=============================================== URGENT ACTION ITEM! FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY =============================================== Watergate Office Building 2600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Suite 100 Washington DC 20037 Phone: (202) 333-0008 Ext. 222 E-mail: ggetz@CompuServe.com For information about the party: (800) ELECT-US =============================================== June 19, 1999 ===============================================

U.S. House will vote Wednesday on bill to reform asset-forfeiture laws

*** Immediate action required! Telephone your House representative immediately.

Friends:

The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on Wednesday, June 23, on a bill that would dramatically reform civil asset-forfeiture laws, which allow the government to confiscate the property of innocent Americans without even charging them with a crime. We are asking everyone who receives this message to *immediately* contact your House representative and ask him or her to vote YES on HR 1658, The Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 1999, sponsored by Rep. Henry Hyde, R-IL.

BACKGROUND:

Congress began enacting asset forfeiture laws in 1970 to permit the government to seize the property of the Mafia and major drug smugglers without having to convict them in court. Such laws have spread like wildfire since then -- currently there are over 200 on the federal books. Last year, the Justice Department confiscated 42,454 cars, boats, houses, and other assets worth over $604 million, according to its own admission.

Police at all levels routinely use these laws to confiscate the possessions of thousands of innocent Americans without producing a search warrant, arresting them, or charging them with a crime. Shockingly, Americans who want their property back have to go to court to "prove" they haven't committed a crime.

These prove-you're-not-a-criminal laws have another outrageous aspect as well: In order to have the "right" to contest the seizure in court, victims first have to post a cash bond and hire a lawyer -- even though in some cases the government has already seized their money to begin with.

Thanks to asset forfeiture laws passed by Republicans and Democrats, the cops have become *worse* than the robbers. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, bank robbers stole assets worth a total of $28 million in 1994. But during the same year, federal prosecutors confiscated $2.1 *billion* in cars, boats, homes, and other property -- according to asset forfeiture expert James Bovard. That means that government "criminals" confiscated 75 times as much property as private criminals!

That's why it's so important to demand that Congress pass HR 1658 -- we must seize this opportunity to stop the government from seizing our property.

The Libertarian Party Platform calls for *repealing* asset forfeiture laws rather than reforming them. But until we elect enough Libertarians to Congress to achieve that, we will support any measure that would weaken the government's power to seize your property -- and HR 1658 would do that.

Currently Rep. Hyde's bill has 59 co-sponsors, including U.S. Rep. Paul, R-TX, the Libertarian's Party's former presidential candidate. This legislation is supported by a wide range of civil liberties groups, including the National Rifle Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Forfeiture Endangers American Rights, and the American Bar Association.

HR 1658 would dramatically reform current law by:

* Requiring the government to prove by "clear and convincing evidence" that property is subject to forfeiture. (Current law requires only a "preponderance of evidence" standard.)

* Eliminating the requirement that a property owner file a 10 percent bond to challenge a seizure.

* Providing for an "innocent owner" defense, so that people who were unaware that their property was being used unlawfully could have it returned.

* Requiring the government to notify in writing anyone whose property has been seized, and forcing the government to return the property if such notice is not given.

* Allowing property owners to sue the government for destruction of seized property while in its possession.

* Awarding interest payments to property owners who successfully get their property back.

WHAT TO DO:

Contact your U.S. House representative today by calling the Congressional switchboard at 202-225-3121 or 202-224-3121. Then ask to speak to the office of your Representative.

You can ask for the e-mail address of a particular Congressman once you are connected to that office, or look up their address at http://house.gov However, we recommend that you call because telephone calls will be answered and counted before the vote on Wednesday -- but there's no guarantee that e-mails will be tallied before then.

WHAT TO SAY:

(1) Identify yourself and let them know you are a voter in their district.

(2) Ask them to vote YES on HR 1658, sponsored by Rep. Henry Hyde, when it comes to a vote on Wednesday. (This is the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 1999.)

(3) Ask them to vote AGAINST any weakening amendments.

Is there anything else you can do? Yes! Forward this e-mail to a friend, and ask them to call their representative, too. With your help we can force Congress to start respecting your rights by reforming asset forfeiture laws.

