Courts Side With Another Victim Of Civil Asset Forfeiture
Several weeks ago, a lawsuit was filed against U.S. Customs and Border Protection after a 64-year-old American man had roughly $58,000 confiscated from him when he was trying to travel back to Albania.
Rustem Kazazi says that he was strip searched and had all of his money taken, despite authorities never charging him with any crime.
In some cases, victims of this policy have been able to fight back to try and get their property from the state. But that is an expensive endeavor and luckily there are organizations like the Institute for Justice which help these victims for free. The IJ has launched several lawsuits over similar instances of civil asset forfeiture abuse and in some cases they've seen success and had the money or property returned. But not everyone who falls victim to this policy is going to be as lucky and not everyone is equipped to take on the fight to try and stand up for what is right.
In 2017 alone, it's estimated that the government has been able to confiscate more than $2 billion in assets thanks to civil asset forfeiture.
After his story gained media attention and he launched his lawsuit with the IJ, U.S. border agents have now agreed to return almost all of the cash that was taken from Kazazi. However, there is some confusion over how much they took from him.
The government has allegedly sought to write him a check for $57,330 plus interest, but he says that they're short several hundred dollars. As a result, it's reported that a bench trial has been scheduled for later this year. Lawyers for Kazazi have said that he won't be interested in settling for a portion of the money, they're looking to get back every penny that was taken from them.
Stop The Abuse
In many circumstances when victims of this policy fight back, they end-up getting their property back so what does that tell you? It tells me that they were in the wrong on numerous occasions. Authorities need to stop unjustly stealing property from Americans because they aren't promoting any well-being for the community by doing so.
Sources:
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/lawsuit-border-patrol-seized-immigrants-life-savings-without-cause/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/31/a-64-year-old-put-his-life-savings-in-his-carry-on-u-s-customs-took-it-without-charging-him-with-a-crime/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.47127a5c28dc
https://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/index.ssf/2018/06/federal_government_giving_back.html
Geez! This is Sick... Stop the Abuse!...
These facts are really shameful, I can not understand how these departments act without any impunity, when it will be the moment in which citizens can live these abusive acts
Thank you very much dear friend @doitvoluntarily for sharing this news
This is an area where cryptocurrency can actually help. There is theoretically no limit to the amount of "cash" that can be carried in a virtual wallet. As long as the private key remains private, there is no way for the "cash" to be confiscated.
So, instead of carrying $57k in cash, he could just keep a wallet in cold storage and carry that with him. Even if the wallet is confiscated, he can get a new wallet and recover the keys later. There are so many ways this could go.
This is quite the topic my friend.
I was just Censored/suspended on Twitter for posting about crypto, liberty.
I would really appreciate some support / exposure on this. It impacts all of
us and this could use some exposure, tags , etc. very honestly. Thank you.
https://steemit.com/informationwar/@barrydutton/help-are-you-next-my-twitter-account-just-restricted-are-you-kidding-me-i-post-nothing-offensive-only-liberty-crypto-content-oh
i've heard that happening to a lot of people, what was the reason did you ever find out??
Well, if you look at the timeline of events, it went roughly like this:
1/ Barry post a reply to John McAfee on HIS tweet -- asking if he knew something the rest of us don't on why he (JM0 was stopping his ICO promotion on twitter and that govts are basically good for nothing.
2/ Moments later my Steemit post went up on my page and twitter on the issue.
-- They might have been in reverse order being maybe a minute apart or? - Key- that does not matter.
3/ My tweet to JM vanished or was never posted
4/ My Steemit post was fine and still there making me think it was reversed but still, of no matter.
Something clearly triggered (lol) their algos.
You said you are not on twitter I think to me but do you ever see me swear or post anything factually incorrect or profane? No. No you do not, that is the correct answer. (:
No answer yet, they may get back to me or not but it was all documented with screenshots in my post on this y-day here.
It's all there in the glory of the blockchain my friend.
Be well....
...or at least be better than Twitter.
lol
i google your twitter now and it looks like it's back up? maybe they figured out they made a mistake😂
yes you too buddy !
This is an issue the mainstream "Normies" know nothing about. Any time I've mentioned it, no one knew what I was talking about.
Case of the "blind leading the willfully blind." Or the Nazis leading the "not-sees."
So that's how it happened in Germany in WW II. The "Good Germans" just didn't know what was happening. That's the story we heard in the USA post War, circa 1950's + 60's.
Well said.
indeed what the state is doing is unjust and in my view it is indirect theft .
buen dia,soy una seguidara mas de usted,soy venezolana nueva en steemit.espero contar con su apoyo y lo invito a visitar mi blog,aceptando sugerencias ya que estoy iniciando,gracias y continue con sus buenos trabajos informativos
Asset forfeiture is one of the most agregious abuses in recent history.
But as long as it happens to somebody else it doesn’t matter. /s
this shit is so crazy. The US government has been able to take so much power over the years. Unfortunately, we the citizens, have not done a good job of stopping this from happening. Glad to see the courts responding accordingly.
Hey this is not right