mekka okereke :verified:
Big props to Jeremy Saulnier who wrote and directed Rebel Ridge. Recommend.
The film covers so much of what is wrong with US policing, in an action packed drama movie. It also covers the evil and racism in the system vs the individual. I don't think a cop calls a Black person the N-Word once in the whole movie.
*Civil asset forfeiture
*Cash bail and prison violence
*Why Black folk don't give statements
*The power of sheriffs in small towns
*Violence of the war on drugs
mekka okereke :verified:
🤦🏿♂️ I'm about to block you, because you're the worst kind of wrong: loud and wrong.
I'm talking specifically about police in the US pulling Black people over and having the legal right to take their money without a criminal charge. Not other forms of asset forfeiture that existed before that, even in the United States, as part of RICO.
🤔You're either intentionally trolling, or you really are going off half-cocked in my mentions about a topic you know nothing about.
mekka okereke :verified:
Civil asset forfeiture in particular has been going on since Biden started it. Let me be super clear:
There was no such thing as civil asset forfeiture before Biden invented it. Then he invented it, and passed legislation making this theft by cop possible. Now we have it, and it's terrible.
But yes, it's been going on for decades. Because Biden is old as dirt. And he's been passing legislation like this, that's genocidally harmful for Black people for most of his political career.
Maverick
@mekkaokereke @PJ_Evans JFC, stop the lies, this has absolutely nothing to do with Biden. I first heard about it in the 1980’s, when Regan greatly expanded it’s use as part of the “war on drugs”, but that doesn’t really matter because a 5 second internet search would show you that it goes back HUNDREDS OF YEARS.
Maverick
@mekkaokereke @PJ_Evans From Wikipedia: “Civil forfeiture in the United States has a history dating back several hundred years, with roots in British maritime law. In the mid-1600s, when what would become the United States was a British colony, the British Navigation Acts were enacted. These laws required ships importing or exporting goods from British ports to fly the British flag; ships that failed to do this could be seized regardless of whether the ship's owner was guilty of any wrongdoing.”
P J Evans
@mekkaokereke
It's been going on for years, probably many decades, and the cops shouldn't be given a pass on any of their own crimes (and civil forfeiture is theft: no charges, no recourse).
mekka okereke :verified:
I'm glad that Henry and Minh Chen's money was stolen by the cops, because it exposed the brazenness of the theft, and exposed that there was no pretense of this being "cartel money." The cops are just stealing from people, mostly poor, mostly Black.
You might be thinking, "How could a system so cruel be put in place? How can the US government just steal billions from Black people, who are already the poorest demographic in the US? Who started this civil asset forfeiture scheme?"
🙂
mekka okereke :verified:
I love that millions of people will watch the movie, and go:
👩🏼Wait, the civil asset part is made up right?
🧔🏿♂️No, that's totally real.
👩🏼OK, but they can't just like, pull you over and take your money if you can prove that it's yours, right?
🧔🏿♂️No, they can.
👩🏼OK, but like... that doesn't happen very often in real life right?
🧔🏿♂️No, it happens a lot. Cops steal more through civil asset forfeiture than all other forms of burglary combined. Mostly from poor Black folk, as depicted in the movie.
2/N
mekka okereke :verified:
Forget Hollywood drama. Henry and Minh Chen are business owners in real life. They own a jewelry store. They made a legitimate purchase via cash. They mailed the cash to the seller via FedEx, because they could insure the package.
The money never arrived at the seller.🤔
Because police in Indiana trained dogs to sniff for money instead of drugs. They then have the dogs sniff all the packages that go through the FedEx depot, and just... steal any cash that the dogs find🤡
mark
@denspier @mekkaokereke @dangillmor the basic rights being subverting are waived away because it's the money being taken, not a person being locked up. The money has no protection.
mekka okereke :verified:
1) Can't accept a cash deposit of that amount? That's just not true. Many cash based businesses make deposits of that amount every week. A lot of trucks and cars are bought in cash. Many large Vegas winnings are paid out in cash. When you receive big cash, you make the deposit. The only requirement is that those deposits of more than $5K must be reported.
2) Suspicious doesn't mean the government gets to take the money. It means the government may investigate.
Den Spier :europe:
@mekkaokereke @dangillmor 1) They absolutely can as long as there is a sufficient paper trail of where the cash comes from, so normally not a problem. But accepting large amounts of “anonymous” cash could lead to them being accused of assisting in money laundering. 2) I agree. But in general it’s reasonable the police can temporarily confiscate any excessively large stacks of cash until the owner provides sufficient prominence and a reasonable explanation why he has all that money in cash.
