I really wish we had a functioning political establishment that would deal with stuff like this:
Speaking of insanity, I don’t know if it is the weather changes or what, but I have been having insane and extremely vivid dreams the past few days. Last night my dream was about dropping my toothbrush into the toilet and then having to go through sheer hell to buy a new one. I had to go to 40 stores in my dream and every time I thought I was close to getting one someone would buy it before me. I even remember the clerks saying there was a run on toothbrushes (and you all can insert your own damned WV jokes here). Finally, I got to a store and it was stocked wall to wall with toothbrushes, and then I couldn’t make a decision on which one to buy. That’s when I woke up. Oh, and the colors have just been so vivid. In the final store, I remember the toothbrushes were so brightly colored it looked like a big bag of jelly beans- not that cheap Walmart shit, Jelly Belly or stay home.
Must be a glitch in the matrix.
Steeplejack
The Matrix minders put too much Vigoro in your IV feed.
Lavocat
This is your subconscious telling you to get your ass to the dentist because something is up.
Probably just oral cancer.
jibeaux
Ah, sort of a Spatula City, only with toothbrushes. Were they open until midnight?
schrodinger's cat
So are you Morpheus or Neo or Trinity?
ETA: Did you see Tunch? He is Agent Smith.
Face
So if I win, say, $10K in Vegas, it’s actually safer to mail it to myself than attempt to travel with it, eh? Now THATS f’ed up.
Citizen_X
WALL OF TOOTHBRUSHES EMPLOYEE enters.
W.O.T.E.: That was no dream, John. (Hands COLE bag of toothbrushes. Cue eerie music.)
muddy
My opinion about the dreams is that it takes a longer time than you think for your brain to go back to normal after you quit drinking/drugs. Then when it starts to come back to itself, it goes wild for a bit. I have had this happen with long term prescription meds that effect thinking as well.
I didn’t realize how long it had been since I remembered full color dreams with detailed plotlines, or dreams at all for that matter until they started coming back.
Phylllis
My dream just before waking was about the meeting from hell. Too long to go into, except to say when the alarm went off, I woke up saying ‘meeting over’ in a sharp tone of voice. Hubs was giving me the dafuq look.
Micherr Markin
The joke is that the toothbrush was invented in West Virginia. If it had come from another state, it would have been called a teethbrush.
Belafon
What’s on the video?
Howard Beale IV
@Face: If your bank has a Las Vegas branch, deposit it there. or get the casino to wire it to your bank.
samiam
If you don’t want dreams stop stuffing your face before you go to bed. Especially sweet snacks.
samiam
If you don’t want dreams stop stuffing your face with sweets before you go to bed.
tesslibrarian
The other night, I dreamed I didn’t have my passport to show as ID at the archives registration desk in Paris (where I’m tagging along for a conference so I can go to the archives). It wasn’t that I lost it on the train or left it at the hotel–I hadn’t brought it with me to France.
I woke up freaked out about not being sure how I got into the country without it, and how would I get home without it. Thinking about it still freaks me out.
Another Holocene Human
When a people go mad collectively, whether it’s after 911 or fear of drugs, it doesn’t matter what politician, what party, the majority gets swept along and bad policy gets made.
Journalists were sounding the alarm about civil forfeiture back in the 1980s and continuing in every decade since then but I guess Americans just weren’t getting it.
It’s always been ridiculous, seemingly unconstitutional (unless you’re SCOTUS since they know better, of course), and invited corruption.
SatanicPanic
Tonight Cole you will be haunted by three spirits…
brettvk
I can’t watch the clip all the way through; civil forfeiture is one of those things that sets off my fight-or-flight reflex. Years from now when historians are chronicling the fall of the Empire they will point to CF as one of the early symptoms that, beaten back at the time, might have spare us the horrible descent into 21st century fascism that followed. Of course, the historians will be writing from under a rock or another continent because history would have been outlawed in the US by then.
raven
I lost my goddamn wallet and I’ve been all over trying to find it. . .for realz!
Villago Delenda Est
I liked the part with the cop that didn’t know where his grape juice went.
