[HN Gopher] Lawsuit against TSA and DEA over airport seizures ac...
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Lawsuit against TSA and DEA over airport seizures achieves first
victory
Author : tomohawk
Score : 143 points
Date : 2021-04-03 19:04 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ij.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (ij.org)
| underseacables wrote:
| Civil forfeiture is a cancer driven by greed of elected officials
| and the bureaucracy. That money pays their salaries and buys
| their toys so the politicians can pay them less.
| buran77 wrote:
| We shouldn't call this euphemistically "greed and bureaucracy"
| when we can call it what it is: corruption at every level (from
| the legislator to the guy in the agency setting the policy).
|
| As I said in the past, we're trained to think that the
| pervasive small time corruption is the dangerous one, the small
| bribe you may give to a cop to get out of a speeding fine. In
| reality that type has close to no impact on society compared to
| high level corruption like this.
|
| If this had happened in any "3rd world country" nobody would
| hesitate to call it corruption.
| ficklepickle wrote:
| Civil forfeiture is a joke. Either prove a crime occurred or
| GTFO.
| Arubis wrote:
| Both these TLAs have spent decades burning taxpayer money on
| theatre while failing at their purported charters and both ad-hoc
| and systematically abusing citizens and non-citizens alike. Their
| behavior in this case is reprehensible and completely
| unsurprising; by and large, these organizations are jobs programs
| for bullies.
| Irishsteve wrote:
| Is there any reason for someone to fly between states with so
| much money ? It's not just the tsa that could rob it
| michaelmrose wrote:
| - Distrust of financial institutions
|
| - Distrust of government herein obviously justified
|
| - Large debts including but not limited to medical debt that
| would result in the funds enriching creditors instead of
| serving the individuals needs
|
| - Need to do business with individuals with any of the above
| considerations the best example is probably a car from a
| private seller.
|
| - A transaction related to the marijuana industry that is legal
| for the majority of Americans and still illegal federally and
| therefore untouchable by a bank.
|
| If you don't carry it in a bag with a large dollar sign or lurk
| in a bad part of town after dark your chances of getting robbed
| are statistically small.
| URSpider94 wrote:
| People should not have to have a reason for doing legal things,
| but reasons might include traveling to a casino to play high-
| stakes poker, moving to a new city, planning to buy something
| large in cash, or making the treasury drop for a business.
|
| Back in 19(mumble), I drove from VA to IL with all of my
| possessions in my Civic Hatchback, including my life savings
| wrapped in a towel, inside a casserole, inside my microwave.
| Now, my life savings at the time was around $2500... I was
| moving, so I closed out my old bank account and planned to open
| a new one when I got where I was going.
|
| When I was a kid, my mom was the bookkeeper for a local drug
| store. She had to make the treasury drop at the bank (deposit
| the cash from the registers). She would drive her car, and an
| assistant manager would literally ride shotgun - ok, not
| literally, he was wearing a pistol.
| betterunix2 wrote:
| It is not a crime, and the TSA's mission is not to prevent
| people from taking stupid risks with their money or property
| (nor is the TSA a law enforcement agency, so it is not really
| relevant that it is not a crime). What the TSA did was
| unjustifiable, regardless of whether or not you understand why
| someone would travel with that much cash.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| No reason is necessary. It's their property. Perhaps they don't
| trust banks, or are buying something at auction or a vehicle
| that requires a cash payment (second hand septic pump truck,
| for example).
|
| We don't ask folks to declare other financial instruments
| (cashiers check, money orders) or jewelry on domestic flights.
| Cash is no different.
| cogburnd02 wrote:
| > second hand septic pump truck
|
| That is waaay too specific for you to have come up with it
| right off the top of your head; I sense there's a story here.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Sat next to someone on a flight carrying ~$100k in cash to
| buy one second hand and drive it back to the origin because
| it was much cheaper than buying a new one. A story for
| sure, but a boring one.
| nightcracker wrote:
| You have to be one kind of stupid to casually travel with
| that much cash and a whole 'nother kind of stupid to tell
| the person you're sitting next to that you're doing so.
| salawat wrote:
| Civil people don't care, and would wish the person
| success in their business endeavor.
|
| You're civil, aren't you? Or were we just caught thinking
| with _that_ side of the brain again?
|
| Contrary to popular belief, there are in general
| perfectly reasonable people out there to talk business
| with in transit.
| quiescant_dodo wrote:
| Woah! The idea of carrying that much cash is giving me a
| lot of third-hand anxiety. Did the person seem overly
| anxious? I can't imagine sharing that information with
| someone I just met!