Sincerely,

Steve Dasbach National Director Libertarian Party

-- Leo (lchampion@ozemail.com.au), June 19, 1999

Answers

A good first step in muzzling out of control gov.orgs...

Another step may be necessary though. Be ready to destroy your property rather than let the State steal it. Burn it rather than let them STEAL it. What they are doing is nothing less than lesislative PLUNDER of the people.

-- Bill (billclo@msgbox.com), June 19, 1999.

Thanks for posting this Leo, consider it done!

Come on folks, help out here, how about it all of you "the government is out of control" types?

-- Unc D (unkeed@yahoo.com), June 19, 1999.

Good grief! Somebody from the government can just walk in for no reason and steal all your stuff? And then make you hire a lawyer and go to court to get it back?

Maybe we should keep some cancerous pee in our used urinals, and solid remains in our commodes. Maybe even bile in the emesis basins. Maybe we should just keep a couple bodies too. Maybe if they had to rearrange a few rotting corpses to get to the TP they'd choose another place to ransack. One man's trash is another's treasure ...

How can these violations of basic rights be allowed? How can even a weeple, sheeple, or seeple stand for it?

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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 19, 1999.

Yeah, it sucks.

Did you write your representative?

I e-mailed mine, and will call his office on Monday.

-- Unc D (unkeed@yahoo.com), June 19, 1999.

http://www.fear.org/menuidx1.html

-- number six (w3244343434@qeqewe.com), June 19, 1999.

I'm sending an email as soon as I get off this site. I'll call tomorrow. Thanks for calling this to our attention.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), June 19, 1999.

In 1859, Frederic Bastiat wrote about "legal plunder" of this sort in his book, "The Law":

"When does plunder stop? When it becomes more painful and dangerous than labor."

What to do with common thieves when they rob you is self-evident. If you free your mind of preconceived notions, you will see that the same response, meted out to thieves posing as governmental authorities, is just as self-evident.

Nobody gets out of here alive, anyway.

-- capper (--@-.-), June 19, 1999.

Quotable quote from Franklin Sander's www.the-moneychanger.com web site, on how to handle your gold and silver coins: "What governments cannot find, they cannot steal."

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), June 19, 1999.

Disgusting isn't it.

If you're not careful they'll be pulling your gold teeth next with no anaesthetic.

New yawk are confiscating DUI *suspects* cars. if convicted they lose the car for keeps.

Expect all states to follow their example. Just a matter of time.

Where will it end???

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), June 20, 1999.

Capper,

I believe I see what you mean about making it more dangerous and more painful for govt goons. If, hypothetically speaking, they lose a man or two every time they stole from a citizen, the interest in stealing would soon dim.

-- Bill (billclo@msgbox.com), June 20, 1999.

Andy

The response to this thread tells me that it ain't gonna get better, it'll get worse. Let's see here, how many of us have said that we are going to contact our Congressman: One, Two. (I knew I was right about you, thanks Gilda)

And all of the bitching and moaning that goes on at this forum about loss of freedom must just be so much horseshit and posturing.

"Golly, where did my freedom go? Why didn't somebody (else) do something?"

For anyone else who cares, I'll make it simple for you. Go to this link and plug in your Zip code and you can get the info on how to contact your Representative.

unkeed@yahoo.com), June 20, 1999.

Crap!

Here's the link, now get off yer ass and write! Or sit on yer ass and write, just write!

-- Unc D (unkeed@yahoo.com), June 20, 1999.

Done. Thanks Leo for the info, and Unc D for the link- I've saved that link for future ref. Great idea- easy to write this way.

-- farmer (hillsidefarm@drbs.net), June 20, 1999.

Ashton and Leska asked exactly the right question:

"Good grief! Somebody from the government can just walk in for no reason and steal all your stuff? And then make you hire a lawyer and go to court to get it back?"

What makes this such a good question is the "no reason" part of it. Do these 200 laws specify any reasons, or do they permit capricious and arbitary confiscation? That fact that with legal effort you can get your property back at all, indicates that you can establish that it was wrongfully taken. The implication is that there must be a *reason* for such confiscation.