The Dangerman
Why did you have to buy a new toilet?
Villago Delenda Est
@brettvk:
They’re working on that in Colorado right now.
brettvk
I think many life-altering events, situational or chemical, will reshuffle dreaming as a brain function. I spent almost six years working third-shift hours and in that time it seemed that I stopped dreaming; at least, I never woke with any afterimages. About a year ago I was able to switch to day hours (at a loss of pay and schedule stability, natch), and after I adjusted to a night-sleep schedule I could remember dreaming again. I think it’s helped lift my dysthymia a degree or two.
Botsplainer
@raven:
Stop looking for 30 minutes and make a snack. You’ll refine your search after a break, and it’ll come to you.
raven
@Botsplainer: Good advice, unfortunately I’m on my 4th 30 minute hiatus since 9am. Methinks it be gone.
Steeplejack
@Belafon:
John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight piece on civil forfeiture, i.e., cops taking your assets because they think you’re a drug dealer, etc.
brettvk
@Face: The lesson I’ve taken from civil forfeiture is to never, never travel with a large sum in cash; gotta convert it to a card or traveler’s checks or somesuch. That’s a middle class solution, and a lot of the victims of CF are less than middle class with a temporary stash for a specific purpose. The reason CF is so successful for the cops is that they don’t mess with really rich people,only the temporarily rich. The upper 10% don’t travel the interstate with currency.
schrodinger's cat
@raven: Try to remember when you last saw it and then retrace your steps.
JGabriel
@raven:
Did you check the haystack behind the cows?
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
How do you know the toothbrush was invented in Kentucky?
If it was invented somewhere else it would be called a teethbrush.
(I heard this at a recent music fest by a performer from Kentucky).
Bill E Pilgrim
Okay well your dream was basically my reality over the past months or even couple of years. Close anyway. So not sure what’s happening there, you’re channeling the lives of your commenters through your dreams now.
It sounds nuts but it sort of was, to wit: I found this perfect toothbrush while living in Europe, bought them regularly once a year or more. When I started spending time back stateside I realized they were impossible to find, and that whatever is sold here doesn’t seem to work for me– weird, wavy shapes (and yes, bright clownish colors) far too large (I have a small mouth, a dentist told me) and mostly way too soft.
So I used to remember to stock up when there, but then after being Stateside for a long stretch I just kept using the same one, discarding everything I bought here to try, so it was really old and needed replacing. I finally found a way to order some online, but it was so ridiculously expensive to ship here that I sent them to my address there and had a friend pick them up and deliver them to me next trip to the US, and got them just mid-September.
In the meantime, all through this it was like some mini-nightmare how impossible it was to find even one brand in any store that worked for me here, or at least infuriating and bizarre.
Cue spooky music.
skerry
@brettvk: Re: traveler’s checks. I was at the bank on Saturday and a woman came in asking to buy traveler’s checks. The bank stopped selling them 4 years ago. I had no idea.
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: Yea, I went to local indy book store and bought a gift certificate for a 7th birthday with a card so In know I had it there. I got in touch with them, no dice. Went to the pharmacy and video store and paid cash but I thought I went into my wallet for that. Back home and nowhere else until I noticed it missing this morning. The way that I knew it was missing was that I filled out the online paperwork to renew my drivers license tomorrow when I go to the VA for my hearing aid. I needed the dl number so I started looking then. My bride looked in her ride and then I drove out to her office and looked too. I’m just about to cancel my credit cards because I think I must have dropped it at the pharmacy or video joint.
raven
@skerry: When I went to the LA Olympics in 84 I had a bunch of travelers checks. They had some big scare out there so I had to take my MOM to her bank to cash em in!
raven
moderated????
raven
moderated?
StringOnAStick
@Villago Delenda Est:
I live in that school district, and my neighbors and I are heavily involved in that issue right now. We are NOT going to give up. School board positions are nominally non-partisan here, or at least they were, and the elections were every 3 years so these 3 wingers got in on an off year, unopposed, and in one of the last elections in CO that won’t be majority mail-in ballot. Their time window for what they want to do is rapidly closing, and we will be watching and protesting loudly for the remainder of their terms. I expect them to do something so outrageous that a recall will happen soon.
maya
Perhaps JC visited this site before he brushed his teeth last night.