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Nope, calm good 'ol boy having a mini gin and tonic. Lots
| of interesting folks out there waiting to be met.
| midasuni wrote:
| Did you see the cash?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I wouldn't have shared the tale if I hadn't.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Why do people need reasons to do things now? Whatever happened
| to freedom?
| IncRnd wrote:
| Yes.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| I've done it before when moving to California many years ago. I
| was switching banks at the same time and I wanted the funds to
| be immediately available (i.e. open the account and deposit the
| cash at the same time). I also needed to rent a home
| immediately.
|
| Secondly, I play a lot of poker and regularly take $25k or more
| with me to Vegas, especially if it's a spur of the moment
| flight. I keep my bankroll in cash because it's simpler than
| having to go to a bank every time I want to play.
| heliodor wrote:
| Human beings are ridiculously diverse in behavior and no one
| should be asking "why would anyone ...?"
|
| This is exactly the kind of thinking uninspiring politicians
| have when they try to or pass laws that curtail freedom for no
| good reason.
| leetcrew wrote:
| it shouldn't have any bearing on whether the TSA confiscates
| it, but it's a reasonable question to ask. I too wonder why
| it makes sense to transport $82k in cash just to open up a
| new bank account. if you just walk into the branch and say
| you want to open a new account with that much money, they'd
| likely pay the wire fee for you.
| sneak wrote:
| I think that the legally mandated utter lack of financial
| privacy in the US is basis enough for why the question is
| unreasonable.
|
| Plenty of people love and use cash, myself included. We
| don't need a reason for our preferences, but there exist
| plenty of good ones if you unreasonably demand that one
| exist.
| tartoran wrote:
| Not being able to travel with your own cash above a meager
| limit reminds me of totalitarian regimes in eastern europe when
| I grew up before communism collapsed. Not very fond of those
| memories in particular.
| URSpider94 wrote:
| I usually Pooh-Pooh claims of totalitarianism as being
| alarmist, but in this case, it is totally deserved.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _The class action lawsuit was filed in January 2020 on behalf
| of Terry Rolin and his daughter Rebecca Brown. TSA and DEA
| officials seized Terry's life savings of over $82,000 from
| Rebecca as she was flying from Pittsburgh to her home outside
| Boston, where she intended to open a joint bank account to help
| care for her father._ "
| bsima wrote:
| bitcoin fixes this
| ruined wrote:
| border agents are allowed to warrantlessly search
| electronic devices when you fly, including online accounts
| that you control, and have the power to detain you in order
| to compel you to divulge passwords. if you have bitcoin on
| you when you fly, or simply have a coinbase wallet, it's
| just as vulnerable as cash.
| renewiltord wrote:
| True, but now you have two problems.
| Bud wrote:
| Bitcoin doesn't fix this at all. In any way. Bitcoin's
| value fluctuates wildly.
| sky_rw wrote:
| The value of your cash fluctuates wildly to zero when the
| government can seize it without due process and you can't
| get it back.
| ruined wrote:
| if the value of a currency fluctuates to zero, and the
| government seizes your wallet while it's worthless,
| they've taken nothing and you are financially uninjured.
| no rights violated. checkmate
|
| dogecoin is the ultimate asset of the digital nomad
| Bud wrote:
| Well, you are right about that, but that doesn't change
| the fact that Bitcoin does not solve this problem.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Monero, actually.
| klyrs wrote:
| Show me a bitcoin ATM where I can withdraw $82k cash.
|
| I hear you. You can't get $82k cash from an ATM, you need a
| flesh and blood teller for that. Fine, fine, if there's a
| bank of bitcoin that will facilitate my $82k withdrawal,
| I'd be happy with that.
| salawat wrote:
| Not at once*.
|
| You can spread it out over time. Banks would rather you
| did it in person so they can do the paperwork fpr large
| cash transactions once instead of 41 times.
| plank_time wrote:
| The price of Bitcoin could change massively during the time
| you deposit it and then withdraw.
