Corruption: "Based on my training and experience, I'm going to steal your money"

The real problem with corruption in the U.S. is not at the margins, with bad cops taking bribes outside the law..

It's right at the center of government itself, with agencies using bad rules to take property overtly and using the court system for cover.

This CAF ("civil asset forfeiture") story is remarkable precisely because something like it happens every day.  Or, almost twice a day, because as the story notes there more than 600 CAFs in 2012.

Excerpt:

ARNOLDS PARK, Iowa — For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away — until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her that they had seized her checking account, almost $33,000.

The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes — in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report. “How can this happen?” Ms. Hinders said in a recent interview. “Who takes your money before they prove that you’ve done anything wrong with it?”

The federal government does.

Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up....

There is nothing illegal about depositing less than $10,000 cash unless it is done specifically to evade the reporting requirement. But often a mere bank statement is enough for investigators to obtain a seizure warrant. In one Long Island case, the police submitted almost a year’s worth of daily deposits by a business, ranging from $5,550 to $9,910. The officer wrote in his warrant affidavit that based on his training and experience, the pattern “is consistent with structuring.” The government seized $447,000 from the business, a cash-intensive candy and cigarette distributor that has been run by one family for 27 years.

Since the Left Doesn't Like Violence, Why Do They Want More?

It does seem paradoxical.  Our leftist brothers and sisters decry violence, and then say we need a larger state.  But the state IS violence.  That's really all the state can do.

And the state attracts those people for whom committing violence causes the least distress. It may be that they feel they are "just following orders," or that they are serving the public, of course.

But the state also attracts the fringe that just likes to commit violence because it's fun.

This is pretty rough.

Some comments.

My question:  If you really think "this shit's gotta stop," why are you constantly pressing for a larger and more powerful state?  If you want to stop, then stop it.

Deerfield Swat

As far as I can tell, everyone in Deerfield Beach, FL is from NY or Canada.  Of course you only HEAR the New Yorkers, because they are so loud, and distinctively incapable of speaking grammatical English.

Still, the point is that there is not really much danger here.  It is about as whitebread a place as there can be (some of the whitebread is unleavened, but still, this is not a dangerous place).

So...why in the world do they have this thing?

The answer, of course, is because they can-can-can.  I like the "Tonka" truck sticker on the hood.

Then, check out this "pursuit" vehicle.

Note the "confiscated" sticker.  They are actually proud that they stole it.  Impressive!  Photo credits:  The LMM.

Ari Kohen: Well-meaning but naive apologist for state brutality

So, my good friend A. Kohen concedes there is a problem.

But the problem is not with the state (because how could there be a problem with the secular God you worship?). The problem has to be with the acolytes, who are confused and not in touch with the true spirit of the loving God-state that, really, deep down, cherishes us all. Dr. Kohen is opposed to capital punishment, which majorities love. But that's just a mistake. Dr. Kohen is opposed to amendments against gay marriage, which majorities love. But that's just a mistake, too. All the rest of the time we should be forced to obey the majority, at gunpoint*. At least, when the majority agrees with Dr. Kohen (because, being a political theorist with absolutely no political experience, he has a special connection to the truth.)

[*"Gunpoint" means the guns held by the state. Dr. Kohen does not believe the rest of us are smart or responsible enough to have guns. Fortunately, as soon as you take a job with the state, Dr. Kohen believes that you become much, much smarter!]

So, let's try it again. It's not like the random strip search of innocent citizens is rare, or anything. The events I have in mind:

1. Little girl draws picture of her dad with a gun. Not shooting the gun. Not a picture of a child with a gun. A picture of an adult man with a gun, drawn in crayon.

2. Teacher goes nuts. Calls the police. Police interrogate 4 year old girl. Police say, "Kid seemed scared." They conclude that the home was unsafe. Alternative proposed explanation: 4 year old girl being interrogated by strange, scary men with uniforms would be enough to explain "Kid seemed scared." That would certainly explain, "Mungowitz seemed scared."

