* Originally by ERIC GRAY
 * Originally to ALL
 * Originally dated 7 May 1995, 16:59
This information originally appeared in the July/August issue of the
Freedom Network News, official newsletter of the International Society
for Individual Liberty.
To contact the ISIL, write them at the following address:
1800 Market Street, San Francisco, California, 94102
or call them at (415) 864-0952.  FAX: (415) 864-7506  BBS: (415) 864-090
             THE GOVERNMENT'S WAR ON YOUR LIFE AND PROPERTY
                           By Jarret B. Wollstein
.
.
In Boston, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C. and other cities, police have
begun seizing -- on the spot -- cars of men accused of trying to pick 
up prostitutes. Even if the men are found innocent of solicitation in
court, their cars may still be subject to confiscation.
How can that be? The reason is the standard of proof for civil
forfeiture is much lower than the standard for criminal conviction. A
policeman's statement that "he saw a man talking to a known prostitute"
is often good enough. In most cases the prostitutes are costumed
policewomen who do everything they can to entrap the men.
In Utah in 1986, a woman resisted the confiscation of her cars on her
property by armed men in plain clothes who refused to identify
themselves. Seven months pregnant with twins, she was beaten to the
ground with the butt of an automatic rifle. One twin was born dead, the
other brain-damaged. Her assailants turned out to be IRS agents and U.S.
marshals. A few weeks after this incident, the female agent in charge 
of the operation received an official commendation. [Source:
Larry King Show, 7/31/90.]
In December 1988, Detroit police raided a supermarket to make a drug
bust but failed to find any drugs. After police dogs reacted to traces
of cocaine on three $1.00 bills in the cash register, the police seized
the entire contents of the storeAs registers and safe, totalling $4,384.
Using "drug residue" as a criteria, police could seize virtually all of
the cash in the country. According to a seven year study by Toxicology
Consultants, Inc., "An average of 96 percent of all the bills we
analyzed from 11 cities tested positive for cocaine." ["Drugs
Contaminate Nearly All The Money in America," Presumed Guilty, The
Pittsburgh Press, August 1991, p. 15.]
Houston police stopped 46-year-old Ethel Hylton at Houston's Hobby
Airport and told her she was under arrest because a drug dog had
scratched at her luggage. They searched her bags and strip-searched her,
but found no contraband. In her purse they discovered $39,111, which
they seized.
The money was a settlement from an insurance claim and her life savings,
accumulated through more than 20 years of work as a hotel housekeeper
and hospital janitor. Despite complete documentation of where she got
the money, despite never being convicted of any crime, Ms. Hylton never
got her money back from police. [Source: Presumed Guilty by Andrew
Schneider and Mary Pat Flagherty, The Pittsburgh Press, August 1991.]
The U.S. MarshallAs Service now has a inventory of over 30,000 seized
cars, boats, homes and businesses, valued at over $1.2 billion.
Virtually all of this property was taken without indictment, trial or
conviction. Asset seizures have increased from $27 million in 1985 to
over $2 billion in 1992 -- an increase of 3,700%! Police and other
government agencies are now targeting Americans, not based upon what
crimes they might have committed, but how much property might be seized.
Police are personally keeping the property they confiscate from innocent
Americans -- like you.
What happens to your property once police confiscate it? They keep it
and use it. Often for whatever they want.
As the San Jose Mercury News stated on August 30, 1993,
"Rules are few; audits are fewer. In many counties, independent
oversight is virtually nonexistent."
Here is how some police use money they confiscated:
Nueces County, Texas. According to the New York Times of August 2, 1993,
Sheriff James T. Hickey, awarded himself a $48,000 retroactive pay raise
from the forfeiture fund. He also gave his lawyer $100,600 for legal
services to be rendered after he left office.
Warren County, New Jersey. The chief prosecutor allocated himself a
confiscated yellow Corvette (from "Presumed Guilty").
Little Compton, Rhode Island. According to a May 18, 1993 article in USA
Today, the seven member police force awarded its officers two new
Pontiac Firebirds, a four wheel-drive Jeep, a new 28-foot boat, and
$500,000 in salary and benefits for the police lieutenant.
But these cases of outright robbery are comparatively minor!
Former sheriff's sergeant Robert Sobel told the Los Angeles Times
(4/13/93), that officers in his unit alone had stolen $60 million in
seized property during 1988 and 1989.
At the current rate of growth of government seizures, within 17 years
all property in America will belong to the state.
The growing use of violent police state tactics against innocent
Americans.
Even when police searches don't economically destroy their victims,
the emotional damage can be devastating:
In Florida armed state police boarded Greyhound buses, blocked exits and
asked passengers for "permission" to search their luggage for drugs.
Those who refused were immediately arrested on the grounds that their
refusal constitutes "reasonable suspicion" of guilt.
The Florida State Supreme Court ruled this procedure unconstitutional
and compared it to the tactics of Nazi storm troopers. The case was
appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the summer of 1991, the U.S.
Supreme Court said that such police searches are permissible, for the
"greater social good" of combatting drugs. Armed police across the
country are now randomly searching buses and trains, and may soon start
searching airplanes.
Dozens of police officers and civilian volunteers occupied the
junior/senior High School in Highland, Indiana to search for drugs.
Exits were blocked and all 2,780 students were "summarily ordered to sit
with their books and purses and bags between their feet and their hands
on their desks in plain view."  The police had no search warrant, and
no students were ever advised of their rights.
During the three-hour raid, sixteen drug-sniffing dogs examined every
student. "Four junior high school students -- all girls -- were removed
from their classes, stripped nude, and interrogated. Not one of them was
found to possess any illicit material." [Source: The Great Drug War by
Arnold Trebach, Macmillan Publishing, 1987, pp. 221-222.]
Police can now kill you with impunity.
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