America's DEA Ordered to Stop Searching Random Travellers at Airports - and Seizing Their Cash (atlantanewsfirst.com) 211
America's Justice Department "has ordered all consensual searches by drug enforcement agents conducted at the nation's airports stopped," reports Georgia's local TV station Atlanta News First — after their series of investigations "uncovered how the agents often search innocent passengers at airport gates, looking for cash."
On Thursday, the department made public a November 12, 2024, directive from the deputy attorney general to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that it suspend "all consensual encounters at mass transportation facilities unless they are either connected to an ongoing, predicated investigation involving one or more identified targets or criminal networks or approved by the DEA Administrator based on exigent circumstances." The management advisory memorandum was issued by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
The memo specifically mentioned the case of an airline passenger interviewed by Atlanta News First Chief Investigator Brendan Keefe, author of the Atlanta News First investigation, In Plane Sight. The award-winning series uncovered how drug agents have been seizing anything over $5,000 if airline passengers can't prove — on the spot — that their own money didn't come from drug trafficking. The government seizes the cash when no drugs are found, without arresting the traveler or charging them with a crime, and the DEA gets to keep the money it seizes.
After witnessing the Atlanta News First series, the passenger in question — who was departing from Cincinnati and heading to New York, where he lives — refused consent to have his bags searched at the gate... "The DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) further learned that the DEA Task Force Group selected this traveler for the encounter based on information provided by a DEA confidential source, who was an employee of a commercial airline, about travelers who had purchased tickets within 48 hours of the travel," the memo said. "The OIG learned that the DEA had been paying this employee a percentage of forfeited cash seized by the DEA office from passengers at the local airport when the seizure resulted from information the employee had provided to the DEA. The employee had received tens of thousands of dollars from the DEA over the past several years."
The news station's investigation "also revealed passengers selected for what the government calls 'random, consensual encounters' are actually profiled by the drug agents who search Black men far more often than any other group of passengers," according to the article.
"The reports analyzed data showing that, for drug agents to find just one passenger with money, they have to publicly search 10 departing passengers."
The memo specifically mentioned the case of an airline passenger interviewed by Atlanta News First Chief Investigator Brendan Keefe, author of the Atlanta News First investigation, In Plane Sight. The award-winning series uncovered how drug agents have been seizing anything over $5,000 if airline passengers can't prove — on the spot — that their own money didn't come from drug trafficking. The government seizes the cash when no drugs are found, without arresting the traveler or charging them with a crime, and the DEA gets to keep the money it seizes.
After witnessing the Atlanta News First series, the passenger in question — who was departing from Cincinnati and heading to New York, where he lives — refused consent to have his bags searched at the gate... "The DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) further learned that the DEA Task Force Group selected this traveler for the encounter based on information provided by a DEA confidential source, who was an employee of a commercial airline, about travelers who had purchased tickets within 48 hours of the travel," the memo said. "The OIG learned that the DEA had been paying this employee a percentage of forfeited cash seized by the DEA office from passengers at the local airport when the seizure resulted from information the employee had provided to the DEA. The employee had received tens of thousands of dollars from the DEA over the past several years."
The news station's investigation "also revealed passengers selected for what the government calls 'random, consensual encounters' are actually profiled by the drug agents who search Black men far more often than any other group of passengers," according to the article.
"The reports analyzed data showing that, for drug agents to find just one passenger with money, they have to publicly search 10 departing passengers."
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Re:Highwaymen aka airport robbery (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing corrupt about it and that's the problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It wasn't until recently that cops started being held accountable for actually murdering someone and they've been pissy ever since practicing work stoppages. Want to take bets on if this cop does jail time? https://kansascitydefender.com... [kansascitydefender.com]
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Nitpic: something can be both legal and corrupt at the same time. The laws themselves can be corrupt, as can their enforcers who abuse them.
More relevant people than I have argued that civil forfeiture winds up violating 4th and 5th amendment rights. For what it is worth, I agree with them. This is a clear case of punishment before the verdict, presuming guilt, and denying due process.
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Dems made huge cuts to police in a half a dozen large cities.
Can you provide links to the cities who cut police budgets?
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In Seattle (where I work), the city council made a lot of noise about wanting to defund the police a few years back. In the end the actual funding cuts "only" hit 17% instead of the 50% target, but it made things unpleasant enough for the working force that roughly 400 of them left the force. The city's been trying to recover from that stupidity since.
