Posted on 05/10/2014 5:26:21 PM PDT by Innovative
In civil forfeiture, authorities dont have to prove guilt, file charges or obtain a conviction before seizing private property. Critics say it is a process ripe for abuse, and one which leaves citizens little means of fighting back.
They said they wanted his Tewksbury, Mass., business and the land it was on because they suspected it was a hotbed for drug-dealing and prostitution.
After a four-day trial, on Jan. 24, 2013, a federal judge in Boston dismissed the forfeiture action against the motel, ruling that the government engaged in gross exaggeration of the evidence and did not have authority to seize the property.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I too have been yelling about this for longer than I can even remember. Supporters of the war on drugs are some of the biggest dangers to liberty this country has. I'm sick to death of the 'left' and 'right' taking turns destroying my rights from both sides.
Some people are smart enough to remember how these laws were justified and it was directly due to the war on (some) drugs. Without the justification for these laws the laws dont need to exist anymore.
You'd think so, if you are a rational thinker. However, if you actually go back, and dig through the prescident (sp?) that are the foundations of the war on drugs, and follow the rabbit all the way down the hole, you will find that the entire ediface of the drug war rests primarily upon cases adjudicated during prohibition.
Think about that for a second. Why were the laws correctly decided originally? Well, we have a constitutional amendment making those laws legal. They were directly supported by a (stupidly enacted) amendment to the constitution itself. Therefore, the laws had a firm foundation.
Now ... how did prohibition end? Right! They repealed the amendment that was used to build that entire foundation of case law. Why weren't all those cases and decisions rendered moot from a precident perspective after the repeal of prohibition? Well, the government decided it liked the power it had usurped, and didn't want to give it back.
Lots of people point to the commerce clause (and the many evils that surround it) when looking at drug laws, but ultimately, the case law was not buillt on commerce. It was built on an existant constitutional amendment. The entirety of the war on drugs is a house without a foundation.
Yet we sell have freepers that support it.
I'm not sure where it comes from or even if it is accurate, but my best guess is the federal reserve, given what was going on at the time.
Thank God that these people weren't in charge during the times of the American Revolution or it wouldn't have happened.
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