Free Republic

Do you think the Internal Revenue Service and other government agencies should have the right to seize your assets, including your bank accounts, when you have not been convicted of wrongdoing? The fact is, the IRS and other government agencies do this all of the time, and often without even a formal accusation of wrongdoing. Anyone who is awake knows that the IRS has been politicized — and thus critics of the administration live in fear that their property will be taken for the mere act of speaking out against the government. The American Founding Fathers well understood that if...

In criminal court, you are innocent until proven guilty. It's a different matter altogether in civil forfeiture, where prosecutors can and do seize the assets of anyone on phony charges. Given there is no recourse or fine, the best the innocent victims can do is get their property back, most likely with a huge delay, if at all. Consider the plight of Terry Dehko and his daughter Sandy Thomas. They run a small grocery store in Fraser, Michigan. Because their insurance only covers a cash limit of $10,000, they frequently make smaller deposits. One day last January, the government seized...