Police State USA: Civil Forfeiture Under Presumption of Guilt

Where in the world can police confiscate your money and your property, not charge you with any crime, then tell you there is absolutely nothing you can do about it?
The answer, which you may not have known (but might have guessed from the title), is none other than the USA, where people mistakenly presume the law says innocent until proven guilty.
Legalized Robbery
In a report called Stop and Seize, the Washington Post details how aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes.
The Washington Post noted there have been 61,998 cash seizures made on highways and elsewhere since 9/11 without search warrants or indictments. Law enforcement agencies confiscated more than $2.5 billion. Half of the seizures were below $8,800. Here are a few examples.
A 55-year-old Chinese American restaurateur from Georgia was pulled over for minor speeding on Interstate 10 in Alabama and detained for nearly two hours. He was carrying $75,000 raised from relatives to buy a Chinese restaurant in Lake Charles, La. He got back his money 10 months later but only after spending thousands of dollars on a lawyer and losing out on the restaurant deal. A 40-year-old Hispanic carpenter from New Jersey was stopped on Interstate 95 in Virginia for having tinted windows. Police said he appeared nervous and consented to a search. They took $18,000 that he said was meant to buy a used car. He had to hire a lawyer to get back his money.

This post was published at Global Economic Analysis on October 09, 2014.