MattF
So, your suppressed desires involve toothbrushes. Veeery interesting.
coin operated
As with every other law passed with a “TOUGH ON CRIME” motive, the powers-that-be will find ways to exploit and abuse it. Never fucking fails…
And, as mentioned above, it’s always the people on the lower end of the economic scale that is targeted.
Hey, wingers…the war on drugs was your idea. This is just another hydra-head on that monster.
Another Holocene Human
@raven: I lost my wallet once and it turned out my little brother had dropped it in one of those under the bed storage drawers that my mother was so enamored with. Whatever, replaced everything no problem b/c I don’t keep my social or bc in my wallet.
Funny, just realized how different life is for elites. I have no trouble replacing state IDs with a passport in hand. I got that thing as a teenager by my mother vouching for my identity. LOLOLOL. Now I just think about how much trouble my young friend Miss M had getting her state ID under REAL ID. Her mom has her birth certificate and no law in the US compels her to hand it over. So she had to apply for a duplicate and to deter fraud that is a very difficult, fraught process. Miss M did not know what county she was born in because why would she? So it was a months-long guessing game. The Social Security office also, too has gotten very shirty about replacing cards although luckily Miss M did have hers so employment was easy.
Upper middle class people never, ever have to trouble themselves to get their papers, please. They have no fucking clue how arduous it is for poor people from abusive homes (or who have had parents who died, or who were born at home, etcet) to get their frigging papers, please. With REAL ID, most of the methods that were available for indigent people and families to establish identity have been swept away. In some cases, a person is stuck in a legal impossibility, either trapped in a circular loop needing Doc A to get Doc B and Doc B to get Doc A, or needed a document that is impossible to obtain (hospital records room burned and the ob/gyn has long since passed away).
Kafka-esque Process for thee, easy-breezy my buds all vouch for me for me.
Ruckus
@skerry:
What do you need travelers checks for, don’t you have cards? Everyone has cards, don’t they?
/snark.
And banks have been wanting to get out of the cash business for a while. Federal law requires them to fill out a form for any large amounts of cash, I believe it’s $10,000. may have dropped. I used to work different events around the country that sometimes had a fair amount of cash. No bank would even talk to you without having an account so someone(who else) had to carry it back to the home office. On the plane. Have carried over $30K on several occasions. That sure would have gotten the attention of the drug sniffers if they had found out.
Roger Moore
@Face:
No; the Post Office specifically discourages people from mailing cash. You’d definitely be better off with a check from that place in Vegas, since that would help to establish that the money came from a legal, non-drug source. Of course you’d be best off depositing it in your bank account.
burnspbesq
@Face:
Have the casino wire it to you or send it to your PayPal account.
Another Holocene Human
Papers, please goes back to the slave era. It was about controlling an entire population of people. All the ills of the fugitive slave era–stolen papers, destroyed papers, forged papers–continue right to this day on the margins of the US economy.
Also, sure this sounds radical, but think about it–if the only requirement to work in the US was to be physically here–you still need to establish identity because an employer ought to be able to check out who you are and your history no matter where you come from–but no calling INS when the workers start talking union or deporting your programmer when she asks for a raise–then you wouldn’t need a law giving US citizens a preference because all of the incentive for sadistic, greedy dildos to hire “guest workers” would be gone. And they would just hire based on the skill/pay matrix, putting the US born on an equal playing field.
Right now an American can’t walk up and say, “Hey, I’ll work that job for less” because for some non-zero and non-trivial %age of employers it’s not just the dollar amount, it’s the control. (Also, the tax avoidance, harder to cheat because many Americans check their annual letters from Social Security and start complaining when a job isn’t on there.)
Another Holocene Human
@coin operated: Find a way? Civil forfeiture was abusive from the start.
The whole problem is that they can seize property BEFORE proving wrongdoing in a court of law.
Also, the connection to the alleged crime can be quite slim.
