For those of you who did not see it or who may have forgotten about it, one of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight episodes had a blistering piece on the police effectively engaging in legalized theft through the asset forfeiture programs.
Eric Holder, today:
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without proving that a crime occurred.
Holderās action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.
Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing.
The program has enabled local and state police to make seizures and then have them āadoptedā by federal agencies, which share in the proceeds. The program allowed police departments and drug task forces to keep up to 80 percent of the proceeds of the adopted seizures, with the rest going to federal agencies.
āWith this new policy, effective immediately, the Justice Department is taking an important step to prohibit federal agency adoptions of state and local seizures, except for public safety reasons,ā Holder said in a statement.
Holderās decision allows some limited exceptions, including illegal firearms, ammunition, explosives and property associated with child pornography, a small fraction of the total. This would eliminate virtually all cash and vehicle seizures made by local and state police from the program.
Not only will this stop the legalized theft by America’s “finest,” but it will also force cities and states to pay police the way they should be, with tax dollars, rather than by stealing from the poor and vulnerable. Basically, politicians have turned a blind eye to this because it keeps them from making hard choices- they can fund necessary services without raising taxes, and run on glibertarian/teahadist platforms knowing that the police will be paid through state sanctioned theft rather than by the tax coffers. Up next, hopefully, will be steps to repatriate the innocent with their stolen belongings.
This is, to put it mildly, a big fucking deal. Eric Holder is going to go down as one of the most consequential AG’s in a long, long time. Unlike his predecessors, I mean that in a good way.
Stan
But if there are no damages, no sanctions the law is worthless. When the possibility exists that county attorneys, chiefs of police and so forth shall do prison time, call me.
Keith G
Were he not already hitched, I would so want John Oliver to marry me – if Anthony Kennedy approves, that is.
YellowJournalism
I watched that segment with my husband, and he was floored that was allowed to happen. Just another in a long list of reasons we’d have to think really hard about ever moving to the U.S.
I love that John Oliver has taken the Daily Show format and perfected it in a way that truly educates the viewer on issues that may not get as much attention because the issues aren’t breaking news.
Baud
The NRA will not be happy.
Another Holocene Human
IQ is related to frontal cortex function. Frontal cortex function is related to behavioral inhibition. Behavioral inhibition is inversely related to anti-social behavior.
So when we only hire low IQ persons as cops, we are selecting for anti-social behavior.
Discuss.
Howard Beale IV
Holder’s trying to make his history look better than it has been, but when it comes down to it, it’s still going to not look good in the end.
Another Holocene Human
Er, frontal lobe, cerebral cortex? Never mind, it’s the last part of the brain to really develop, hence the teenage stupid decisions phase.
shortstop
I’ve wondered if this heinous practice would ever end. Thanks, Obama! Not least for making Radley Balko have to say thank you for something.
OzarkHillbilly
Dayum.
shortstop
@Keith G: Does he play on your team? Don’t make me take him out of my wank bank!
Another Holocene Human
@Stan: Don’t worry, these asshats got into it for the grift, they aren’t going to stop. Give it a few years.
Also, what about state laws? If state laws allow such things won’t they keep going on? Could get interesting/messy.
TR
But but but I keep hearing about how Holder is such an oppressive big gubmint fascist coming to take everything the white people have?!
Another Holocene Human
@YellowJournalism: Been going on since the 1980s. War on drugs.
Another Holocene Human
@shortstop: Are you kidding? Balko is waiting for you to thank him.
(Seriously, though, his and others’ reporting and his and others’ activism probably helped push DOJ towards this decision today.)
dmsilev
@Baud: They’ll simply declare all guns to be legal for all people to buy under all circumstances. It’s the logical end-point for them.
skerry
@shortstop: Oliver is married to Kate Norley, an Iraqi war veteran. They met at the 2008 RNC convention, where she hid him and his camera crew from the police.
Mike G
This is huge. Asset forfeiture was a big issue for the Tea Party a while back, at least until they discovered it was initiated under Saint Reagan and couldn’t be shoehorned into their narrative of Obamunist-unique oppression.
Of course it’ll be a frosty friggin’ day in hell before the teatards give Holder any credit for ending this banana republic abomination.
Another Holocene Human
@Howard Beale IV: Holder inherited a DOJ in crisis. It took him literally years just to sort the mess out between Bush stuffing the place with ideological hires, deliberate destruction in Civil Rights, and an ongoing attempt by well-meaning but kind of delusional law enforcement sorts called Fast and Furious. Holder shut it down so of course the GOP blamed him for it, because LOGIC!
