#civil asset forefiture

[realitista]

A 64-year-old Cleveland man is suing U.S. Customs and Border Protection after agents strip-searched him at an airport in October and took more than $58,000 in cash from him without charging him with any crime, according to a federal lawsuit filed this week in Ohio.

Customs agents seized the money through a process known as civil asset forfeiture, a law enforcement technique that allows authorities to take cash and property from people who are never convicted or even charged with a crime. The practice is widespread at the federal level. In 2017, federal authorities seized more than $2 billion in assets from people, a net loss similar in size to annual losses from residential burglaries in the United States.

Customs says it suspects that the petitioner in the case, Rustem Kazazi, was involved in smuggling, drug trafficking or money laundering. Kazazi denies those allegations and says that the agency is violating federal law by keeping his money without filing any formal complaint against him.

Kazazi is a retired officer with the Albanian police who relocated with his family to the United States in 2005 after receiving visas through the State Department's lottery program. They became U.S. citizens in 2010. After several years away, Kazazi planned a trip to Albania last fall to visit relatives, make repairs on a family property and potentially purchase a vacation home.

He took $58,100 in U.S. currency with him, the product of 12 years of savings by Kazazi, his wife, Lejla, and his son Erald, who is finishing a chemical engineering degree at Cleveland State University, according to the lawsuit. The family lives in Parma Heights, a suburb of Cleveland.

[postsforposting]

the problem with superheros is that they cause incredible destruction and trample all over basic rights in pursuit of what they claim is a justifiable end. ends justifies means, basically. total carte blanche. this is generally not remarked upon at all in-universe, because it is required for the narrative. 

in real life, cops and the government are supposed to--oh wait shit cops also have total carte blanche because they can seize any and all property for no reason under civil asset forefiture, they can cause any damage they want and not be on the hook for it, and they are not only immune to any harm they cause to people under qualified immunity but their actual directive excludes a requirement to give aid or help at all, as defined by the supreme court.

the police are worse than fictional superheroes. batman and tony stark at least paid for damages they caused and funded their own toys from their own pockets. superheroes are at least always in the right even if they’re the ones who create the actual problem in the first place. cops aren’t heroes, they aren’t anywhere near the real of “in the right” or justified. they’re supervillians. backed by the government against the people they claim to be protecting.