The whole thing was corrupt from the get-go.
Roger Moore
@brettvk:
Another important lesson is not to give the cops permission to search your car. Unless you give them permission, they need probable cause to give your car a thorough search. Once you give permission, though, they can search it from top to bottom.
Another Holocene Human
@brettvk: It’s like the My Cousin Vinny shakedown except now they seize your untraceable cash, so no legal remedies available. So if crooked cops are seizing cars and boats in Miami, that’s more the bathos side of things. But poor people getting held up by bandits with a badge in rural hellholes is certainly the pathos.
None of this should be legal. 4th amendment. They knew what they were talking about, too.
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore: That’s why they coerce it. Or just lie later and say there was permission given. They make death threats. They target parents traveling with children and put the children in jeopardy.
Roger Moore
@raven:
It’s next to Cole’s mustard.
Another Holocene Human
@StringOnAStick: Keep up the good fight.
lamh36
Naw, you just getting crazier in your old age Cole.
Same thing happened to my dear old granny…what are you pushing 60…right ;-)
RSA
Coulda washed it off with Brawndo–good as new.
RAM
I dunno, Cole. Given your track record, are you sure you weren’t experiencing real life there?
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
I think the IRS has a lot to do with the need for papers to work here. If you’re a regular employee, your employer is supposed to report your income to the IRS and will almost always do tax withholding, too. Since the IRS tracks you by your SSN, you need one to work outside the shadow economy.
skerry
@Another Holocene Human: Sandusky, OH police threaten to call Child Protective Services to take 2 week old infant because father won’t show ID or step out of the car after a traffic stop. The mother was driving and her ID checked out. The father filmed the whole encounter.
I find it so very frightening what is happening around the country with the police overstepping bounds. I don’t know what I would do if I found myself in a situation like these people.
Botsplainer
@skerry:
You can’t hardly use them at foreign destinations anymore. Too easily conterfeited, so they won’t honor them.
Anymore, I carry about $500 cash, a high limit AMEX and a VISA card. My wife (who travels extensively) does the same, and also has an internationally usable USAA card which rebates ATM fees and doesn’t charge a currency conversion for ATM withdrawals. She also wears several pieces of readily disposable, non-sentimental jewelry, both silver and gold, the idea being, in a pinch, she can swap some shiny stuff for goods or services.
Sloegin
Always good purchase a few extra toothbrushes for those times you have guests.
raven
@skerry: Don’t freak out.
skerry
@Botsplainer: I can’t remember the last time I used a traveler’s check. Decades ago.
I travel with very little cash, relying on credit cards and my debit card. I’ve used the debit card to get money internationally.
In August, I took my daughter from Baltimore to NYC for college. I forgot to tell my credit card that I was traveling and they denied a charge at a Target store. Luckily, I had another card that was accepted. I never had a problem in NY before. It’s really not that far and it was just a day trip. Lesson learned.
elftx
Happened to a couple of poker players leaving a WSOP event in IL and stopped in IA
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/30/gamblers-iowa-troopers-unlawfully-seized-cash/16510635/
skerry
@raven: @raven: If I were a young mother of a 2 week old infant being threatened by police, I would find it difficult to not be “nervous” or freak out. Hell, when my kids were newborns, I was freaking out regularly for no good reason. That poor woman (and the father) had good reason.
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore: Not true, you can apply for a TIN.
The “papers, please” portion of employment is called an I-9 form. It’s a one-page form on which you report how your employees established their identity on hire. State ID’s and TINs are no good; you have to see their visa. It has fuck-all to do with paying the payroll taxes.
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer: Damn. I just carry a debit card and bring some Euros I saved from the last trip because somehow the first ATM is always busted. It really sucks, though, especially in France, because everybody wants those smart cards and your shitty magnetic strip is not going to cut it any more. But I can’t get one in the states.
I tried to get one of those credit cards that doesn’t rip you off for currency exchange but the issuer had a sad because I didn’t have a house they could use as collateral.
Having a binational bank would be cool but ING sold their US division and they wouldn’t do GIRO accounts in the US anyway. I guess there’s always those gangsters HSBC but I refuse to open an account with them.