Maybe if Bush and his horrible AGs hadn’t turned DOJ into a smoking crater before Holder got their his record might have been a little bit different during the first 3 years, ya think!?!?
Also, I am sooooo tired of hearing supposed pot advocates (but really, people who hurt the cause) crying about Holder and Harris going after illegal pot dealers in Cali and lying and saying they were going after medical marijuana. Bull fucking shit. None of the legalization scheme is going to work if the legal channels aren’t enforced, it would be like allowing massive quantities of cigarettes to be smuggled in from Canada, something NYS had to deal with on a serious scale already, it fucks with your tax revenues and with your attempts to control the proliferation of a dangerous drug and sometimes it funds organized crime as well. DO NOT WANT.
Baud
@Mike G:
Judging by a couple of comments in this thread, the same is true for a few on the left.
Another Holocene Human
@skerry: Too bad, Oliver was way overdue a good punch in the nose after some of his unfunny and rude and stupid interviews with persons of, shall we say, a darker shade of not-pale? That interview with the ACORN lady alone where he asks if she’s on crack was worth a few good blows upside the head.
He has partially redeemed himself but is still owed a curb stomping from his early TDS days.
I don’t like him, I don’t trust him, and he’s not funny.
ETA: actually he is funny when he talks about the British royal family but only because like Carlos Mencia he’s just repeating other people’s jokes
different-church-lady
Quite clearly Holder needs to resig… wait, what?
Peale
Does this just end the federal government sharing in the proceeds?
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: They wanted Samuel L Jackson as AG … wait, I’m sorry, I mean one of Samuel L Jackson’s characters.
sharl
@shortstop: Heh, glad someone mentioned Radley Balko, IMO one of the rare decent self-described libertarians and kindasorta an old frenemy* of Cole. Balko has been on this story since fairly early on. It even seems to be bringing together moonbats and wingnuts in the comments section over at that WaPo post (at least among those posted earliest).
*IIRC, Cole’s regular snipes at Reason, Nick “Fonz of Freedom” Gillespie, and libertarians in general eventually brought a pissed-off Balko into the comments over here. Oh, well…
Another Holocene Human
This is the lefty dream Attorney General. Envision the customers in this vignette as “banksters”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m61eBU61Y1c
different-church-lady
@Baud:
Tellin’ ya, it’s a curved universe — go far enough to either end and you’ll wrap clear around the other side.
danielx
Cue the shrieks about taking away ‘a vital source of law enforcement funding’ from police and prosecutors in 3…2…1…
Particularly since law enforcement agencies have been using forfeiture money for operational costs, that is, paying the salaries of people assigned to road interdiction duties. Oh, are they ever going to be pissed…
About fucking time.
Another Holocene Human
Eddie Murphy, appropriately, would be the arm of the big money men and the Republican Party.
Which is why we don’t let loose AGs like mad dogs on the most powerful sectors of society. But the left loves stuff that sounds good yet fails horribly.
jl
@Another Holocene Human: IIRC, Oliver and another TDS reporter were at a GOP convention, and were running away from cops called to keep them out of some corporate hospitality corruption fest. They were hidden by a veterans group that goes to both parties’ conventions and meetings. I have no idea whether his wife is registered GOP or not.
different-church-lady
@danielx:
Apparently police shrieking doesn’t go as far as it used to.
Baud
@Peale:
It’s complicated. But it seems to prohibit local and state police from relying on federal law to support the forfeiture. They can still do it under state law, but apparently that harder.
NotMax
Those armored personnel vehicles require a lot of Turtle Wax.
Barbara
@Mike G: I did not know that but it certainly fits everything I *do* know about how people in the Tea Party think — I used to be friends with a family that became founding members of our local branch. Anyway, thanks for that tidbit.
Howard Beale IV
@Another Holocene Human: Holder hired the sniveling weasel Lanny Breuer.
Case closed.
Corner Stone
@Another Holocene Human:
What a complete douche you are.
srv
Bush wanted to get out of Iraq in less time than Holder took to figure out this one.
RaflW
Wow.
Civil forfiture has long been one of the worst guilty unless proven innocent travesties.
We’ll see a spate of state forfeiture laws I’m sure, but at least maybe the blue states can go easy on it.
