Fifteen years ago, I came face-to-face with US “civil forfeiture” laws that permit police to seize your property, without accusing you of any crime.
In my case, I owned a rental property in Florida that my real estate agent had leased to some young people who allegedly were dealing drugs. When I learned of this, I kicked out the tenants.
But that wasn’t enough for local police, who showed up the next day. They told me that they would be pursuing a “civil forfeiture” claim against the house. And although the city never pursued their claim (I think because the value of the house had suffered so much from the activities of my tenants), the more I learned about civil forfeiture, the madder I got.
The legal theory behind civil forfeiture is that your property is somehow “guilty” of a crime. The government then accuses your property, not you, of that crime. And, if your property is found to have somehow been involved in or facilitated a crime, you can lose it. Because civil forfeiture is a civil procedure, none of the protections that would apply to a criminal defendant apply. Essentially, your property is “presumed guilty,” and if you can’t prove that it’s “innocent,” you can lose it.
Civil forfeiture is a gravy train for local police and the federal government. Each year, billions of dollars of assets are confiscated from owners who in many cases are never charged with any crime.
Now, the U.S. Treasury has announced that it has the power to confiscate “any financial instrument” under its civil forfeiture authority. Any time the government declares a state of emergency (such as the one that was declared after 9/11 and that’s still in effect), the Treasury says this authority is in place.
In other words, the government can confiscate, today, any document or paper that has intrinsic value or embodies monetary value. That would include stocks, bonds, bank accounts, mortgages and cash, just to name a few. And in case you thought the Treasury forgot about precious metals, it hasn’t: it says it can confiscate those as well.
I’m not going to dwell on the constitutional issues this breathtaking assertion raises; I’ll leave that to legal scholars to flesh out in the courts. What I will say is that statements like those made by the Treasury Department make it clear that at least in the eyes of the government, there is virtually nothing stopping the government from helping itself to your property once it declares a national emergency.
Something to think about…and another obvious incentive to get your assets out of the USA before Big Brother pounces on them!
To learn more about the government’s power to confiscate your assets, see http://www.nestmann.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=42. You can also read the Treasury Department’s letter for yourself (scroll down): http://news.goldseek.com/GATA/1124647043.php.
I serve as Treasurer for the non-profit organization Forfeiture Endangers American Rights (FEAR)—an excellent source of information if you’ve been a victim of civil forfeiture or want to support the fight against this odious legal procedure. See http://www.fear.org for more information.