Another Holocene Human
I found out that San Antonio had a lot of the fun of going overseas without the annoyance, though. And going to Canada is fun although there is a lot of annoyance at the border crossing because the guards on both sides are assholes, but US Customs especially. Weird thing, though, I found out if you’re gay, come back in the US on a federal holiday. All of the peeps will be younger, new hires and they aren’t flaming assholes.
ETA: 2015 federal holidays: http://archive.opm.gov/operating_status_schedules/fedhol/2015.asp
PurpleGirl
@skerry: The problem may have been that you were using it at a Target store. Remember last year Target had a problem with its credit card security. Maybe your bank just declines any card use at a Target. I’ve gone back to using cash only at Target.
Another Holocene Human
@skerry: NY/NJ both my wife and I have had a card 0wned, two different occasions. Had to get new card. I rarely carry cash because Gainesville is like strong arm robbery land. Should learn to use wad of cash in NY/NJ if I go back because card skimmers are everywhere.
catclub
@Another Holocene Human:
Chip and pin card issuers:https://www.andrewsfcu.org/credit_cards_and_loans/credit_cards/globetrek_rewards.html
andrews airforce base credit union – military travelers.
Older
“the clerks saying there was a run on toothbrushes” — I believe I have just seen the video all these people saw just before they ran out to buy more toothbrushes.
I wonder if I should post it here? It’s kind of in poor — ah — taste. Aw, go ahead, what could it hurt?
So, here it is:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=750_1361955514
Be careful, now.
Tone In DC
Another link, in case anyone is curious.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/stop-and-seize/
Bobby B.
“it’s actually safer to mail it to myself than attempt to travel with it,” But the Post Office is part of it. In the name of finding drugs. For the children!
Steve in the ATL
@Roger Moore:
I had one of these cases back in the 90’s. Three young black guys stopped for speeding on I-95 in Georgia. Had $10,000 in cash on them, but no drugs or weapons. Cops seized it and filed a filed a forfeiture action. I was SHOCKED when I started reading the law in this area. Couldn’t believe the USA had such a law. To attempt return of their cash, they were even required to post a cash bond! WTF???
They dropped their case a few weeks later when they were busted for dealing. I assumed all along they were dealers, but was still horrified by the law because there was no evidence whatsoever connecting them with drugs or any illegal activity beyond speeding on the interstate at a speed that white people don’t get pulled over for.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Back in the 90s, I wrote an appellate brief on the unconstitutionality of civil forfeiture laws (double jeopardy and excessive fines). IMO it was one of the best pieces of legal writing I have done. It went nowhere of course.
Mnemosyne
@Another Holocene Human:
It makes sense to me that they can seize illegal goods — if you have a trunkful of cocaine or shark fins (sorry, John Oliver), those are illegal to possess in most states, so it makes sense that the cops can seize those on the spot. Cash or vehicles or houses? Those should not be subject to seizure without a warrant at a minimum, and the cops should be forced to go to court and prove they were used for illegal purposes or the cops have to give ’em back.
danielx
@Omnes Omnibus:
Especially since they’ve been using confiscated funds to pay actual operating expenses, salaries and such, they really, really don’t like to give the money back. Highway robbery is back with a vengeance, except that the bandits wear badges and sunglasses instead of masks and such.
@Face:
It most certainly is safer, and fucked up too.
They got $90,000 back, but they are out $30k in legal expenses and whatnot.
Is this a great country or what?
andy
I haven’t had to buy a brush in years. The dentist gives me one every time i’m in for a cleaning, and since they last more then six months, I must have something like a lifetime supply by now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: The civil forfeiture statutes are set up so that the proceeds of illegal acts can be seized (cash obviously, but also houses, cars, TVs, boats, etc., purchased with cash from the illegal acts) and and so that instrumentalities of the crime can be seized (if you used your phone to make a crime related call, if you planned the acts in your house, if you drove to do it in your car, they can grab them). Part of the reason for seizing them prior to the CF action, is to “keep them safe – you know – because otherwise you might decide to burn down your house to keep the government from getting it.
