures, and that company did not have any US address, so the only remedy was to freeze what assets they had in the country until the issue goes to court. Now it is in Megaupload's interest to pursue the issue in court instead of forcing the feds to chase them down.

None of this is even remotely connected to drug related forfeiture laws. I already explained this once, and since then all you two have done is participate in a lot of childish rhetoric. Again with Simon wishing ill on others--really makes a strong case that you're an adult, doesn't it?

Perky, I have already said that I don't think forfeiture passes the due process clause. I'm just not concerned about it because it's restrained to parasites on society--generally drug dealers and smugglers. Regardless, it's got nothing to do with freezing assets.

From the perspective of the person whose assets are impacted, an indefinite freeze where they can no longer use the asset is indistinguishable from forfeiture. The key point is denying someone use of their property.

Either way, when the process is abused I see it more as a decline in respect for property rights than a specific artifact of the drug war.

hanelyp wrote:From the perspective of the person whose assets are impacted, an indefinite freeze where they can no longer use the asset is indistinguishable from forfeiture. The key point is denying someone use of their property.

Denying someone access to their assets while under federal indictment is in no way related to forfeiture. Forfeiture doesn't require either an indictment nor criminal charges filed and is not permanent. Freezing access is contingent upon files charges and the expectation that an international entity will try to flee the justice system, and the process of freezing access to assets is internationally recognized as a lawful act. Many nations do this. Forfeiture is not in the same category as it presumes guilt. Forfeiture is an anomaly in the US where we assume innocence until guilt is proven, and easily argued as a violation of due process.

hanelyp wrote:From the perspective of the person whose assets are impacted, an indefinite freeze where they can no longer use the asset is indistinguishable from forfeiture. The key point is denying someone use of their property.

Denying someone access to their assets while under federal indictment is in no way related to forfeiture. Forfeiture doesn't require an indictment and is permanent. Freezing access is contingent upon charges filed and the expectation that an international entity will try to flee the justice system, and the process of freezing access to assets is internationally recognized as a lawful act. Many nations do this. Forfeiture is not in the same category as it presumes guilt. Forfeiture is an anomaly in the US where we assume innocence until guilt is proven, and easily argued as a violation of due process. The reason forfeiture is considered an exception to the rule of due process is that the presence of contraband is prima facia physical evidence of criminality, specifically held in situations where the asset owners may not be present to account for their crimes.

No question that forfeiture outside of contraband or as penalty on criminal conviction is out of order for a free nation.

A freeze pending resolution of a criminal prosecution wouldn't be indefinite, presuming a speedy trial as guaranteed by the US constitution is delivered. Of course even then the prosecution requesting the asset freeze should need to connect the assets to the crime charged.