The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights are OFFICALLY DEAD!

MacGuyver4.2.0

Well-Known Member
ATF’s latest gun grab
Agency reduces due process for seizing firearms

The Washington Times Thursday, September 6, 2012

The Obama administration is making it easier for bureaucrats to take away guns without offering the accused any realistic due process. In a final rule published last week, the Justice Department granted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) authority to "seize and administratively forfeit property involved in controlled-substance abuses." That means government can grab firearms and other property from someone who has never been convicted or even charged with any crime.


It's a dangerous extension of the civil-forfeiture doctrine, a surreal legal fiction in which the seized property -- not a person -- is put on trial. This allows prosecutors to dispense with pesky constitutional rights, which conveniently don't apply to inanimate objects. In this looking-glass world, the owner is effectively guilty until proved innocent and has the burden of proving otherwise. Anyone falsely accused will never see his property again unless he succeeds in an expensive uphill legal battle.

Such seizures are common in drug cases, which sometimes can ensnare people who have done nothing wrong. James Lieto found out about civil forfeiture the hard way when the FBI seized $392,000 from his business because the money was being carried by an armored-car firm he had hired that had fallen under a federal investigation. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Mr. Lieto was never accused of any crime, yet he spent thousands in legal fees to get his money back.

Law enforcement agencies love civil forfeiture because it's extremely lucrative. The Department of Justice's Assets Forfeiture Fund had $2.8 billion in booty in 2011, according to a January audit. Seizing guns from purported criminals is nothing new; Justice destroyed or kept 11,355 guns last year, returning just 396 to innocent owners. The new ATF rule undoubtedly is designed to ramp up the gun-grabbing because, as the rule justification claims, "The nexus between drug trafficking and firearm violence is well established."
The main problem is that civil forfeiture creates a perverse profit motive, leaving bureaucrats with strong incentives to abuse a process that doesn't sufficiently protect those who may be wrongly accused. Criminal forfeiture is more appropriate because it's tied to a conviction in a court with the option of a jury trial and evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Innocents like Mr. Lieto have to fight against the might of the U.S. government with a watered-down standard that stacks the legal deck so prosecutors can get a quick win.

The rule extending civil-forfeiture power to the ATF recognizes this dynamic, stating with perhaps unconscious cynicism that an uncontested civil forfeiture "can be perfected for minimal cost" compared to the "hundreds or thousands of dollars" and "years" needed for judicial forfeiture. Nowhere is there any recognition of the burden placed on innocent citizens stripped of their property, or of the erosion of their civil liberties. In fact, the rule argues that, because in the past the ATF could turn over requests for civil forfeiture to the Drug Enforcement Administration, there has been no change in "individual rights."
Instead of expanding the profit motive in policing, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. should be working to eliminate it.
 

NoDrama

Well-Known Member
Before you know it the people who work at the Social Security office will get the authority too.
 

Carne Seca

Well-Known Member
This is merely an extension of current civil asset forfeiture procedures of the ATF. Civil forfeiture of assets related to drug offenses have been on the books long before O'Bama's administration.
 

deprave

New Member
This is merely an extension of current civil asset forfeiture procedures of the ATF. Civil forfeiture of assets related to drug offenses have been on the books long before O'Bama's administration.
Indeed they have but that doesn't make it right and it certainly doesn't excuse him when he can stop it. (YES WITHOUT CONGRESS)

Additonaly when he seems to even ENCOURAGE it, I think its fair to hold them accountable. I think its only fair that all governments be held up to the same ethics and moral rules that they police, the same rules we have collectively agreed upon in a society. There is no exceptions to these moral rules, not sure why people continually make exceptions for governments.
 

Samwell Seed Well

Well-Known Member
THIS JUST HAPPENED? STARTING WiTH THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION?!
doesnt change that his administration also is apart of it . . . . . .. ATF sends guns in truck loads to Mexico . . . . . and he gives them better laws to screw the avg amercian along with those its warranted to target
 

MellowFarmer

Well-Known Member
who the Fuck cares who started it what the Hell are we going to do to stop it? stop bickering so we can do some much needed brainstorming on how to make folks deal with the reality the government has got a big fat dick up their asses?!
 

greenlikemoney

Well-Known Member
Repubs, Dems, Indica, Sativa, it's all the same.....nothing ever changes for the good, I can't understand why people don't realize that the most dangerous thing to people is other people. It's been that way forever, and will continue that way until there is no more way...............
 

mr2shim

Well-Known Member
who the Fuck cares who started it what the Hell are we going to do to stop it? stop bickering so we can do some much needed brainstorming on how to make folks deal with the reality the government has got a big fat dick up their asses?!
Bickering amongst each other is always the solution.
 

desert dude

Well-Known Member
Everything said sounded like it came from a Republican Administration, but fuck it let's blame Obama.
Some past president said, 'the buck stops here', meaning the president is accountable for what is happening. Obama is the president. If you don't like it, then vote his useless ass out of office.
 

mr2shim

Well-Known Member
Some past president said, 'the buck stops here', meaning the president is accountable for what is happening. Obama is the president. If you don't like it, then vote his useless ass out of office.
Has he done anything that you can approve of or are you that ate up with hate?
 

