Posted on 12/11/2023 9:48:44 AM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Atlanta News First) - In a rare sign of unity across the aisle, members of Congress want to make it harder for the government to take your cash without charging you with a crime.
“You ought to be convicted before they take your stuff,” U.S. Sen. Rand Paul told Atlanta News First Investigates in his Capitol Hill office. The Kentucky Republican has repeatedly filed a bill to change civil asset forfeiture laws.
That bill has never made it out of committee in the U.S. Senate, but the House of Representatives version of the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act, H.R. 1525, is closer than ever to becoming law.
“We are going to treat law-abiding citizens at the very least the same as we treat criminals,” U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg told Atlanta News First Investigates. The Michigan Republican has been fighting for nine years to get his bill to the House floor.
Atlanta News First Investigates exposed the inner workings of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) program called Operation Jetway. The DEA trains local police and federal agents to blend in with passengers at airport gates, where we recorded them selecting passengers for searches at the boarding door. Court records show, if the agents find $5,000 or more in cash on a passenger flying from Atlanta to Los Angeles, they’ll seize the money as the proceeds of drug trafficking. In the vast majority of cases reviewed by Atlanta News First Investigates, the passengers were not arrested or charged with a crime.
“You’ll catch some crooks in this process as well, but sadly, we’re catching too many innocents who have to fight their way out of this bind,” Wahlberg said. “And many of them can’t do it.”
“You’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, not, ‘Oh, you’re guilty. Give me your stuff, and then you can have it back if you prove you didn’t get it through ill-gotten gains,’” Paul said. “That’s not the way our country’s supposed to work.”
The FAIR Act would increase the standard of proof for the government to keep money after it is seized using civil asset forfeiture, in airports or anywhere else. Currently, the standard is “preponderance of the evidence,” which simply means it’s more likely than not the money is from drug trafficking. That burden on the government is far lower than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard required for a criminal conviction if the person is charged with a crime.
“Give them at least the benefit of the doubt that a criminal gets,” Walberg insisted.
Federal court records show DEA task force officers will seize money if the passenger can’t prove — on the spot — that their money was earned legally.
“Unlike a criminal, they have to prove that they’re innocent, and it’s not the other way around which we normally expect,” Wahlberg said. “That’s a problem.”
The FAIR Act would require police prove the money is from criminal activity with “clear and convincing” evidence.
About 90 percent of cases are handled under administrative asset forfeiture, which means the seizure is never reviewed by a judge. Under current law, the agency that seizes the money gets to keep it.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) took in $1.3 billion last year from civil forfeiture, according to a mandated audit, with most of that coming from the DEA. The DOJ has over $5 Billion in its civil asset forfeiture fund, which the department can spend however it pleases. Most of it, records show, is spent on the programs that lead to more cash seizures.
“It’s a perverse incentive,” Walberg said.
“It was rotten to the core,” Paul said. “A lot of people who get caught up in this are minorities, and people who don’t have the necessary economic circumstances to escape the clutches of government.”
If their bill becomes law, all the money seized by a federal agency would go to the general fund. Agencies like the DEA would no longer be able to keep what they seize. The FAIR Act has 18 co-sponsors. Half of them are Republicans, the other half are Democrats. U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) is Walberg’s primary co-sponsor.
In a divided Congress, it’s rare to see U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) agree on anything, let alone a bill that would regulate policing. But the proposal seems to have united civil rights activists with civil libertarians.
U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson is one of the co-sponsors of the House bill. The Atlanta Democrat was a criminal defense lawyer. His Republican colleague from North Georgia, U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, is also a co-sponsor. They rarely team up on legislation. By all accounts, the House Judiciary Committee has become a partisan battleground. Most hearings and proposals in the committee ignite bitter exchanges between members from the two political parties.
Not the FAIR Act.
The measure passed the House Judiciary Committee with unanimous support in June. “Up until my bill came out of their committee, they hadn’t passed anything out of the committee unanimously” in recent years, Walberg said.
While Walberg is fighting to make his bill federal law, his home state of Michigan recently made it easier for local police there to take money from airline passengers.
Last year, Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a bill exempting police from another law mirroring Walberg’s FAIR Act, but only at airports. Michigan was one of 37 states that had restricted civil asset forfeiture, but the new law goes back to the old rules for seizing — and keeping — money from airline passengers.
