this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
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It doesn't matter. The point of the way our laws are supposed to work is that the government can't go looking at people and their stuff without suspicion. The stuff itself cannot be the suspicion unless its only common purpose is criminal. That's why a stack of money should be safe in plain sight, but not a bong.
I don't know about the US but in Germany the context of things is definitely considered to judge if something is common or suspicious.
It's perfectly legal to own a clown mask and to wear it during carnival would be common. If you wear one outside carnival and walk towards the door of a bank, that's pretty suspicious.
It's perfectly legal to stand around in public. If you do it alone, at night in an area that's known to have many drug dealers and you suddenly start to run away if the police strolls along, then that's suspicious again.
And if the police considers you to be suspicious, they will ask what you're doing and to explain your behavior. They won't straight away throw you into jail obviously but they have the right to do a routine check.
For me, the cash in a regular package is really similar. If they seize your cash and you can proof that it was a weird way to pay for a car or that your aunt forgot her pile of cash when she visited you and you send it after her, then I'm quite sure, they'll have to hand it back. If you object to explain who sent you $10.000 and why, then I agree to find that pretty suspicious.
Assuming criminals do use FedEx etc. to transfer illegally earned money anonymously from one place to another, what would be the alternative to intervene? Or would you just let it happen?
The problem here is the money itself has no intent. It's not walking towards a bank wearing a mask. And there's no law that says you have to use banks. It's entirely legal to cash out all of your paychecks, keep the money in your mattress, and then go pay for a car in cash. Since the great Depression there are still Americans who distrust the banking system.
To confiscate that money based solely on the fact that it's money should be illegal. It was illegal until the 1980's. Then we convinced ourselves that although we have a right to due process and high standards for searches and seizures of our property; our property itself does not have any rights and can be detained on it's own. That is, they can take your property, without charging you with any crime. They instead charge the money, house, car, etc, with the crime and you are now in the position of proving it's not criminal without any of the court protections you would have if you were charged. No jury, no free lawyer, and no assumption of innocence for the state to overcome.
If that sounds like something that could be abused, it absolutely has been. Cities have used it to clear land for development without paying for it. Some small towns are notorious for taking any bundles of cash they can from people passing through.