In a fateful moment for privacy, Facebook’s “Moments” uses facial recognition to expose where people went and who they were with.
What a bad week for privacy. Consumer watchdogs gave up on government talks over facial recognition software after industry groups appeared to reject even basic restrictions on face-scanning. Meanwhile, Facebook rolled out a new service called “Moments” that expands the use of the company’s powerful “faceprint” technology.
This doesn’t mean the privacy apocalypse is upon us; for now least, the Facebook “Moments” tool is just one more creepy-but-useful social media innovation. But if loss of liberty happens gradually, June of 2015 could be a watershed we look back on with regret. It marks a time when we took new steps towards accepting the use of our very faces as a universal ID card – without deciding on the rules for using it.
Facebook’s powerful, dangerous faceprint tool
Your face is like your fingerprint: It’s a set of identifying markers that are distinct to you and, short of major surgery, can’t be erased. In recent years, the FBI and others have amassed mass databases of “faceprints,” but Facebook has the biggest, and is best at using them. (“Faceprint” is a generic term, but one that has been adopted by online dictionaries and major media outlets).
My colleague Stacey Higginbotham this week described the remarkable feats of artificial intelligence that let Facebook FB 1.36% teach computers to “see” the same face across hundreds of millions of photographs. That AI power is what drives Facebook’s existing “tag” feature, which shows users a photo and a prompt like “Is this Jill?” (if the user says yes, Jill will typically be “tagged” when others see the photo).
That tag feature, notably, is not available in many countries. Regulators in the European Union and Canada, specifically, have found it to be intrusive so Facebook does not turn it on. Given that reaction, it’s unlikely those countries will be okay with the company’s new “Moments” feature either.
If you’re unfamiliar, Moments is one of Facebook’s sister apps for mobile devices. It works by burrowing into all the photos on your camera, and sorting them into discrete temporal events – that party, that bike trip, that office function – to create “Moments.” The app then tags everyone it recognizes by comparing the faces in the photos to existing Facebook friends (your “social graph” in tech parlance), and invites you to share the resulting “Moment” with everyone tagged in the photo.
The idea is a good one. As Facebook points out, it could eliminate the need to take group shots on multiple cell phones, and it creates a quick and easy way to share pics of an event with those who were there. The catch, however, is that the whole thing turns on Facebook’s facial recognition technology in a way that requires everyone to accept the use of their face as a type of ID badge.
Think of the implications: Facebook already has detailed biographical data about each of its users, and now it is using faces to create an archive of where they were and who they were with. Here is how the Privacy Commissioner of Canada explains what could happen (my emphasis):
In the worst case scenario, the technology could one day be used to compile and publish moments outside an AIDS treatment center, an abortion clinic, a gay bar, a church, a strip club, a mosque, a union meeting and so on.
Weak laws
It’s not fair to blame Facebook for every potential abuses of facial recognition software. After all, lots of other outfits are using it too, including Microsoft, Google, casinos, night clubs and the Department of Homeland Security. Meanwhile, the technology has many benefits.
Facial recognition not only offers a new tool for law enforcement and border security, but could bring convenience and safety to consumers too. Imagine, for instance, using nothing but your face to log-in to your computer, open your front door or control every sensor in your house.
But for now the dangers appear to loom larger than potential conveniences. That’s why nine public interest groups, including the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, decided this week to abandon talks aimed at setting guidelines for how companies can use facial recognition technology. The groups said the 16-month talks, hosted by the Commerce Department, were futile since industry groups refused to agree to even basic boundaries.
Unfortunately for consumers, in the absence of the proposed guidelines, there appear to be few other legal options to rein in the use of their faceprint.
If the government is involved, the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution offers privacy protections; the Supreme Court has already said traditional rules on search and seizure apply to newer technologies like GPS devices and smartphones. But such protections may be harder to invoke when it comes to facial recognition technology – especially since putting your face in a public place does not typically involve a “reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Meanwhile, constitutional checks don’t apply in the case of private companies like Facebook. This means consumers may have to rely on the Federal Trade Commission to regulate how companies use their faceprint. But while the agency is tech savvy, it lacks the teeth of its counterparts in other countries, many of which have dedicated Privacy Commissioners to protect consumers. Likewise, class action lawsuits over Facebook’s unauthorized use of users’ images have generally come up short; a case over the use of your face for “Moments” would likely do the same, especially as the feature is not directly tied to advertising.
Another option, suggested by privacy scholar and EFF lawyer Jennifer Lynch, could be to apply existing laws like the Wiretap Act or the Video Privacy Protection Act to facial recognition. Doing so might prove impractical, however, given that the laws are decades old and have already proven inappropriate for a variety of computer-related issues. A final legal recourse comes via state laws that restrict the collection of biometrics; however, such laws appear to exist only in three states (Texas, Illinois and Washington) and have not really been tested.
A laptop display at the launch of An Garda Siochana’s new facial recognition system Evo-Fit in Dublin.Photograph by Brian Lawless — PA Wire/AP
Leaving it up to Facebook
Facebook’s Moments tool pushes the privacy envelope by making it more normal than ever for others to quickly reveal where you were and who you were with. But it does at least offer a basic check on the tagging tool: Users who don’t like the idea of using their as an ID can use Facebook’s own settings to opt out. It’s unclear, however, if Facebook will make much of an effort to tell users they can do so.
In an email comment, a company spokesperson said “Moments” is designed for limited sharing among smaller groups.