The council members who drove that effort pretty much all got booted off the council, one way or another. Some got voted out, while others didn't stand up for
Re: Highwaymen aka airport robbery (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not the agents, it's the system. DEA is not fit for purpose. In an actual free country, Drugs Alcohol and Firearms would be a convenience store.
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In an actual free country, Drugs Alcohol and Firearms would be a convenience store.
Dunno what the fuck you’re rambling about. The average American in a red-blooded State calls that store “Wal-Mart”.
Not really (Score:2)
Keep in mind though nearly all of that "drag on themselves and their communities & families" is because
Badges? (Score:2)
We don't need no stinkin' badges!
Drugs and Cash (Score:4, Insightful)
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Carried by travelers don't pose any safety threat to an aircraft.
I agree with the principle of the article, large volumes of cash carried by travellers is typically a tax evasion issue. Secondarily, people trying to introduce counterfeit currency. Whilst both have rather negative effects on the economy, neither are the purview of the DEA.
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I think the grandparent is right people who typically large amount of cash will be up to no good. HOWEVER the law should be beyond reasonable doubt and they should have to prove it to that degree.
'Typically' doesn't justify unfree behaviour (Score:4, Informative)
People carrying these sums of money are being punished - by having it stolen from them - without due process.
Strange place, the USA...
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Not so strange. There are lots of airports in the world where you'd stand a decent chance of losing $5000 in cash. Lots of them you can keep some of it if you offer the rest as a gift though.
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In the U.S., there is no such law. It's an arbitrary decision which amount of cash carried by which person raises enough suspicion to enact civil asset forfeiture on an airport. And that's the problem. You don't violate any law. You just happen to have enough money that it pays off t
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I once carried $3500 US cash back from Germany to the US. A German colleague had immigrated to the US, was getting married, and needed money. As a teen, he had been paid US cash for doing yard work for US service members posted in Germany. I DHL'd him a check from my US account, and he paid for my train trip to a German city where his parents lived, to pick up the cash. As a bonus, I got to travel in a DDR train car with mostly older DDR residents on their way back to the DDR from permitted visits to th
Re: Drugs and Cash (Score:2)
It's the DEA. Not the TSA.
At any rate, customs and other LE agencies aren't about security. If they were, they'd be checking baggage more carefully before boarding. Not after arrival. Arrival is too late to intercept something that might be used to hijack or blow up a plane. It's all about maintaining closed markets in the USA.
The only time I was ever stopped at the border for a purchase was for some cheese I had bought at the Granville Market (Vancouver, B.C.). Customs agent just wanted to know why I did
Within 48 hours of travel (Score:5, Insightful)
Never mind that a lot of people have to purchase tickets well within that time frame.
I've had tickets purchased for me while I was packing to go to the airport. Work related, last-minute schedule changes required it.
Then there's that whole "90% failure rate" on the tips from airline employees. If you have a source who's wrong nine times out of ten, they're not a source, they're just making it up so they can get a cut of the graft.
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if you plan not to consent, stick with it (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy example: if asked for a search prior to getting on the NYC subway, you need to be ready to decline the search, exit the station, and find another way home.
They were not going to let him on that plane without doing a search; his walk away option was basically to exit the airport, call the airline, and ask for a flat tire rule re-booking.
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I agree in principal, many times people will get coerced into a statement of consent and that's always a mistake. I don't think the DEA would be willing to just let people walk out of the airport with their belongings though.
I think it's pretty clear the only way to decline consent from these agents is to physically prevent them from stealing your bag and flip a coin on whether a judge will agree that they enacted a battery and illegal arrest upon you, or charge you with "resisting" despite there not even
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Terry V Ohio is nearly 60 years old and it exactly allows fishing expeditions. A lone police officer searched 3 persons suspected of casing multiple luxury stores on the false premise that he was endangered by these men and required a weapons search in order to protect himself. Two of the men who were carrying weapons were arrested and charged with possession despite the standard for search&seizure had explicitly not being met.
Oddly enough this precedent has survived despite the fact that the Ohio sta
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I was pressured to allow my bag to be searched at a movie theater. I refused and went to my seat. The manager tracked me down at my seat and started grilling me. "Why don't you want to let us look"? Because I don't let random people just look through my stuff, I told her. Do you let people look through your stuff? After a few more attempts, I got exasperated and told them, look if you don't want to see this movie, just give me a refund and I'll go somewhere else. They backed off real quick.
Nice criminal enterprise you have there (Score:4, Insightful)
Because except for immoral laws that is essentially what it is.
