New Front in Civil Forfeiture: Authorities Get Devices to Seize Funds Loaded to Prepaid Cards

Oklahoma Watch ^ | 6/8/2016 | Clifton Adcock

[heartwood]

The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety has purchased several devices capable of seizing funds loaded on to prepaid debit cards to aid troopers in roadside seizures of suspected drug-trafficking proceeds.

The portable card scanners are designed to be carried in law enforcement vehicles, allow troopers to freeze and seize money loaded onto a prepaid debit card, and to return money to an account whose funds were seized or frozen.

The vehicle-mounted scanners are also capable of retrieving and storing limited account information from other cards as well, such as banking debit cards, credit cards and “payment account information from virtually any magnetic stripe card,” according to the website and patent documents of the device manufacturer, Texas-based ERAD Group Inc. ERAD stands for Electronic Recovery and Access to Data.

Law enforcement officials say that civil asset forfeiture is essential in disrupting drug trafficking operations. Civil-rights advocates argue that the process violates individuals’ property and civil liberties and sometimes results in innocent people having money seized on the roadside without being arrested or charged.

The new devices will now allow law enforcement to not only seize money in physical possession of a person being stopped, but from a financial institution holding the money loaded onto a prepaid debit card as well.

Brady Henderson, legal director for ACLU Oklahoma, said the new tactic could easily run afoul of the Fourth Amendment and land the issue in court.

However, law enforcement officials say the devices are essentially part of the arms race between police and drug traffickers, who in recent years have been loading pre-paid cards with millions of dollars for transport as part of the drug trade, thus decreasing the likelihood of seizure by law enforcement.

[faithhopecharity]

when are we going to be able to clean out the dangerous fascist dictator types from our government!?

[Trod Upon]

Not until they are made to fear for their lives.

[ChildOfThe60s]

I certainly do

[Pearls Before Swine]

Terpene... shmerpene.

A dog will get excited if it pleases his master, if a bitch runs across his path, or ... if he smells a ham sandwich.

As you pointed out, there’s a lot of false positives.

[tbw2]

There are many illegal aliens and citizens paid under the table using these debit cards.
So now the feds can take your actual cash and your digital pay check this way.

[T-Bone Texan]

Somewhere, somehow, there is probably a substance called Shmerpene, and teens will try to smoke it.

[redreno]

Real criminal drug dealers will just switch to a different system to carry funds. Like on a smart phone that is encrypted. Cops,acting stupidly.

[tbw2]

I think it was Michigan or another state that recently said you can’t seize without a guilty verdict.
The true abuse is when they take the money and assets on suspicion and don’t even have to file charges.

[Stevenc131]

The next step is they seize your credit cards and charge the maximum amount on them as a cash payout. I thought of this as a joke, but I’m betting in the near future you will hear something about the available balance on a credit card being an asset that can be seized by the state.