UncleBuck

Well-Known Member
Has he done anything that you can approve of or are you that ate up with hate?
all that man knows is hate. then he'll try to play dumb (caught him red handed doing that before) and innocent and say he got his feelings hurt when you pointed out that his shit stinks just as bad as anyone else's.

it's quite the little act.
 

rollinbud

Active Member
ATF’s latest gun grab
Agency reduces due process for seizing firearms

The Washington Times Thursday, September 6, 2012

The Obama administration is making it easier for bureaucrats to take away guns without offering the accused any realistic due process. In a final rule published last week, the Justice Department granted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) authority to "seize and administratively forfeit property involved in controlled-substance abuses." That means government can grab firearms and other property from someone who has never been convicted or even charged with any crime.


It's a dangerous extension of the civil-forfeiture doctrine, a surreal legal fiction in which the seized property -- not a person -- is put on trial. This allows prosecutors to dispense with pesky constitutional rights, which conveniently don't apply to inanimate objects. In this looking-glass world, the owner is effectively guilty until proved innocent and has the burden of proving otherwise. Anyone falsely accused will never see his property again unless he succeeds in an expensive uphill legal battle.

Such seizures are common in drug cases, which sometimes can ensnare people who have done nothing wrong. James Lieto found out about civil forfeiture the hard way when the FBI seized $392,000 from his business because the money was being carried by an armored-car firm he had hired that had fallen under a federal investigation. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Mr. Lieto was never accused of any crime, yet he spent thousands in legal fees to get his money back.

Law enforcement agencies love civil forfeiture because it's extremely lucrative. The Department of Justice's Assets Forfeiture Fund had $2.8 billion in booty in 2011, according to a January audit. Seizing guns from purported criminals is nothing new; Justice destroyed or kept 11,355 guns last year, returning just 396 to innocent owners. The new ATF rule undoubtedly is designed to ramp up the gun-grabbing because, as the rule justification claims, "The nexus between drug trafficking and firearm violence is well established."
The main problem is that civil forfeiture creates a perverse profit motive, leaving bureaucrats with strong incentives to abuse a process that doesn't sufficiently protect those who may be wrongly accused. Criminal forfeiture is more appropriate because it's tied to a conviction in a court with the option of a jury trial and evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Innocents like Mr. Lieto have to fight against the might of the U.S. government with a watered-down standard that stacks the legal deck so prosecutors can get a quick win.

The rule extending civil-forfeiture power to the ATF recognizes this dynamic, stating with perhaps unconscious cynicism that an uncontested civil forfeiture "can be perfected for minimal cost" compared to the "hundreds or thousands of dollars" and "years" needed for judicial forfeiture. Nowhere is there any recognition of the burden placed on innocent citizens stripped of their property, or of the erosion of their civil liberties. In fact, the rule argues that, because in the past the ATF could turn over requests for civil forfeiture to the Drug Enforcement Administration, there has been no change in "individual rights."
Instead of expanding the profit motive in policing, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. should be working to eliminate it.

Funny how all the 0bamajizzgobblers try and dismiss this as nothing to do with 0bama......
 

canndo

Well-Known Member
Here is a thread that seems to say that the constitution and the bill of rights is dead, but the article seems to be only about property rights and the 2nd amendment. Seems to me that this is always the same, the right could not care less about any of the other rights, just the ones about owning things
 

mr2shim

Well-Known Member
Funny how if Obama doesn't fix eveything that the right screwed up over countless years, it must be all Obama's fault.
No, he has to fix them within 2 days of him being in office. Conservatives have been calling him a failure since April 2009. They're pathetic.
 

desert dude

Well-Known Member
Here is a thread that seems to say that the constitution and the bill of rights is dead, but the article seems to be only about property rights and the 2nd amendment. Seems to me that this is always the same, the right could not care less about any of the other rights, just the ones about owning things
Canndo, if you have no property rights then you pretty much have nothing at all. Any infringement on liberty is a bad thing. Why are you so quick to shrug off property rights, and the second amendment?

<edit> Further, along the same line of thinking, if the federal government can violate ANY part of the constitution then what is to stop them from violating EVERY part of the constitution. We got to this state of affairs (drug war, asset forfeiture, etc) by the feds violating the commerce clause, and all with good intentions at the time.
 

desert dude

Well-Known Member
No, he has to fix them within 2 days of him being in office. Conservatives have been calling him a failure since April 2009. They're pathetic.
Shimp, you might be surprised to learn that Obama has been in office for nearly four years now.
 
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