https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/19/fbi-lied-to-court-en-route-to-seizing-property-owned-by-private-vault-company-customers/

There is no doubt civil asset forfeiture perverts law enforcement's
incentives. When a government agency can directly profit from seizing people's
property, it will do this as often as it can. And when the justice system is
skewed against people seeking to have their property returned, it greases the
wheels for abuse.

In forfeiture cases, the government is allowed to treat seized property as
presumptively guilty, placing the burden of proof on people whose property has
been seized to prove they acquired it legally. Inverting the burden of proof
makes it less likely seizures will be challenged since citizens aren't
guaranteed free representation in what is ostensibly a civil case. That means
if people can't afford to hire a lawyer (or realize legal fees will exceed the
value of the seized property), the government gets to keep everything it
stole.

The FBI used this leverage to seize everything agents found in private storage
boxes owned by customers of US Private Vaults. The company offered
no-questions-asked secure safety deposit box-esque storage to customers at
storefront operations located in strip malls and other areas US Private Vaults
operated. Customers could access the contents of their secure storage boxes.
US Private Vaults could not. The government thought this was inherently
suspicious.

So it concocted a plan to raid US Private Vaults' locations. This plan
included lying to the court about what FBI agents planned to do when
performing these searches. Federal agents swore they would not seize the
contents of individual boxes, but rather seize the entire "nest" of boxes
stored at a US Private Vaults location and only examine contents of individual
boxes for the purposes of identifying owners who could be contacted about the
raid and seizure. This is from the FBI's warrant application:

This warrant does not authorize a criminal search or seizure
of the safety deposit boxes. In seizing the nests of safety deposit
boxes, agents shall follow their written inventory policies to
protect their agencies and the contents of the boxes. Also in
accordance with their written policies, agents shall inspect the
contents of the boxes in an effort to identify their owners in order
to notify them so that they can claim their property.

Despite these sworn statements, the FBI performed criminal searches and
seizures of the contents of individual boxes. This lie-- along with the FBI's
inability to link seized property to criminal activity-- led to some early
judicial pushback.

Less than a month after the raid, a federal court blocked the FBI from moving
forward with a number of its planned forfeitures due to a lack of evidence
connecting seized property to criminal activity. As the judge pointed out
then, the government's only "evidence" was a copy-pasted quotation of
supposedly relevant criminal codes-- something entirely unsuited to justifying
the seizure of certain customers' property.

The following month, the same court ordered the FBI to return $57,000 to a
vault customer because it was still unable to link this seizure to suspected
criminal activity.

Despite these early failures, the FBI is still trying to keep a majority of
the property it told the court more than a year ago it wasn't actually going
to seize. The Institute for Justice has been involved in this case since its
beginning. And now it's demanding the court take notice of the FBI's
willingness to continue lying to maintain its grip on its ill-gotten gains.
Joseph Cox, reporting for Motherboard, has the details. (h/t Michael Vario)

"The government has a duty to be honest with the court when
it applies for a warrant under the 4th Amendment," senior attorney
at the Institute for Justice Robert Frommer said in a statement.
"But the FBI lied about its intentions in claiming to only be interested
in the property of the business, and not the box holders. Ultimately,
the lure of civil forfeiture turned these federal cops into robbers."

Before sending their warrant application to a judge, authorities "failed to
tell the judge that, months before, they and other government agencies had
already formulated plans to use civil forfeiture against customers' property.
In fact, before the federal magistrate had even seen the warrant application,
FBI officials had concluded they would use civil forfeiture against every
asset in every customer's box that was worth over $5,000," the Institute for
Justice writes.

Long before the government lied on its warrant application-- the one that said
the FBI would not perform seizures/searches of individual boxes for criminal
charge reasons-- the FBI was already planning to do the things it would later
tell a judge it wouldn't do.

The plan began all the way back in June 2020, nine months before the FBI
(under false pretenses) secured a search warrant to perform the raid at US
Private Vaults. That plan, according to a court filing obtained by the
Institute for Justice, showed the FBI had already placed its forfeiture unit
in motion to handle the planned influx of seizures that this raid would
produce.

Lie after lie and yet, somehow, it's still customers of a private vault
company forced to spend their own money to secure the return of... their own
money. Civil asset forfeiture is a perversion of law. And, as these latest
revelations show, the government is filled with exactly the sort of perverts
civil asset forfeiture attracts.

On Sunday, August 21, 2022 at 8:25:27 PM UTC-4, BTR1701 wrote:
> https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/19/fbi-lied-to-court-en-route-to-seizing-property-owned-by-private-vault-company-customers/

> Long before the government lied on its warrant application-- the one that said
> the FBI would not perform seizures/searches of individual boxes for criminal
> charge reasons-- the FBI was already planning to do the things it would later
> tell a judge it wouldn't do.

"Americans must never make the mistake of wholly 'trusting' our public officials,"

https://youtu.be/QwiUVUJmGjs?t=387

-----------

"Not wittingly"

https://youtu.be/4dh02OnJpIE?t=39

On Mon, 22 Aug 2022 00:24:10 +0000, BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

>In forfeiture cases, the government is allowed to treat seized property as
>presumptively guilty, placing the burden of proof on people whose property has
>been seized to prove they acquired it legally. Inverting the burden of proof
>makes it less likely seizures will be challenged since citizens aren't
>guaranteed free representation in what is ostensibly a civil case. That means
>if people can't afford to hire a lawyer (or realize legal fees will exceed the
>value of the seized property), the government gets to keep everything it
>stole.

I'd have a hard time proving I earned the money to buy my house
legitimately. After all I bought it in 1991 and locating the papers
showing my downpayment and initial mortgage could be rather tough.

I know we re-financed our mortgage along the way but who did we
originally deal with? What I COULD plead in court is that the taxman
has all my tax returns and that I am not now or ever been under
investigation. But PROVE it 30 years later? Could be tough.

I could show them my 1993 property tax bill showing what it was
assessed at then .... but that still wouldn't prove the source of my
funds (roughly 25% down, 75% mortgaged - but again no paperwork)