Den Spier :europe:
@mekkaokereke @dangillmor Not a comment to the specific case, but this amount of cash is in itself suspicious. No bank or financial institution could accept a deposit of even a fraction of this amount of cash without solid evidence it was legally obtained.
freediverx
@mekkaokereke @maverick604 @PJ_Evans
Has anyone ever tried to overturn this law on constitutional grounds?
peachfront
@freediverx @mekkaokereke @PJ_Evans
since i worked in a cash biz (gambling) i know many people this has happened to
you can't overturn on constitutional grounds because property doesn't have civil rights
nor do you get the money back by proving you're not guilty of a crime (it's not about you)
nor do you want to change the law to incent cops to convict people of crimes to get their cash
it's straight up legalized theft by cops
i could say WAY more but not in 500 characters
Chris Downey
@peachfront @freediverx @mekkaokereke @PJ_Evans I’ve never understood this … how is it not an unreasonable seizure under the 4th amendment?
peachfront
@Chrisdowney @freediverx @mekkaokereke @PJ_Evans
the "reply guy" was partly right-- the law was based on maritime law & under maritime law, well, property has no rights
but also you're asking the wrong person, as far as *i'm* concerned, civil forfeiture of cash IS an unreasonable seizure
the trouble is... no one cares what *i* think
while many people think it's wrong that others have cash-- that whole "crabs in a bucket" thing that has regular people tearing each other down
Old Tom
@Chrisdowney Because of the legal fiction/conceit that the exercise of state authority (jusrisdiction) is over the property itself, not the owner. If the *thing* is connected to a crime, then the *thing* can be seized by the state and ownership rights are not implicated - or at least subordinate to the penal authority of the state.
Dan Sugalski
@Chrisdowney @peachfront @freediverx @mekkaokereke @PJ_Evans it’s not a 4th amendment violation under the “we want your stuff” principle of US jurisprudence.
peachfront
@beckett @Chrisdowney @freediverx @mekkaokereke @PJ_Evans
what's annoying is there doesn't even have to be a crime, just some bozo in a uniform can decide there must be a crime or a person who looks like that or who drives that car wouldn't have any cash...
it really hurts people trying to lift themselves up, have some money saved, but are not yet able to access a bank
one of the guys i knew was formerly homeless, cops took every penny he had ($20K) that he earned working for our team 😠
feld
feld
mekka okereke :verified:
1) It's specified several times in the thread. But I can share it again, because you asked nicely and said please.
https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/113103478984057550
2) My issue is not with people saying "Wait... what? Biden did what now? Which bill exactly?"
I'll reply to one of your posts with a good and bad response, so that you can see what I'm talking about.
feld
mekka okereke :verified:
In particular, look for the specific language "Creates a rebuttable presumption of forfeitability of certain property."
You're trying to pretend that Biden didn't both come up with this language, work with famous segregationist Strom Thurmond to get it into law, and then proudly campaign on the fact that he did all that. It's nonsense.
Biden doesn't even deny that he is the origin of these policies. Why do weird dudes online try to pretend that someone else is the origin?
mekka okereke :verified:
Ah. I see that you are one of those bad faith pedantic losers. My mistake for assuming good faith.
Here's what I said in the post I linked to:
"2) Who introduced the comprehensive forfeiture act in 1983, that was passed in 1984?"
Do a diff on the language Biden introduced in 1983 and the language that was included in the Bill that passed that you linked to under the conveniently titled section "Title III: Forfeiture - Comprehensive Forfeiture Act of 1984 -"
feld
mekka okereke :verified:
🤦🏿♂️Under the delusion?
Listen. A group that I work with got the California Name, Image, and Likeness bill passed into law. Gavin Newsom signed it, but he didn't come up with the language.
Before you presume to 'splain to me how laws get passed, or how the language is drafted, let me see a law that you helped get passed. Otherwise, go away.
And I'm not debating you on Biden's trash "bipartisanship" that increased racist policies, and is the primary reason he is out of politics.
ikanreed
@mekkaokereke @feld @PJ_Evans there's a lot of people who just assumed that Obama would never take on one of the most far-right, racist senators in the Democratic party as his vice president.
"Balancing" the 2008 ticket has turned out to be one of the most destructive choices in Democratic history.
Erin 💽✨
@mhkohne @mekkaokereke Card fees are very visible. In the US they’re high (2% interchange is not uncommon, then add proessing fees)
But cash is not free
The merchant has to return it to the bank at the end of the day, so they can sort it, filter out fakes, and place the money into the merchant’s account to pay suppliers. They also have to purchase rolls of coins and packs of notes in the denominations they need in order to make change - because generally there’s a mismatch between the notes you receive from customers and those you need to hand back to them.
Someone also needs to build ATMs. They need to maintain them. They need to send armoured trucks around regularly to restock them, so they continue to function. An awful lot of infrastructure is required to make cash work, and the baseline costs of running it are higher than running the card networks.
In recent years, we’ve had fintech acquirers like Zettle and SumUp appear on the market. They’ve been successful in acquiring market share in part because they’ve driven down both the costs of terminals themselves, but also the transaction fees that retailers pay.
And in EEA (and formerly-EEA) countries, where interchange is regulated to 0.2% for most debit cards and 0.3% for most credit cards, this means that the cost of accepting card payments has gone down a lot. In some countries (NL, SE, and UK all stand out here), it’s cheaper than cash.
So merchants there are beginning to prefer it, or even not accept payments in cash. It doesn’t help that you can’t steal money from a card terminal in the same way as you would from a cash drawer.
And this is important to understand, because access to cash and its’ utility is undeniably a net benefit for civilization.
But to protect it we must figure out how to fund it.
Michael Kohne
@mekkaokereke OK, I had a thought earlier today in relation to something else: Something is slowly pushing folks to use cash less and some kind of electronic transaction more (evidence: My son was in London for two weeks in the spring and was UNABLE to spend the cash he took - businesses just don't want to fool with it). Is there some part of CAF that is being used to try to help this along? Doing anything with cash is now twice as dangerous: Criminals might rob you, or the cops might rob you.
Erin 💽✨
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