“It’s time to stop it,” Walberg said. “We want our law enforcement agents in our communities to protect us from real criminals. But in the end, a constitutional democracy is messy.”
Law enforcement groups have come out against the bill.
The National Sheriffs’ Association sent a letter to members of Congress in July after the bill passed the Judiciary Committee. “Please preserve a critical tool to fight the drug cartels and vote against H.R. 1525,” the association wrote.
The three-page letter said, “Congress would give the cartels a gift.” Walberg said sheriffs in his district have called with concerns. When asking if they’d lose the ability to seize suspected funds at airports, Walberg replied, “No, you’ll just lose the ability to put those funds into your own coffers. The assets will go to the general fund.”
The FAIR Act has been favorably reported to the full House. It’s now up to leadership to decide whether it gets a vote on the House floor. GovTrack gives it a 44 percent chance of passing.
The basic of it is, you have an encounter with the police, you have cash on you, they ask why you have cash, you answer, they say "we don't believe you", take your cash and tell you that you will have to "prove the money innocent in court", walk away with your money and put it in the local police fund.
You money is then transferred to the federal government who then returns part of it to the local police. So you if you win on the local side they will claim that "they no longer have the money" and now you must sue the federal government.
While this story talks about what is happening at airports the above scenario can happen any time, any where. The average amount of cash sized is $600.
This is wrong.
And while this bill is a tiny start down the road we have a long way to go on this issue.
But call your congress critters, yes, even the dims, and tell them to support this bill.
Because what they are doing is wrong.
We became a Banana Republic on 01/07/2021.
Banana Republics routinely confiscate and take money and property from citizens all the time.
It’s what they do.
Oh Rand. You Silly. The government's going to take your stuff anyway. Why wait for a conviction?
Then they find trace remains of cocaine or something in a stack of cash.
Gangster Government.
Title is wrong, Congress will likely never outlaw civil asset seizure.
I wonder if I can do a citizens arrest of someone else’s money and claim the same thing as the swine do, if it is good for the goose, it is good for the gander
The Supreme Court should have eliminated this long ago.
It’s getting tough and tougher to Back the Blue.
So, yeah. I’ve gone from being pro-police in my 20s to being skeptical in my 40s to being extremely skeptical in my…well, now.
And it should be the opposite. The older you get, the more you should be sympathetic to the problems police face.
Something is very wrong here. And I don’t think it’s with me.
During Prohibition the police used the practice to grab anything that might have been used in bootlegging. Once Prohibition was repealed they quit doing it.
The current policy began with the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984.
It was a great idea, with the best of intentions, what could possibly go wrong?
And so here we are.
No, they just say that you have to prove that you did not make it by dealing drugs.
Look up the Steven Lara case if you are feeling unusually happy for some reason and would like to come back to earth with a thud.
BTW this current law would not have helped him.
But it is a start.
The widespread abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture predates Biden by decades. The 1984 law that instituted sharing of seizures with local police kicked into high gear. Why it hasn't been before the SCOTUS every session boggles the mind.
“We became a Banana Republic on 01/07/2021.”
While I do not disagree with your statement, these seizures have been happening since at least the 1980’s.
War on drugs and all of that.
Of course they are. They are thieves, and are making a lot of money from stealing from the peasantry.
All you idiots who supported the "war on (some) drugs" are at fault for supporting this evil.
CAF is one of the worst sections of US law, and is one of the most abused by thugs with badges.
They have found trace amounts of cocaine on bills that have never been released into circulation. It comes from the counting machines at the FRBs.
It has, but I can't remember the case. Even Thomas is on board with this evil tactic. It is one of the few things that I absolutely disagree with him on. He is way too willing to trust government agents.
There’s that word again.
The word that repeatedly pops up when describing what Republicans do.
“A lot of people who get caught up in this are minorities”
Well, that’s obviously the most important thing.
But yeah that is one of the things that seems to prod certain members of congress to do things that are obviously correct.
Sad isn't it?
This stuff has been going on since AT LEAST the Bush Sr. Administration. Maybe even before that but it was during the elder Bush years when I first became aware of it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.