I'm all in favor of joining a grassroots movement against bad laws. But I'd sure like to know exactly what the law IS, before opposing it blindly. If the law is a poor attempt to achieve a worthy goal, why should I favor repeal rather than reform?

I'm not saying these laws should be retained. I'd just like to know what it is I'm opposing. Otherwise, I'm just trading one devil I don't know for another.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 20, 1999.

Don't have the time or money to hire a lawyer to prove anything at this point. We KNOW we're outstanding law-abiding citizens! Uh, except for all the new laws, maybe even old ones, that we don't know about. Ever heard of SET-UP? And our hard-earned $$ which bought those rolls of TP -- snicker richies all you want, the reason those items/tools were bought in the first place is THEY HELP ONE SURVIVE. If some .gov .mil whisks them away, there's no time to go hunting/pleading/courting for them back. It's a matter of life and death, down to the wire, at this point. The "system" is NOT geared to help anymore.

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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 20, 1999.

Flint,

PBS had a good documentary on asset forfeture laws a few months ago. They may have it covered at their website. (and yes, I will be calling my representatives tomorrow).

In response to your question, they only have to *suspect* that the property was used in criminal activity for it to be confiscated. For example, if an 'informant' tells a cop that he saw you sell even a small amount of some drug from your home, they can (and will) come and take your home. They don't need to convict *you*, it's your *property * that's accused of commiting the crime. You have to prove it didn't. That's why these cases appear on the books as "United States of America vs. 1992 Honda Civic". In NJ, they keep the property even if *you* are found innocent of the crime. I didn't believe it at first but I researched the NJ statutes and it's true.

If you want more info go to: www.fear.org

They lay it all out for you...

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), June 20, 1999.

TECH32:

Thanks for the information. I'll read it carefully. I recognize that the actual incidence of abuse of such laws is a very different question from the *ease* of abuse. If it's possible to crank up the burden of proof on the law enforcement people a few notches, I'm all in favor. And while I'm aware of the procedural difficulties in such cases (gathering evidence, establishing beyond reasonable doubt, stopping obvious crime without delay, etc.) I certainly favor the establishment of meaningful penalties to be paid when mistakes are made.

I'm not reflexively opposed to such laws. But it should be damn hard to apply them, and damn painful when done wrong.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 20, 1999.

Flint,

Actually, this is one of my 'pet peeve' topics that I track closely.

The biggest problem with asset forfeiture is that the money from these assests almost always goes to the agency making the arrest. They basically become self-funded (no more budget oversight) and the potential for corruption is substantial.

In NJ last year a case actually went to the NJ Supreme Court because a widow's car was confiscated when her son (unbeknownst to her) used it to buy drugs. She demanded a jury trial and the state said she wasn't entitled to one. The NJ Supreme Court said otherwise (based on an ancient maritime law) and as a result the police now routinely call in a federal agency for the 'bust'. This makes it a 'federal' case, not subject to state laws, and the feds split the money with the local police (it also clogs federal courts). In *many* cases the police actually bring one (or more) accountants/appraisers with them to make sure the split is even.

Lesson for the Day: Don't ever mouth off to a cop if you're pulled over. All he has to do is drop a *small* amount of some drug in your car and poof, no more car. You might not do time, but your car will be sold and the money used to pay for everything from police vacations to raises for the entire department (true examples from the PBS special).

Quite a racket huh?

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), June 20, 1999.

Once again, it pays to be poor.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 20, 1999.

Not only will I e-mail amd phone my Representative, I will pass this information on to many friends and relatives. A man in our area was able to get a court order to return his stuff but had to pay a huge storage fee. This is really bad.

-- Homeschooling Grandma (mlaymon@glenn-co.k12.ca.us), June 20, 1999.

[ For Educational Purposes Only ]

House Passes Forfeiture Reform

House Passes Forfeiture Reform

Lawmakers Want Restrictions on Seizures

Federal authorities can seize cars, houses, cash and other property when they suspect such items were used to commit a crime. The laws are used mostly to target drug dealers, but sometimes innocent people lose their property.

By J. Jennings Moss, ABCNEWS.com

June 24  When U.S. Marshals seized George Gerhardts Fort Lauderdale, Fla., home in 1990 after hearing from an informant that drug runners were using the $300,000 property, Gerhardt didnt get a chance to fight for his house or defend his reputation.