Reversal of Burden of Proof (Score:5, Insightful)
DEA should be the one responsible to prove the money IS from drug traffic, not the person holding the money proving it is not, specially in a approach like this where the money is just seized and not given back. In my country if the authorities suspect your bank account movements are from money laundering or something of the sort, your account can be frozen, but there will be an investigation and if nothing wrong is found it will be back to normal, just seizing on the spot is simply stealing.
I bet that if they did actual random check they would probably find more people carrying over 5k in cash than targeting black men.
Also, why would they need a tip, wouldn't a bundle of more than 50 notes of cash show up in the X-Ray machines?
Re: Reversal of Burden of Proof (Score:5, Funny)
"No sir. Not from drug trafficking. I just volunteered to carry this cash as a part of a DoJ investigation into corrupt DEA agents."
Re:Reversal of Burden of Proof (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem (from their perspective) is to maximize the cash haul while minimizing the risk of political outrage causing the game to be shut down. So they have to pass on the white dude in the Armani suit. If they go with random, they might accidentally bag a congressional aid or a police commissioner.
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My ex-wife stole ~$300K from me preparing for a divorce. It was up to me, the person who made the money, not the person who pfilered it, to prove she did so and it would have cost at least 1/3 of the money and the likelihood I could prove to the court it had been done, even though it was blatantly obvious what she did to be near 0.
The legal system is absolutely fucked and it needs to be changed.
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My ex-wife stole ~$300K from me preparing for a divorce. It was up to me, the person who made the money, not the person who pfilered it, to prove she did so and it would have cost at least 1/3 of the money and the likelihood I could prove to the court it had been done, even though it was blatantly obvious what she did to be near 0.
The legal system is absolutely fucked and it needs to be changed.
Correction; Marriage laws are absolutely fucked.
Root Cause Analysis. You, your profession, your money, or your ability to save it are not what was (or is) wrong here. Or what was punished. Your status, was.
Your married status.
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In your country (in mine certainly), civil asset forfeiture basically involves a lawsuit, evidence, and a court making a judgement at the end. The US seems to have taken some old British customs laws (which they had a whole revolution over because they disliked so much), thought they were actually a pretty good idea, and gave cops the authority to just take your stuff.
Rogue agency by and for culture warriors. (Score:2, Insightful)
Consent (Score:2)
The fact that the justice system still framed these arrests as "consensual" underlines just how intentionally poorly they interpret police actions. The DEA has been going around yoinking passengers off planes, stealing their bag and preventing everyone on board from departing for some short time. If the accosted passenger doesn't "consent" to having their bag searched and belongings stolen they will miss their flight and effectively be stranded at an airport.
This is all done without even reasonable suspic
So, what documentation would I need to carry... (Score:3)
",,, and Siezing their Cash" (Score:2)
Several interesting points (Score:3)
This is not a dem vs repub issue (Score:5, Informative)
Dems and repubs have both allowed civil forfeiture laws to continue.
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And the press too: The culture of silence is blinding. The dishonesty and misdeeds of law-enforcement has always been a blind spot in US news: It's why Black Lives Matter, happened. It's obvious why Fox News didn't report this, billionaires have their own planes but every other US network didn't ignore government thuggery, they enabled it.
This is not new (Score:3)
This has gone on for quite a long time. Over 15 years ago a law enforcement guy I know led a team at LAX. He claimed that they "just knew" who to nab & search by looking at them. Literally standing in the path of the deplaning people & eyeballing them, detaining them, searching & seizing their cash. He claimed that they could get the money back if they could prove they got it legally. At the time I knew he was full of shit.
They also went into UPS & FexEX & watched the boxes go by on the conveyer & grabbed the "suspicious" packages. Once they had a nice stack, they would carefully open then, taking the money & if drugs were found setting up a sting delivery. The undercover cop doing the delivery would peek inside as they obtained a signature looking for probable cause & almost always finding it somehow.
He claimed that after a year or two (I don't remember the details) they had seized 5 million dollars.
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I thought you were not supposed to send cash in packages. FedEx don't allow it at all
USPS require the use of Registered Mail for any amount over $15, and the full value must be declared.
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I thought you were not supposed to send cash in packages. FedEx don't allow it at all USPS require the use of Registered Mail for any amount over $15, and the full value must be declared.