How any libertarian could have stomached these immoral takings is beyond me … except I know that Libertarianism is mostly a sham.
danielx
@Baud:
State and local agencies love(d) the Federal asset forfeiture program because the local agency(s) involved with a Federal seizure got to keep 80% of the proceeds. State forfeiture laws generally required seized funds to go to the state general fund, as I understand it. Tennessee, where a lot of attention has been focused on civil forfeiture, allows local agencies to keep seized money, creating an incentive for literal highway robbery.
Howard Beale IV
@danielx: This is one of the reasons why you NEVER transact/travel with large sums of cash-ever.
sharl
@danielx: I read the same thing elsewhere. And Tennessee…wow, that brought back some old memories of riding in the back seat, heading south from Ohio on vacation with the family, way back in the 60s while parts of I-75 had yet to be completed. Cars would get stopped on the highway by local police department(s) who were taking up “voluntary” collections for some need or another. Pissed off my dad mightily, because it wasn’t a situation where you could be sure about what would happen if you said ‘no’, and we weren’t exactly rolling in dough. Pretty sure that was southern TN, I’ll have to see if dad remembers.
srv
Oh, a few more loopholes an MRAP can drive through:
So basically Holder is using this as a technique to force state and local authorities to work with the feds if they want their toys and cash.
Howard Beale IV
@srv: Looks like I can drive a Peterbilt through that….
Mike J
@Howard Beale IV: Which is fine if you have a bank account. Not everybody does.
Roger Moore
@Howard Beale IV:
That’s easier to say than to do for a lot of people. A shockingly large fraction of the population doesn’t have access to proper banking, so carrying cash is the only way they can avoid paying extortionate fees to companies like Western Union. It’s one more way we screw over poor people.
Howard Beale IV
@Mike J: That’s why there’s things called cashier’s checks and money orders for precisely these situations.
Howard Beale IV
@Roger Moore: See #45.
Lavocat
Considering how low his predecessors set the bar, I think it’s pretty damned hard for Holder NOT to go out looking good.
Roger Moore
@Howard Beale IV:
Except that those are no protection because the police can
stealseize them, too. Not to mention that there are plenty of scams based around fraudulent cashiers checks, so they are a poor choice for people who want to carry out transactions with people they don’t know or trust. My brother-in-law does a lot of business through Craig’s List, and he insists on cash for face-to-face transactions because of that.Bobby Thomson
@Howard Beale IV: Which you pay for with what, a smile?
jharp
I am confused.
Does this also end the states being able to seize property without due process?
Thanks in advance.
keestadoll
Bummer. I wonder how the Humboldt County Sheriff’s office plans to pay for new cruisers next year, A pickle indeed.
Tree With Water
Kudos to Oliver & company. It’s smart people like them who make it necessary for corporate America to control the airwaves, in order to survive … because if the corporations didn’t, the revolution would be televised.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@jharp:
No. But it does end one of the strongest motivations for the police.
Local police departments were using the federal program to do an end run around the state forfeiture laws. The federal program allowed the police to keep the forfeited assets. Most state laws require the assets to be surrendered to the state’s general fund.
If they can’t keep their legally stolen goods, they’re less likely to go to the trouble.
Citizen_X
Jesus. Some of you motherfuckers used to scream and cry when Santa didn’t bring you exactly what you wanted, too, right?
jl
@Citizen_X: Only tyrants like Obama and Holder could have ever instituted the horrible federal civil forfeiture policy decades ago, in the first place. History will judge them harshly!
Marc
I would have titled this post “Eric Holder Gets Results.”
The right, the left, the media, the whole political spectrum is so focused on symbols and rhetoric and “narrative” that we often forget that the real business and ultimate aim of politics is to make policy. Obama and Holder, for all their flaws, have never forgotten that, and the country is better for it. Credit where credit is due.
catclub
@Mike G:
really? I never saw that.
catclub
@skerry:
Odd name for an Iraqi.
kindness
I’m laughing at the Teahaddists. They thought they could slow walk Holder’s replacement just to stick it to him. Guess who is sticking who? What you bet the Senate starts working on interviewing that new one right quick now.
Tree With Water
Yeah. Let’s hear it for Eric Holder:
“According to a report by the CIA Inspector General, the White House was informed of the CIAās plan to hack US Senate computers to discover what was going to be in the Senate Torture Report. CIA Director John Brennan met with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough then ordered CIA employees to āuse whatever means necessaryā to find out what Senate investigators knew…”.
report courtesy FDL.com.
Full metal Wingnut
I love Oliver, but take his cock out of your mouth for 5 seconds. People have been writing about this shit for years. I don’t see the evidence that it was him in particular that made Holder do this.