3. Because child was able to describe gun (meaning, presumably, she had seen it?), police arrest father when he comes to pick up daughter. Police STRIP SEARCH the father, arrest him, and jail him. Their "probable cause"? Daughter had drawn a picture of the gun, and could describe it in detail.

4. Police break into house, search house, find gun. It is a clear plastic toy. TRANSPARENTLY fake, if you will. Not remotely resembling a real gun.

5. Even if it were a real gun, there is no reason to believe that it was loaded or handled unsafely. Again, the picture was of the DAD holding the gun. The little girl admired her dad, so she drew a picture of him. Said that her daddy was going to shoot the "bad guys and monsters."

Now, the point. You state lovers will, as always, say that you fall out only with the abuses. And you will likely point to the fact that guns are in fact misused.

But the more constant misuse, the daily, immanent misuse, is the state's misuse of power over its citizens. Dr. Kohen wants to argue that the problems are minor compared to the many advantages of the state forcing everyone to do what Dr. Kohen and his "liberal theory" has decided is good for us.

That separation is an illusion. It is intrinsic to the state to be abusive. And it is the nature of the majority to sanction that abuse, to abet it, even to foment it. I was a little surprised (no, that's a lie, I'm not at all surprised) to learn that school officials defended the arrest/strip search/home invasion without probable cause on the grounds that "you can't be too careful."

No, in fact, you must be too careful. The 4th amendment used to tell us so. Canada, where the events above transpired, doesn't have a 4th amendment, of course. But neither does the US, because we have come to worship the state and its infallibility.

When the dad was released, the little girl was crying and crying. "Are you mad at me, Daddy? What did I do wrong?"

Nothing, child. You just had the misfortune to be born in a modern democracy. I'd say "police state," but that would be redundant.

UPDATE: A lot of the comments here are amazing. Interesting to see how Dr. Kohen's peeps think.

Okay, Now I'm Some Lefty Nutjob?

When I'm reading THE NATION, and thinking, "Yup, yup, that's right, yup," then something is messed up.

And what is messed up is...the police state we are becoming. I have claimed that the strange thing is the left won't face this.

Well, that article in the Nation faced it. Well done.

Two things need to happen.

1. The left needs to admit that the state=coercion, which can metastasize into violence, and does so metastasize.
2. Libertarians need to admit that Karl Marx was right about concentrated corporate power. It's every bit as dangerous, and in fact in most important ways it's no different from, the worst aspects of the state. So, ipso facto, concentrated corporate power=coercion (see above about metastasis).

We have all been complicit. It's tempting to want to support something. But the two state sponsored parties have hoodwinked us. The third term of the Bush Presidency going on under Mr. Obama is just a continuation of the same ghastly trends. Gitmo. Patrio Act abuses. Unlimited detention. State murder of American citizens without any kind of due process. Oi. All of a sudden I want to see if Alexander Cockburn wants to have lunch.

Antitrust Paradox?

Look: It's simple. The job of government is protect large corporations. Not consumers, not new entrants into the marketplace. Existing large corporations.

I know, you can IMAGINE a government that does something else. I can imagine unicorns. Neither your fantasy nor mine actually exist.

Fortunately, for once Big Gov and the Boyz got their big sweaty hands slapped.

Aleynikov goes free--Posted By Felix Salmon On February 17, 2012 (10:27 pm).

Count me in, with Choire Sicha, as being very happy that Sergey Aleynikov is once again a free man. To cut a long story short, Aleynikov used to work in high-frequency trading for Goldman Sachs, earning $400,000 a year. He then got offered a job in Chicago, earning three times that amount. So he accepted the new job. On his last day at Goldman, he uploaded to an external server various bits of code that he had worked with at Goldman. He claimed that the code was benign open-source material; Goldman claimed that it could be used to “mani! pulate markets”.

Goldman’s claim backfired in one respect, in that it sparked a thousand semi-informed articles about high-frequency trading and how dangerous it is: articles which did Goldman’s reputation no good at all.

On the other hand, the claim did have its chief intended effect — it got U.S. authorities extremely excited, to the point at which they charged Aleynikov with criminal activity under the Economic Espionage Act.