Dang, so I guess the money they found in FexEX/UPS packages really was from criminals. Or from people that didn't know any better? There are a whole lot of ways to send money now days but I think they all leave a paper trail. Matt Gaetz knows that now. What the law enforcement guy I know said was if you gotta send cash or something else not legal, USPS is the way to do it because they need a warrant to open it. Personally I have no idea.
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They do need a warrant to open your mail.
In fact, it is a Federal offense ( read that, a felony ) to intentionally open someone else's mail.
https://codes.findlaw.com/us/t... [findlaw.com]
That's how corruption starts (Score:3)
The ones doing the confiscation shouldn't be the ones who get to keep it.
Saw this on Steve Lehto a couple days ago (Score:2)
Wow (Score:2)
I must be a super-villian then since I keep a minimum of $10k in cash in my safe for emergencies :|
This heavy-handed bullshit is proof positive that Law Enforcement in the United States
views everyone who isn't a fellow officer as a criminal unless proven otherwise.
Re:Don't be silly, nobody needs $5000 in cash (Score:5, Insightful)
Civil forfeiture is just wrong. It goes directly against due process. Just who are the criminals?
Re:Don't be silly, nobody needs $5000 in cash (Score:5, Insightful)
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Letter of marque?
Actually it's just plain old theft, and under color of law at that.
Re: Don't be silly, nobody needs $5000 in cash (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: Don't be silly, nobody needs $5000 in cash (Score:4, Informative)
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Seems to me we need to have the property owner File a countersuit against the property itself then and say "Wait a minute; You are mine. And the proof is my original possession of you."
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This is the thing with rights in the constitution. They don't mean shit if judges allow sufficiently perverse interpretations.
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This is the thing with rights in the constitution. They don't mean shit if judges allow sufficiently perverse interpretations.
Or don't even acknowledge the right exists, such as privacy or bodily autonomy.
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OSHA under Biden violated personal autonomy by mandating untested medical procedures. Fortunately USSC struck much of that down.
https://law.stanford.edu/2022/... [stanford.edu]
No, he didn't. He was following Jacobson v Massachusetts [history.com] in protecting the public. There was no such thing as "untested medical procedure" involved.
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You're unlikely to get an answer from them on this point. Been asking them this question since 1973, never answered even once.
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Did they read the money its rights when they accused it of a crime?
Equal treatment under the law (Score:3)
> the drug agents who search Black men far more often than any other group of passengers
This is not equality and unfairly targeting men, black men in particular, without any probable cause or active criminal investigation is discrimination against black men.
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Re:Don't be silly, nobody needs $5000 in cash (Score:4, Informative)
Trump is a criminal and is for robbing people of their money.
In fairness, he's had a lot of practice robbing people of their money.
Taxes are not robbery but other things are. (Score:3)
But guess what? The folks you just managed to get elected are clearly keen to reduce your taxes. So enough with the "robbery" bullshit, already.
You really believe that? They will reduce taxes for their donor class and everyone else who voted for them are told that the wealth will trickle down to them just because.
Most of the dumbasses that voted for them will have their health care taken away, their social security trashed, and although their income taxes might go down a percentage point or two (short term), while their actual taxes go up through paying for tariffs, on top of prices going up because they deported everyone who makes reasonable pr
Re: Don't be silly, nobody needs $5000 in cash (Score:4, Informative)
>The folks you just managed to get elected are clearly keen to reduce your taxes.
You mean Trump?
The only taxes he's keen to reduce are corporate and the rich.
So unless you're in the top 5% or so, nope. Sorry, you will be out of luck.
The fact that you seem to think otherwise is just sad.
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Yep.
I find it humorous (in a bad way) when people think the US Constitution is the grandest law of the land, enshrined, never to be broken. Ha. Civil forfeiture is a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment, but it goes on and will continue to go on (maybe not at airports, but this doesn't stop local police).
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Yep.
I find it humorous (in a bad way) when people think the US Constitution is the grandest law of the land, enshrined, never to be broken. Ha. Civil forfeiture is a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment, but it goes on and will continue to go on (maybe not at airports, but this doesn't stop local police).
If it was, it would have ended already. The Constitution isn't just a piece of paper, it has to be interpreted. We have courts to decide these things, like the meaning of "unreasonable" search and seizure, and best practices like stare decicis so we're not shocked by suddenly different interpretations.
Different judges have different opinions and different ways of arriving at their conclusions, and different feelings toward conventions like stare decisis. When you elect fucking retards, you get stupid judici
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The Constitution isn't just a piece of paper, ...