| quiescant_dodo wrote:
| Bitcoin and other digital assets _hide_ the problem. If the
| TSA knew you had a bitcoin wallet on the hard drive, they
| could seize that instead.
|
| If you have full-disk-encryption and a crypto-wallet
| passphrase, you may be held on contempt charges anyways.
| That might be better, it might not. The underlying problem
| of "the state can seize your assets if you act
| 'suspicious'" is still there.
| garmaine wrote:
| To be pedantic, I don't think they can hold you in
| contempt without also involving you in the process,
| giving you some legal say to fight it. The whole issue
| with civil asset forfeiture is that it divorces the
| property from its owner, legally speaking.
| indigochill wrote:
| IANAL, but I'm worried that a defense attorney could fight this
| on the wording of point 2:
|
| > the TSA violates the Fourth Amendment by detaining travelers
| and their cash without reasonable suspicion of criminality
|
| Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Association[1] was the
| Supreme Court case that set precedent for random drug testing of
| public employees in sensitive positions, which would otherwise
| also be a fourth amendment violation. It doesn't seem like much
| of a stretch to say that precedent applies just as well (in the
| general sense) to searches/detainment of airline passengers in
| the name of public safety.
|
| The defense would need to sweep the fact the money in this
| particular case was "detained" (ahem, stolen) for six months (as
| opposed to, like, one minute to check it for hazards) under the
| rug, but since this is a class action lawsuit rather than a
| lawsuit about this particular incident, isn't that detail
| irrelevant to the class action suit?
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner_v._Railway_Labor_Execu...
| betterunix2 wrote:
| The issue I see as far as civil rights goes is that the TSA
| reports evidence of crimes, real or imagined, to law
| enforcement. The TSA is allowed to perform invasive, non-
| optional searches of the traveling public that no law
| enforcement agency could perform; that should leave no room for
| any "cooperation" with law enforcement. Right now we have a
| back door that law enforcement agencies can use to avoid
| meeting the legal requirements for searching a person or their
| belongings: relying on a non-law-enforcement agency that
| follows a completely different set of rules.
|
| To put it another way, the reason we allow drug tests of
| railroad workers is to ensure employees are sober when they are
| operating dangerous equipment. The reason we allow the TSA to
| search people and their belongings is to prevent terrorism. In
| neither case should there be any form of "cooperation" with law
| enforcement agencies based on a search that the law enforcement
| agency itself could not have performed.
| salawat wrote:
| Ironically, this is the same reason law enforcement has to
| jump through extra hoops to get IRS data.
|
| If that financial data were shared without protections, no
| one would declare anything. Which hamstrings the capability
| of the service to operate. The same logic should be applied
| to TSA. If they must violate the 4th Amendment to keep
| airlines able to do business, they should not be able to tag
| in law enforcement, and more importantly, they should _not_
| be acting as an extension of DEA or Customs. It should be
| strictly limited to disarmament /destructive device
| detection.
|
| But lets be honest with ourselves, _That_ is too sane and
| principled to ever be executed on.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Amazing that this is so long after the establishment of the TSA
| and their arbitrary seizure practices.
| Koliakis wrote:
| > Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners will
| detain them and turn them over to law enforcement, who will take
| their money without any cause for suspicion and without filing
| any criminal charges
|
| This is insanity.
| Shivetya wrote:
| What is more insane is that only through Class Action can this
| suit succeed. Why? Because as the current trick by government
| agencies is that if they think the court case will go against
| them they return the money before the ruling. This voids the
| case in the eyes of the court by worse puts the victim on the
| hook for attorney fees[0]
|
| [0]https://reason.com/2019/11/21/with-this-forfeiture-trick-
| inn...
| eschaton wrote:
| The US Supreme Court just recently struck this down in a
| first amendment case, where a university said "Hey, we
| changed the rules, you now have no standing to sue." The
| Supreme Court said "There was still damage, so they still
| have a cause of action."
| salawat wrote:
| People underestimate the impact of that case. 2nd Amendmemt
| cases can actually have a leg to stand on if a group is
| willing to push it hard enough. There's still the
| certiorari hurdle to traverse, but it'd be nice to see the
| justices set their minds to it.
| csomar wrote:
| This is the case also for the UK, Europe, Canada and New
| Zealand. If you don't have "proof" that this money is
| legitimate and belongs to you, then it'll be seized.
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(page generated 2021-04-03 23:01 UTC)