Southern Beale
I caught that episode. Oliver is doing some amazing work. Really amazing — stuff you used to see on “60 Minutes.”
One of the stories he cited was out of Nashville. I’d never heard of civil forfeiture before.
Another Holocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: I think they started that shit with the understanding that the SCOTUS would shut it down or limit it … but they didn’t.
People like to bitch about Scalia, but Rehnquist was the OG.
Another Holocene Human
@danielx: Plus taxes on their “winnings”; there is no tax exemption for lawyers’ fees.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, yeah, I know how the civil forfeiture statutes are currently set up. I’m saying what I think they should be changed to. As I said, allowing cops to seize goods that are themselves illegal (like cocaine) makes sense, but seizure of other, less obvious items needs to be more strongly regulated.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne: Oliver’s politics are better than his humor. He goes over the top with shit he thinks is funny but nobody else does and, as you said, there’s nothing really funny about killing thousands of animals and endangering a species for a fricking luxury good.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne: The forfeiture of even illegal goods under the statutes existing seems to have some issues. However, I could see the argument of the estoppel of unlicensed guns, of shark fins, of goods being smuggled across borders. To me the cocaine seems like entirely too much temptation for the police. Like alcohol to a TSA agent. The worst part is that cocaine by its nature is not illegal. It’s still prescribable, if controlled.
If evidence seized legally had to be kept secure or risk the loss of prosecution, the cops would be very keen to keep their seizures secure because nothing blows like losing a case for something stupid like that. But when you can just seize stuff and never prosecute you end up with situations like ABQ evidence room where cash, drugs, and guns went missing. Guess what, some of those guns were evidence in homicide cases. “Oops.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: If you want to talk about changing the laws, you might want to advocate eliminating civil forfeiture entirely.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
But there are a few (possibly edge) cases where people have illegal goods in their car or home and don’t know about it, but they can’t be allowed to retain the illegal goods, so those goods have to go somewhere. Though I suppose you would automatically remove the problem of an auctioned car having drugs concealed in it that the new owner doesn’t know about if police are no longer allowed to auction off seized goods.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I am not sure what you mean. Drugs will be seized whether or not civil forfeiture exists. And forfeiture under criminal laws following a guilty verdict is always an option where there is a connection between the property and the crime.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Maybe they didn’t explain it right last night but, from what the video above was saying, when illegal goods (like cocaine or shark fins), there is then a civil suit filed against those goods, because there’s no legal owner. If civil forfeiture was done away with entirely, what do you do with illegal goods for which there is no owner?
The situation I’m thinking of was one that was on some reality cop show my mom was watching (“Border Patrol,” maybe?) A guy had bought a truck at a police auction that turned out to have drugs hidden inside one of the panels. The guy had no clue they were there and was able to prove how/when he had bought the truck, so the Border Patrol removed the package from the truck body and he was free to leave. So now, legally, what happens to those drugs? They didn’t belong to the guy who owned the truck. They probably can’t prove they belonged to the truck’s previous owner. It sounded from the Oliver piece that they would now do a civil suit essentially against the drugs themselves to create a civil forfeiture, but you’re saying otherwise.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
Which makes sense, but there need to be some procedural safeguards in place. These should be something like:
1) The initial seizure without any formal procedure can only be for a limited amount of time. People who are arrested get bail hearings soon after their arrest so the government can’t just lock them up forever. There should be a similar hearing for seized assets in which the government is forced to present a case for keeping them locked up.
2) The government should be forced to give seized assets back automatically if they either fail to press charges or the person from whom they are seized is acquitted. There should be massive penalties if the government does get sticky fingers.
3) The government should pay at least a modest amount for loss of use when assets are held beyond the initial seizure. Interest at the prime rate on the value of the seized assets should be the absolute minimum.
My Truth Hurts
It’s because you quit drinking. Good for you. Keep it up. Life is good.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
If they present results from an FDA registered testing lab showing purity and identity, I’ll let it go. Otherwise, I’ll assume it’s either illegally imported or being illegally diverted.