Gerhardt, it turned out, had died months earlier of cancer.

So the job of protecting his name and property fell to Susan Davis, an accountant named to handle the estate. It took more than three years and about $30,000 in legal and other fees to wrest control of the property back from the government  even though Gerhardt was never charged, or even investigated for criminal wrongdoing.

I was shocked. It seemed unfair to me, Davis says. I didnt know that the government could come in and take something  take your house or car  and then you would have to prove that the government was wrong. It takes a very long time and is very difficult to prove.

They Have Your Property

Davis first took her story to Capitol Hill in 1997. Today, the House voted overwhelmingly to change federal laws to prevent cases like Davis from taking place.

Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and the chief sponsor of the bill, has been pushing civil forfeiture reform for six years. Authorities dont have to convict you, Hyde said on the House floor. They dont even have to charge you with a crime. But they have your property.

This is a throwback to the old Soviet Union, where justice is the justice of the government and the citizen doesnt have a chance, Hyde said.

In the mid-1980s, the federal government began using civil asset forfeiture laws as a tool to battle the illicit drug trade. Under the laws, authorities can seize personal property or cash they believe is connected to illegal activities even if no one has been charged with a crime.

Unlike regular criminal proceedings, where the government must prove that an individual is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt before imposing punishment, the burden of proof is largely flipped. In forfeiture cases, the government need only prove probable wrongdoing. It is up to an individual to prove that his property was not used in a criminal activity in order to get it back.

The Justice Department considers the law a big success. Its forfeiture fund registered $449 million last year, a big boost from the $27 million it collected in 1985. The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of forfeiture laws and many states have similar laws on their books.

But Hyde has been influenced by people like Davis and Willie Jones. Jones, a Tennessee gardener, paid cash for a plane ticket to Texas in 1991 so he could purchase shrubbery for a project.

Jones was carrying $9,000 in cash, which coupled with the cash-bought ticket, led authorities to conclude it was drug money. They confiscated it even though they never charged him with a crime.

Shifting the Burden of Proof

The legislation passed today would shift the burden of proof from the individual to the government and would require federal authorities to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the property is guilty.

It also would allow judges to release property to its owner if the forfeiture is contested or to appoint legal counsel to a poor defendant. And it would eliminate the requirement for a property owner to file a 10 percent bond if he challenges the seizure.

The bill passed the House by a 375-48 vote, with both supporters and opponents having nearly equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats.

The bill produced some strange bedfellows. Two of the main co-sponsors were anti-gay, pro-gun Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., one of the few openly gay lawmakers and a strong supporter of gun control.

Cops and Clinton in Opposition

Opposing Hydes bill were the law enforcement community and the Clinton administration, which feared that the legislation would benefit big-time drug dealers while it protected average Americans.

The administration said the Hyde bill would have a serious negative effect on the federal governments ability to combat drug trafficking, alien smuggling, terrorism, consumer fraud and many other criminal offenses.

The House defeated a Clinton-backed alternative by a 268-155 vote that would have allowed police to take property on a lower standard of proof than Hyde wanted, a preponderance of evidence instead of clear and convincing evidence.

Opponents like the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police said the Hyde bill would release property back into the hands of drug dealers, who could then hide it or pass it along to their heirs. They also said it would encourage the filing of frivolous claims.

Theyve heard the horror stories like Susan Davis but they say such cases are overblown. A Justice official testified in 1997 that of the 30,000 forfeiture cases a year, 85 percent went uncontested. Of those taken to court, judges ruled against the government only 4 percent of the time.

Davis is sympathetic to the governments concerns  to a point. Do you worry about the good guy getting hurt or the bad guy getting away? she says.

If they are going to have this kind of power, there should be some more restrictions, some greater burden of proof before they take someones property, she says. It does seem to me that theyre wielding a little too much power.
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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 25, 1999.

Thanks A+L

To all who helped to send the message, take a bow.

Every once in a while they do something right up there on that hill.

Three Cheers!

-- Unc D (unkeed@yahoo.com), June 25, 1999.