Technically, it's a piece of parchment [wikipedia.org].
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Civil forfeiture as currently practiced is clearly on the chopping block. It won't go away entirely, my sense is the Supreme Court will require a pretrial hearing before the forfeiture. Gorsuch and Sotomayor are just one case away from finding common ground. https://reason.com/volokh/2024... [reason.com]
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Re: Don't be silly, nobody needs $5000 in cash (Score:2)
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You might not be able to imagine circumstances where someone would carry more than 5,000 euro/$5,000 dollars (by order of magnitude these are the same value). But that's just your perspective, and at least in the United States it is a fairly narrow view not shared by everyone.
A few years ago (mid-2000s) I found a Jeep I wanted to buy offered for sale in Kentucky. I lived in Maryland. I got a one-way ticket to Louisville, rented a car at the airport, and drove to the seller's house where I inspected the
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Yes. Civil forfeiture is wrong.
"Consensual searches" are also wrong. A warrant is supposed to be required for compulsory searches outside exigent circumstances. What police do with consensual searches is create ambiguity about whether the ask to search is mandatory Or not. And there is always an element of coercion in the sense that: You refuse, then they can arrest people on suspicion of X -- bc no real probable cause existed until you refused consent. The search is not really consensual if it
SCOTUS needs to invalidate civil forfeiture (Score:2)
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I like the idea of the cash (or other asset) being destroyed, as that does mitigate the obvious conflict of interest. I would add that in the event the person in question subsequently does prove the cash/asset was not obtained through illegal activity, that they get made whole. That would put a penalty on the LEOs being wrong.
Neither is as good as just getting rid of civil asset forfeiture. No one should be deprived of their cash/assets except through due process of law.
Re:Don't be silly, nobody needs $5000 in cash (Score:5, Insightful)
Airports have been a "no rights zone" ever since 9/11.
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Yep, that's why I have been a no flights citizen ever since. I would much rather drive then put up with fascist bullshit.
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trains and better than flights anyways.
TSA has also been at least attempting to perform their security theater on trains - even daily commuter trains.
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trains and better than flights anyways.
Amen to this. Bigger seats, you're allowed to get up and walk around, on long train trips there's usually a bar and restaurant, you don't need to arrive hours before your departure, no TSA goons confiscate your water or make you remove your shoes... and now we can add that also you're less likely to get robbed by the DEA.
Dude this has nothing to do with Bureaucracy (Score:2)
Nah... (Score:2)
It's bureaucratic thinking that leads these thugs - sorry federal agents - to do this.
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Also, Trump's Extreme Court upheld the practice in 2024, Culley vs. Marshall.
Would not say they were uploading civil forfeiture in this case. That was not the dispute at hand. Rulings on the 14th Amendment have split seizures into two large buckets - real and peronal property. Real property is something like land that is not going anywhere. Personal property are smaller portable possessions that could disappear.
Since someone can't hide real property, the government has to take their time and perform a preseizure hearing. Personal property can be seized immediately and only req
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Such is the logic of the bureaucratic mind. Just occasionally Trump's hate of federal bureaucrats is revealed to be spot on...
You think Trump is not in favour of this? In fact he actively tried to hinder a reform of this. https://www.aclu.org/news/crim... [aclu.org]
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So they must be criminals
Spot on. By the same logic, no one needs a gun, a sports car, skis, a private plane, a second home, fewer than two kids, more than two kids, or any number of other things.
If we go the route of "if you can't prove you need it, you can't have it", that's the path to tyranny and kleptocracy.
Re: Don't be silly, nobody needs $5000 in cash (Score:2)
It's Bolshevism and Communism, as in Soviet Russia of 1920s. People who owned too much were systematically relieved from that ownership by the state.
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Excuse me, TDS sufferer, THIS is BIDEN'S DOJ doing this... It won't be Trump's DOJ until after January 20th. Its really sad how TDS kills brain cells..
Re: Don't be silly, nobody needs $5000 in cash (Score:2)
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This is a large part of the reason I don't consider myself part of either party
I consider it the single largest most blatant piece of unconstitutional action going.
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Indeed, though he said "administrations". Obama, Trump, Biden, all of them could maybe not have stopped it with an EO, but they could have seriously cut down on the practice. To completely shut it down would require lawmaking and favorable judicial review at both federal and state levels.
Except Nuremberg didn't do that (Score:2)
It executed and imprisoned many of the high ranking Nazis, but most were let off with no punishment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]