JR in WV
When I travel I always like to have enough cash to get home via some alternate route. When we went to Europe the first time we bought a fistfull of Euros before departure.
When I turned adult, my Dad gave me a ring that was a duplicate of a ring his Dad gave him when he turned 21. That kinda gave it some emotional value, but the real purpose of the ring was to have something you could pawn/sell to get home on. A men’s hunk of gold with 3 little diamonds.
Still have it, my wife wears it sometimes, My fingers are too short and thick for rings to be comfortable, they cut into the web between your fingers.
We always get a couple of large $ before leaving on a trip. Usually we have a lot left when we get back, but in case, I feel comfortable having a resource. I like the idea of plain gold jewelry, big neck chains in 18K are worth the same per inch almost everywhere today.
We have a money belt that holds bills folded long ways, and would hold cash coins too, but it would show up on the airport xray, don’t know if a dozen Maple Leafs would break any rules on not. That would get you home again first class, on a Cunard boat in a suite.
Matt
Not actually going to help if they decide they feel like robbing you, er “civil forfeituring” you that is.
All that will happen is that they’ll send for the K9, who will ever-so-conveniently “alert” just out of view of the dashcam – establishing “probable cause” that few judges will even wonder about.
If you decide to get *really* disagreeable about it, you’ll wind up “having attempted to grab an officers weapon” and six feet under.
At this point, there are only two kinds of cops in the world: crooked cops, and slightly-less-crooked cops who only cover up for the first bunch instead of also preying on the citizenry. THERE IS NO THIRD CATEGORY.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
If that is what was said, it is wrong. The illegal goods (drugs, weapons, etc.) are simply seized and generally destroy. Instrumentalities and proceeds can be subject to civil or criminal forfeiture. For criminal forfeitures, the goods must be directly connected to a crime for which the person was convicted and it is basically a part of the sentencing process ( I won’t go into all the ins and outs of how it is handled). For an civil forfeiture, the goods must be connected to an illegal act (no conviction required). Those suits are filed against the property so you get case captions like US v. a 2012 Ferrari and $641,219 cash.
ETA: This is, of course, a thumbnail sketch of the process.
@Roger Moore: Those suggestions make sense. I would still advocate doing away with civil forfeiture altogether.
JPS
Here in Minnesota civil forfeiture now requires a conviction.
Omnes Omnibus
@JPS: @Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, I should note I was talking purely about federal law.
Kyle
If it’s money withdrawn from a bank that you are travelling with, having the bank receipt can save you trouble. A friend of mine was bringing a few thousand dollars (under the $10k must-declare limit) into the US from Europe, a gift from his mom for his kid’s education. To avoid the extortionate wire-transfer fees they carried it over as USD cash.
Customs stopped him and was dubious as to why he was carrying more than travel money, but he had his mom’s bank receipt showing the $ withdrawn and converted to USD so he was let go.
Renie
@Roger Moore: There was a diary on DK about this. They will seize your car even if you deny a search. Here’s a great article about it someone linked for me: http://www.newyorker.com
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Another Holocene Human:
…not sure if serious.
If so, you’ve been going to the wrong overseas destinations…
Melissa
@muddy:
I stopped smoking (two packs a day) five months ago & have crazy dreams every 10 days or so. In the beginning it was every night.
Nellie in NZ
A friend of ours gave some acquaintances a ride in his private plane (they may have said something about a family emergency). They were arrested on marijuana charges and the plane was seized. Nothing happened until he sued to get the plane back. He was then charged as part of a drug ring, the acquaintances plea bargained down by saying he was involved. He faced a long term if guilty so he calculated it was easier to plead guilty and he got a counseling service (did you know that these exist?) to help get him into minimum security somewhere. For a while we never knew where he was, because they were flying him around and checking him in and out of several private prisons a day, each one charging for a full day to ring up the bill. While in prison, he declared he was a drug addict and went through the rehab program because that way he could earn an early release. The counselors in the program apparently knew he had never had a drug problem and started to call him on it and then backed off and let him go through it and get out earlier. A major Kafka nightmare.