Why is this even allowed?
A woman traveling from Chicago has more than $100,000 in cash seized at Dallas Love Field.
She has not been charged with a crime or even suspected of a crime, but police seized it and it will be subject to the civil asset forfeiture process.
So in other words, the burden of proof will fall on the woman to show that it wasn’t obtained by a crime.
That process is costly and lengthy, it will likely take years before she’s able to get that money back and somehow Americans are okay with this all.
“High praise for a K-9 officer at Dallas Love Field Airport after more than $100,000 was found in a passenger’s luggage. On December 2 the canine — named ‘Ballentine’ — alerted on an individual checked suitcase. It turns out the bag, that belonged to 25-year-old woman from Chicago who was on a layover at the airport, contained blankets and two large bubble envelopes filled with $106,829 in cash.
The woman who owned the bag was not arrested, but the money was seized and police say it will be subject to the civil asset forfeiture process.”
Bottom line: this is government approved theft.
“Civil asset forfeiture is the practice by which law enforcement may take certain goods, including cash, if they are suspected to be tied to criminal activity. But in practice, officials do not even have to prove that a crime has been, or would be, committed. Legally, there is no limit on the amount of cash a traveler can carry on domestic flights, but forfeiture allows authorities to seize any amount they deem suspicious.
In most cases, the owner of the seized property faces no recourse but to file suit against the particular agency. Texas is no exception: According to the Institute for Justice (IJ), a libertarian public interest law firm, the standard of proof in Texas for police to seize property is simply "preponderance of the evidence," while "an innocent owner bears the burden of proving that she was not involved in any crimes associated with her property before she can get it back."”
And this is nothing new as Reason’s Joe Lancaster reports that civil asset forfeiture is regularly used by law enforcement across the country:
“Earlier this year, a Nevada Highway Patrol Officer confiscated a man's life savings during a routine traffic stop, even after admitting that it was "not illegal to carry currency." In Georgia, the state government agency charged with enforcing tax crimes misappropriated more than $5 million in seized funds between 2015 and 2020. And for years in Oklahoma, district attorneys used forfeitures like their own personal piggy banks, living for free in seized houses and paying off student loans with seized cash.”