Now the EEA was designed — and was initially used — to prosecute very different behavior, chiefly employees at defense contractors taking top-secret information and giving it straight to the Chinese government. The kind of thing which can absolutely be considered espionage.

The secrets at defense contractors, of course, are secret for reasons of national security. The secrets at investment banks and hedge funds, by contrast, are secret purely for reasons of profit: they reckon that if they have some clever algorithm which nobody else has, then that makes it easier for them to profit from it. Which is why it was always a stretch for the government to use the EEA to prosecute Aleynikov — indeed, it is why it was always a stretch for Aleynikov to be criminally prosecuted at all. Goldman could have brought a civil case against him, but instead they got their wholly-owned subsidiary, the U.S. government, to come down on him so hard that he ended up with an eight-year sentence. Violent felons frequently get less.

The forthcoming decision from the Second Circuit is likely to be a doozy; I’m told that the judges shredded the prosecutors during the oral hearing. And certainly their decision to enter a judgment of acquittal, rather than any kind of retrial, is a strong indication that they handed down this order with extreme prejudice against prosecutorial overreach.

Is it the government’s job to expend enormous prosecutorial resources protecting Goldman Sachs from competition? The Second Circuit certainly doesn’t seem to think so, and neither do I. Aleynikov’s actions were certainly stupid, and quite possibly illegal. But the way that Goldman managed to sic New York prosecutors on him bearing the sledgehammer of the EEA was far from edifying. And I’m glad that both Goldman and the Manhattan U.S. Attorney are surely feeling very chastened right now.

Nod to Joel R.

Jon Stewart:: Twice as Nice

On indefinite detention...
without trial...
of American citizens...
captured and charged in the US.

I give you--Mr. Stewart: “When the war on terror ends, and terror surrenders, and is no longer available as a human emotion, you’ll be free to go.”

First

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Second

The Daily Show
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Let's hear it, bedwetters: Your guy Obama can't be better than GW Bush if he is NO DIFFERENT from GW Bush. This is truly an epic fail. Obama has zero principles, and zero policy interests. This is popular, and so he is for it. Screw the Constitution.

For the record, this legislation clearly violates the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments. Combine that with the "enhanced interrogation" techniques likely to be used on prisoners while they are being detained, indefinitely, without trial, without hearing the evidence against them, without even a full hearing before a civil court, and you have a violation of the 8th Amendment also.

Oh, and there's this, from Article III, Section 3 of the main Constitution, without any stinkin' amendments to worry about:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Testimony. Two witnesses. Not indefinite detention without charges. Jeez.

Property-is-Theft Movement All Sad: They Took Our Property!

Can't seem to get off the "stete=force" meme, sorry.

But it turns out that the "Property is Theft!" folks had a nice little set up, with books and some land. The state came and destroyed it all. Not long after having passed a "feel good" resolution supporting the movement.

Ah, frail principles, thy name is government.

The irony of having the "Property is Theft" folks be mad at the government for failing to protect their property, which they had stolen in the first place... priceless.

When The State Leaks, We All Get Force on Our Faces

Again, the state = violent force.

Not "the state uses force to keep us all safe." The state is force. Sure there is force that is not the state, but there is no part of the state that is not force.

(click for a more forceful image)

Statists have a conception that a "monopoly on the legitimate use of force" (THEIR definition of the state! Even they admit state=force) means that state will expand to fill the entire "force" part of the Venn diagram.

Problem is, the state leaks; force gets spilled everywhere. Force metastasizes outside of the original limits of force and displaces perfectly effective voluntary action. There is essentially no check on this expansion, unless voters choose voluntarism over coercion.

Which is why this HuffPo piece is so disturbing. The use of force, of sickening excessive force, is expanding rapidly. But you people all keep voting for it, and then saying, "Oh, we didn't mean THAT much force! Oh, no, no, no." And then you vote for it again.

Let's make this simple.
The state is force.
If you vote to expand the state, you are expanding force.
If you want less force, you have to want less state.

It's just physics.