PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: Rush on January 21, 2020, 04:07:01 PM
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This is what’s wrong with our War on Drugs. Government agencies have gone way beyond catching bad guys and now rely on taking innocent peoples’ money as a cash cow. Yet the actual drug problem is worse than ever.
https://reason.com/2020/01/16/family-sues-dea-and-tsa-after-elderly-mans-life-savings-were-seized-at-airport/
Terrence Rolin kept his life savings in a Tupperware container, but all that money now belongs to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), even though the 79-year-old retired railroad engineer hasn't been charged with a crime.
When Rolin's daughter, Rebecca Brown, tried to take her fathers' savings—$82,373 in cash—on an airplane, a DEA agent seized it simply because large amounts of cash are considered suspicious by the agency.
A 2017 report by the Justice Department Inspector General found that the DEA seized more than $4 billion in cash from people suspected of drug activity over the previous decade, but $3.2 billion of those seizures were never connected to any criminal charges.
When $3.2 billion of the $4 billion total seized were never connected to crime, it’s no longer an excusable tool to fight drugs, it’s now a corrupt system. I feel another letter to Trump coming on...
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The TSA is like the FBI... worthless, untrustworthy and populated with liars and corruption.
They both need to be defunded and eliminated.
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TSA.........Tray Stacking Administration
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TSA - Taxpayers Screwed Again
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FBI-Famous But Incompetent
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I fully support the mission of the FBI and I laud their competence and their . . . I started to add "efficiency" to that, but they are not efficient. They are effective because they throw vast resources at their investigations.
It is their left leaning/corrupt and politically active management culture that I don't respect. I don't know how to fix that, especially in the political climate of the day. But reelecting Trump will be a start.
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I fully support the mission of the FBI and I laud their competence and their . . . I started to add "efficiency" to that, but they are not efficient. They are effective because they throw vast resources at their investigations.
It is their left leaning/corrupt and politically active management culture that I don't respect. I don't know how to fix that, especially in the political climate of the day. But reelecting Trump will be a start.
The only way I see to solve the problem is to shut it down and start with a new agency with new management. Every other fix just covers the problem instead of rooting it out.
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I fully support the mission of the FBI and I laud their competence and their . . . I started to add "efficiency" to that, but they are not efficient. They are effective because they throw vast resources at their investigations.
It is their left leaning/corrupt and politically active management culture that I don't respect. I don't know how to fix that, especially in the political climate of the day. But reelecting Trump will be a start.
It will. Trump is also reigning in some of these other out of control alphabet agencies such as the EPA. These entities have become like vampires.
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It will. Trump is also reigning in some of these other out of control alphabet agencies such as the EPA. These entities have become like vampires.
Actually, it happens all over the nation with multiple law enforcement agencies. They can steal your shit on a pretext, and it's ferociously difficult to get it back.
That said, traveling with $82K on an airplane is obscenely stupid. Cashier's checks, traveler's checks, and other financial instruments take the risk out of this at very low cost.
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Actually, it happens all over the nation with multiple law enforcement agencies. They can steal your shit on a pretext, and it's ferociously difficult to get it back.
That said, traveling with $82K on an airplane is obscenely stupid. Cashier's checks, traveler's checks, and other financial instruments take the risk out of this at very low cost.
Problem is, if you show up at a bank with $82,000 cash to deposit, this will trigger all sorts of things (depending on the state).
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
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It will. Trump is also reigning in some of these other out of control alphabet agencies such as the EPA. These entities have become like vampires.
Obama really politicized and weaponized many Fed agencies. DOJ, IRS, EPA, NSA, FBI, BATF, Interior, and even NASA and NOAA to promote "Muslim Outreach" (NASA) and also blame Man for Climate Change (NOAA and NASA).
The Democrat bureaucrats that largely populate these agencies are all too happy to promote Leftist, grow government policy which gives them larger budgets and more power.
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To get more specific, the problem in government are the SES (Senior Executive Service) types. These are the ones that make regulations and guidance to achieve whatever goals they want, and with seldom oversight. These are the ones in the FBI/DoJ that have created the biggest problems.
In municipalities it's the Sheriff's Offices and Police Offices, more specifically the leadership that creates these confiscation schemes as a way to raise funds for the department. They go on the premise of "you can't fight city hall" as well as knowing how expensive it could be to sue and try to regain the funds.
Here's one example: https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/st-charles-county-law-enforcement-reaps-benefits-i-70-cash-seizures
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Actually, it happens all over the nation with multiple law enforcement agencies. They can steal your shit on a pretext, and it's ferociously difficult to get it back.
That’s right, local agencies might even be a bigger problem when you add it all up. It’s not only difficult to get it back, it’s expensive and often costs more to get it back (attorney fees) than the value of what was seized, so many people don’t or can’t even try.
That said, traveling with $82K on an airplane is obscenely stupid. Cashier's checks, traveler's checks, and other financial instruments take the risk out of this at very low cost.
Absolutely. I would never have done that. They said she had an early flight and couldn’t get to the bank but I would have changed my flight, taken more days off work, whatever it took to not haul cash like that around. Or just left it in the Tupperware container until the next time she visited if it came to that. What was she thinking?!
She was right to check that it’s legal to travel with cash but apparently she was unaware of the huge forfeiture problem. Most people aren’t until it happens to you. Maybe most people don’t think five steps ahead either if they aren’t the brightest bulb in the box, what if you’re in a wreck on the way to the airport? What if you forget and leave your bag in the ladies room? It could happen to the best of us. One time I left my backpack under the seat when deplaning at a destination and it contained all my checkbooks, electronics, keys, everything important. Thank God some nice person behind me shouted at me and the line of passengers passed it forward to me. I was mortified at myself for doing that.
It’s really hard dealing with an elderly parent especially if they have cognitive issues, possibly she had been trying for years to convince him to put the cash in the bank and when she finally got him to agree she needed to do it immediately before he changed his mind and for whatever reason couldn’t change her flight. Possibly that’s why the DEA said their stories “didn’t add up”, he is cognitively impaired and could have even forgotten he had asked her to put the money in the bank, or maybe told them he didn’t ask her to but she had insisted on it. The DEA wouldn’t expound on what he had actually said.
This is another good reason to get a power of attorney in place with your elderly parents, otherwise technically she might end up charged with stealing it from him, when in fact she was trying to protect his money for him.
I’m not making excuses for the stupid thing she did but trying to understand how she came to do it.
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To get more specific, the problem in government are the SES (Senior Executive Service) types. These are the ones that make regulations and guidance to achieve whatever goals they want, and with seldom oversight. These are the ones in the FBI/DoJ that have created the biggest problems.
In municipalities it's the Sheriff's Offices and Police Offices, more specifically the leadership that creates these confiscation schemes as a way to raise funds for the department. They go on the premise of "you can't fight city hall" as well as knowing how expensive it could be to sue and try to regain the funds.
Here's one example: https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/st-charles-county-law-enforcement-reaps-benefits-i-70-cash-seizures
The Johnny what’s his name example does seem very likely to be drug money, but he was never criminally charged and so innocent until proven guilty should apply. It’s strange that they list number 6, admission that the money was from drug sales. Did he? Or were they lying? If he confessed, why didn’t they charge him? I guess because he didn’t have drugs on him, only minuscule amounts of marijuana, steroids and a gun.Does that mean a confession alone isn’t enough evidence to charge you?
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To get more specific, the problem in government are the SES (Senior Executive Service) types. These are the ones that make regulations and guidance to achieve whatever goals they want, and with seldom oversight. These are the ones in the FBI/DoJ that have created the biggest problems.
In municipalities it's the Sheriff's Offices and Police Offices, more specifically the leadership that creates these confiscation schemes as a way to raise funds for the department. They go on the premise of "you can't fight city hall" as well as knowing how expensive it could be to sue and try to regain the funds.
Here's one example: https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/st-charles-county-law-enforcement-reaps-benefits-i-70-cash-seizures
The SES level aren't the biggest problem. It's the GS-13-14-15's that are trying to get as high on the ladder as possible are the problem. Throw others under the bus to make themselves look good; try to implement new policies and procedures to look good on a promotion package; make their subordinates work harder when the good idea fairy makes a visit (even if the idea has no common sense); take the credit for their subordinates work. Even if the SES employee wants changes to be made, it gets passed off to the 13/14/15s to make it happen, and those brown nosing yes men will do whatever it takes to look good for their boss.
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The SES level aren't the biggest problem. It's the GS-13-14-15's that are trying to get as high on the ladder as possible are the problem. Throw others under the bus to make themselves look good; try to implement new policies and procedures to look good on a promotion package; make their subordinates work harder when the good idea fairy makes a visit (even if the idea has no common sense); take the credit for their subordinates work. Even if the SES employee wants changes to be made, it gets passed off to the 13/14/15s to make it happen, and those brown nosing yes men will do whatever it takes to look good for their boss.
So a lot of the regulatory crap we get is just for the good of an individual’s resume and not what’s good for the country. And then once enacted very difficult to reverse. No wonder this country is strangled by government regulations.
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So a lot of the regulatory crap we get is just for the good of an individual’s resume and not what’s good for the country. And then once enacted very difficult to reverse. No wonder this country is strangled by government regulations.
Yes. Government's business is to grow government, and just squeak by providing whatever service they have to provide in a barely mediocre, or worse fashion. It has trickled down to Police who are now uniformed and armed tax collectors who are incentivized to get you into the "judicial" system, often with traffic violations.
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So a lot of the regulatory crap we get is just for the good of an individual’s resume and not what’s good for the country. And then once enacted very difficult to reverse. No wonder this country is strangled by government regulations.
Yep. If you hear on the news about something in law enforcement like a gang member sweep, drug interdiction, sex offender compliance checks; someone is using that in a resume to make themselves look better for promotion.
It's even worse for internal agency policy/procedures. It's staggering.