Full metal Wingnut
@RaflW: The libertarians I know are pretty much all selfish inconsistent jackasses, but not a one of them supports civil forfeiture. It’s one of the few things, along with the war on drugs (which helped spawn this bullshit in the first place), that they were actually passionate about and we saw eye to eye on.
David Koch
but, but…. prosecuting leaks!
David Koch
@Another Holocene Human: Forget it Jake, it’s the blogosphere
Another Holocene Human
@Corner Stone:
John Oliver asks a Black community activist twice his age if she smokes crack, and when she looks at him funny, he repeats it–but I’m the douche. Lol.
chopper
@Another Holocene Human:
you realize that that’s TDS’s style, right? Every correspondent does that to people they interview.
chopper
@Marc:
This. I love how Holder makes this big decision and people give the credit to a white guy.
Corner Stone
@Another Holocene Human:
I can’t even begin to imagine the level of tedium you produce on an everyday basis. Yes, you are the douche.
kc
That’s right, goddamnit, we can’t have the states stealing property that should rightfully be stolen by the feds.
Tree With Water
@chopper: Let’s just say– some are dubious that Holder would have dealt with this blatant injustice had Oliver & company not reached millions of voters (courtesy of a slight crack in the corporate control of the “People’s Airwaves ha-ha-ha)”. Holder had six years to make this simple simon decision, but he only did so just this week. If you can, then, explain to me what took him so long..
Nastybrutishntall
Some people see the glass half full. And some people see the glass, knock it out of your hand, and then say, “Thanks, Obama!”
chopper
@Tree With Water:
And if your kid starts showing signs of autism right after he got the MMR, it clearly means the latter totes caused the former.
chopper
I mean, if you run the DOJ and you want to pump out a new policy that’s going to piss off police departments all over the country and make them all hate you, it might be a smart move to wait until you’re almost out the door to enact it.
Or it could be that the white savior made you do it. That totes makes more sense.
keestadoll
I don’t think you all fully grasp what this means in my neck of the woods (behind the Redwood Curtain). Many of us up here are cheering this as it means the LEO’s will (hopefully) focus more on the meth/heroin dealers. That being said, it ALSO means that a huge chunk of the sheriff’s/local PD’s budgets are going to be severely impacted. In rural areas such as this (ie: most of Humboldt County), you simply do not have a “legitimate” base upon which you can count on tax-payer dollars. Asset forfeiture IS the bread and butter upon which new vehicles and deputies are hired. 2015 is going to be one helluva year to watch up here!
Lex
[[Eric Holder is going to go down as one of the most consequential AGās in a long, long time. Unlike his predecessors, I mean that in a good way.]]
Oh, let’s not get carried away here. With his absolute refusal to do anything about the two biggest crimes of our time, blowing up the economy and torture, Holder has solidly cemented his place in history as the worst attorney general since John Mitchell. And, yes, I realize that covers some pretty shady characters.
mclaren
@shortstop:
I agree that this is good new but the heinous practice of asset forfeiture will not end. State laws permitting asset forfeiture can and will still be used to legally steal money out of peoples’ wallets, their cars, their homes, their property, and anything else that isn’t nailed down.
I also agree with John Cole that Eric Holder has with this single decision made himself one of the most important and one of the most progressive attorney generals in many years.
What we really need now is a federal law placing sharp limits on state asset forfeiture, so that the state laws can’t be abused the way the federal law was.
Of course we also need to do things like ban the USA Treason Act — excuse me, the USA Patriot Act, and rescind the unspeakably illegal and unconstitutional NDAA and the AUMF, prosecute various military and civilian war criminals like Dick Cheney and the Drunk-Driving Coke-Snorting C-Student and General David Petreaus and General Stanley McChrystal, and restore basic five-thousand-year-old laws like the law against usury (which was ended during the Reign of Error of the senile sociopath Ronald Reagan — unbelievably, there exists today no national usury limit on interest rates, and as a result payday loan and title loan storefront scams can now charge 500% or 800% or 1,000% interest on loans if they feel like it).
So, an important step forward toward common human decency and basic progress of the kind we used to have in America back in, say, 1890. But lots of work left to do before America can work its way up to the level of basic decency that England enjoyed circa 1200 A.D. with the Magna Carta.
Jerry O'Brien
I know it’s hard to believe, but we have to thank some Republicans in Congress, too, plus John Conyers. From the linked Washington Post article: