...the drug "war" has been a hopeless failure. Typically, it's seen in a "supply-and-demand" equation without tackling the root causes in any meaningful way.
The war on terrorism will also be an abject failure if we don't recognize the roots of all this hatred and animosity towards the USA.
I am a law abiding citizen. I have no reason to fear my local law enforcement. All these posts suggest that police can confiscate my cash if they believe it was proceeds from a crime. Well, if the police do not have any reason to take my cash then they won't take it. If I am searched, more than likely I am doing something suspicious or wrong to provoke a search. If I am stopped on a traffic violation it is very unlikely that I will be searched. However, if I am stopped on a traffic violation wearing a red bandana with gang tattoos and my car wreaks of pot, it is very likely I will be searched and if $10k is found in $20 bills then I would expect that money to be confiscated until it is proven that it came from a legitimate source.
What I am basically saying is that I do not present myself in such a way as to make a police officer unduly nervous. I do not act in such a manner as to bring on a search of myself. If you're searched in the first place you probably deserve it. If something suspicious is found, it probably did come from a questionable source and should be confiscated until proven legit. If somebody rolled me over in a parking lot and stole my money, I would hope an alert officer stopped that person and detained them along with their belongings until everything checked out.
Bottom line is that if your not doing anything wrong then you have very little to fear.
One more thing, I am not talking about crooked cops. I am only referring to legit peace officers. Bad cops is an entirely different discussion.
"I have no reason to fear my local law enforcement."
"If you're searched in the first place you probably deserve it."
"If something suspicious is found, it probably did come from a questionable source and should be confiscated..."
"Bottom line is that if your not doing anything wrong then you have very little to fear."
Why it is naive to think that law enforcement will do the correct thing in these circumstances? I bet you can site several instances were law enforcement has abused its power, however, nobody seems to want to site the thousands and thousands of times were that power was used correctly and more importantly to someone's benefit. It seems to me that the laws in place are good ones and, if used correctly, would do a lot more good than harm.
I'm really not going to get into an argument on a blackjack site about laws and law enforcement but let me just say that I think the cops in this country do a fine job.
I respect your opinion on this subject but at this point I think we just need to agree to disagree and get back to the subject at hand which is advantage play.
Are Suppose to have a reasonable cause to search you in the first
place. Thoe, If you get searched for any other ulterior motive then a person might also fell that he/she does not have to explain there
money because they didn't do anything wrong in the first place. In the end result, If you can not disprove there attitude of your supposed wrongdoing, Then you have to explain it. I don't like this kind of reasoning that if you didn't do anything then its OK for someone to take your civil rights away so you then have to prove it is legit money. This tool of thought is getting popular.
My reasoning is that I didn't do anything wrong, So why am I going to let you look for something that is not there.
I mean what state are we getting close to. Shall we just search everyone to make sure we all aren't criminals?? Are we then to let this happen because we aren't scared of anything found???
No. Its because we have a right to privacy.
This reminds me of a night I was stopped by the police because I apparently looked suspicious walking late at night. I was asked to be searched and I politely refused. The police officer said, "If you don't want me to search you, Then you must have something on you, You must be afraid of me finding it".
I said I have done nothing illegal and that I was on my way home.
His attitude was if I didn't give up my civil rights to him, Then I was somehow guilty of something that he thought I was hiding.
Well, He searched me, Checked my I.D. (Which is not entirely legal for a cop to do without reasonable cause) and did not find anything after this. He then had the gal to say, "if you just let me check you quick, Then you could of been on your way and that if you didn't do anything then you shouldn't be afraid to give up this info"
Now, I was NOT afraid, The cop was afraid, That's why I was searched.
The moral of this story is that the excuse that the innocent somehow being afraid and this means guilt is ridiculous. The ones doing the searching are the ones who are afraid, Or then they wouldn't be searching you in the first place.
After I got home I called this officers Sergeant to pass on this harassment and was then told that there was a robbery in the area and that was what that was for. If only the cop would have been legit and told me that maybe I looked like someone that was wanted, I then would have said go for it, Because I wouldn't mind bending my civil rights to help in any way.
Another Moral of this story is that if you did nothing wrong and someone wants to take your civil rights away and tries to claim that if you do not agree then you are somehow guilty of something or are hiding something, This person is in fact scared because they want to take without giving. Its like if I say to you all,"Tell me everything, If
you don't, Then you are hiding something,.......Ridiculous.
Failure to deny is a vary vary hard case to prove.
It is best to co-operate with the police when questioned. This is not the time to get macho. Wait until the incident is over before you take action.
In question of his authority as I politely explained to him..
He just made a mistake and didn't want to see it.
There actually was no macho trip here, Even those I might of sounded like it in my last post.
My point is that if we get to the state in which we have to give up are civil rights,
Then this is not America anymore.
We can have excellent security in this high tech sociaty without being told that we have something to hide because we don't follow what happens to be a style or a fashion of thought at that given moment.
Maybe in the start we will give some freedom in exchange for security, But say we annihilate the opposition, Will we then get are freedom back or will we then leave it oppressed.
There is more then Americans security at stake here, It's Americans freedom to be free.
1984?
I am afraid you are being quite naive. If you are stopped for any reason or pretext and if a large amount of cash is found on you, there is a very high chance that it will be taken from you. You do not have to look or act suspicious for this to happen. It might be enough that you were seen leaving a casino with a lot of cash.
Can you get it back? Yes, if you hire a lawyer and spend a lot of money and time, you might get it back. Given the events of last week, this is going to get worse.
Welcome to Amerika.
the frickin :-) so you don't feel compelled to get Mr. Burger after me.
Say hi to Della Street for me.
PS Why didn't you use your usual handle? :-)
:: ::
to defend the Constitution and the words contained within.
They didn't fight and die so some cop can take my cash because I have too much of it. This notion of summarily confiscating large amounts of cash from anyone isn't the America I know, it is anti-American. Any true American ought to be outraged by this.
We are responding to hate with hate . Where in the constitution do you find the word 'hate'.
Six thousand lives only whetted their appetite for our blood. I don't like saying this, but my very real fear is they'll next go for a controlled Sarin release blanketing a US city with appropriate meteorological characteristics (meaning no consistent breeze to disperse the gas). Then the toll will be thousands of thousands. I'm NOT moving to Hawaii (with no casinos or race tracks I can't see why anyone would go there anyway).
I don't like it, but the survival of millions of us (I wish I were exaggerating) may well depend upon our success in extirpating this pestilence (organized terrorism) from the planet in the next few months.
P.S.
If I were young (again) I would enlist (again). This cause is beyond worthwhile.
And I am always stunned to find so many of my fellow citizens ignorant of our society's laws.
First there's denial, then there's apathy. Jees, this is a democracy. What does it take to fix what's broken? Sometimes I feel like a cracked eccentric because I care (sigh).
But, they'll have to kill me to shut me up.
Any compromises on personal freedom can result in a catastrophe at the very end, without people even realizing it. Piece by piece.
Doesn't human history have enough proofs of that? How many totalistic countries are there in the world now? How many had been out there until recently in Middle and Eastern Europe? In those countries, was the law inforcement being abused and violated all the time? Not really, at least not in strictly logical law-inforcement sense! The police officers and others acted according to the law in power at that time.
Keep doing enough compromises, piece by piece, and you can get there also, guaranteed...
Karel
Why is there a high likelihood that if you are seen leaving a casino with a large amount of money, that money will be confiscated? What are you basing this on? Why would a police officer suspect wrong doing just because you were seen leaving a CASINO, of all places, with a large amount of money? Do you think that cops just love to confiscate stuff? Is that their primary agenda? I dare you to call the Las Vegas police department and tell them that you just saw a man leaving a CASINO with a large amount of cash on him and you would like him stopped and SEARCHED, nonetheless. You will have to pull the phone away from your ears because the dispatcher will be laughing so loud that it hurts.
Also, I did not say that I thought it was a good idea to give police the ultimate authority to confiscate large amounts of money at anytime. In fact, they are not allowed to do so. They have to have probable cause!! That means something. Does that mean that if a cop thinks you are doing something wrong, that he can confiscate your money? YES!! Does that mean that if you were not doing anything wrong that your property will be returned? YES!!
We trust that our police force will use good judgement and discipline in making their decisions. 99% of the time they do.
What is the alternative? Please, all of you who are so high and mighty and think that you have the answers. What should be the law? Cops should never be able to confiscate anything? What sort of CAUSE should they be required to have? Should cops even be able to use judgement or should they have a gigantic manual that they have to go by? Wait a minute, that wouldn't work because if somebody was detained for two minutes while the cop referred to his manual that person would sue because his Civil Rights were violated.