“Moments is a private way to give photos to friends and get the photos you didn’t take. It is not designed to be a way to publish photos broadly. Like any photo you have on your phone, you could publish a photo more broadly, but the whole point of this app is a private sharing experience with friends who mutually agree to share photos with one another. If you share a photo in Moments to Facebook, you would have to actually tag the photo before the person would be identified on Facebook.”
But even though, as the company explains, a Moment will be sent only to the people tagged in the photos, that does not mean the pictures won’t appear elsewhere. That’s because anyone who receives a Moment (perhaps with your face tagged in it), can then share it to the wider internet – a fact that Facebook downplays in its own Q&A page:
“Photos you sync with friends are only shared in Moments unless you or a friend decides to share them outside the app …Keep in mind once you sync photos to a friend, they can then save your photos or sync them to their friends.” (Translation: the photos are not private.)
The potential for abuse, and the larger privacy implications of facial recognition technology, means there is an obvious step Facebook should take in the case of Moments and other tagging tools: make them opt-in rather than opt-out. In a perfect world, Facebook would also show consumers a video about what they are giving up when they agree to let the company and others use their face as an ID badge in day-to-day life (though this is about as likely as Mark Zuckerberg selecting 1984 or The Circle for his monthly book club).
For now, Facebook is unlikely to change course in the absence of laws that require it to do so. As such, this could be the month where millions of people learn to trade control of their face for an internet sharing feature.
http://fortune.com/2015/06/17/facebook-moments-privacy-facial-recognition/
Law Enforcement Seizes $11,000 From 24-Year-Old at Airport Without Charging Him With a Crime
It was Feb. 17, 2014, and Charles Clarke, 24, just wanted to get home.
After spending several weeks with family in Cincinnati, Ohio, Clarke arrived at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in Hebron, Ky., for a flight back to Orlando, Fla., where his mother lived and where he would be taking classes at the University of Central Florida.
With $11,000 in his pocket—the culmination of five years worth of savings from various jobs, financial aid, gifts from family members and benefits from his mother, a disabled veteran—Clarke checked his bag and headed to the gate to await the departure of his flight.
He would eventually return home, but the cash Clarke had in his pocket didn’t make it.
Instead, the weight of the federal government came down on the 24-year-old, and his $11,000 was seized by federal and state law enforcement before he ever boarded the plane.
“I’m not a drug dealer. I’ve never been,” Clarke said. “I didn’t have any plans on doing anything illegal. I was just trying to get home.”
‘Treated Like a Criminal’
Clarke brought the money with him to Cincinnati, Ohio, he said, because his mother was moving apartments, and he didn’t want the moving company to find his money. Additionally, because his bank had few branches, he felt safer knowing his money was near.
After Clarke checked his bag and headed to the gate, a ticketing agent with U.S. Airways—unbeknownst to the young man—placed a call to agents with the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport Police Department. The ticketing agent told the officers that Clarke’s luggage smelled like marijuana, according to an affidavit filed by William Conrad, a Cincinnati-based officer with a DEA task force, with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
Conrad and Detective Christopher Boyd approached Clarke when he was waiting at the gate and asked if had drugs or money on him. According to Conrad’s affidavit, Clarke was “free to walk away at any time.”
Clarke told the agents he had $11,000 in his pocket and agreed to let the officers search both him and his carry-on bag. The officers didn’t find any drugs. However, Clarke admitted that he had smoked marijuana on his way to the airport.
Then, the officers seized his $11,000, cellphone and iPad.
Clarke received his phone and tablet two months later. But, more than a year later, he’s fighting to have his cash returned.
“I was being treated like a criminal, and I didn’t commit a crime,” he said. “It was very frustrating.”
According to court documents, Conrad said the money was seized “based on probable cause that it was proceeds of drug trafficking or was intended to be used in an illegal transaction.”
“Mitigating factors” included the purchase of a one-way ticket, inability to provide documentation noting where the money came from, a positive hit by a drug dog and the strong smell of marijuana on his checked luggage.
When the officers attempted to take Clarke’s money, Conrad alleged the 24-year-old “became irate” and grabbed Boyd by the wrist.
“A short struggle ensued and Clarke was eventually arrested and charged with assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct,” Conrad said in court documents.
However, the charges against him were dropped, and Clarke was never charged with a crime related to the alleged drug trafficking.
“I was nervous,” Clarke said of his encounter with the officers. “I didn’t want them to take my life savings. I worked hard to save this money.”
The United States attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky did not return The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Equitable ‘Sharing’
The Drug Enforcement Agency and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport Police Department seized Clarke’s cash through civil asset forfeiture, which gives law enforcement the power to take money or property if it’s suspected of being related to a crime.
In many cases, though, the property owner is never charged with a crime, and those who fight to have their cash and property returned are forced to prove that their belongings are innocent. The practice, policy experts argue, flips the presumption of innocence—innocent until proven guilty—on its head.
In Clarke’s case, the money was seized under the Department of Justice’s Equitable Sharing Program, which entitles local and state law enforcement agencies to up to 80 percent of the proceeds from seized cash and property.
From 2008 to 2013, according to the Arlington, Va.,-based Institute for Justice, $6.8 billion in cash and property has been seized through the Equitable Sharing Program.
Though just two agencies—the Drug Enforcement Agency and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport Police—were involved in the seizure of Clarke’s $11,000, 11 agencies across Kentucky and Ohio are arguing they’re entitled to a cut of the cash.
That’s according to Renee Flaherty, one of Clarke’s lawyers at the Institute for Justice, who spoke with The Daily Signal.
The airport police department is requesting 40 percent of the money and the Cincinnati Police Department wants just 6 percent, with the remaining 11 agencies requesting 3 percent of Clarke’s $11,000 each.
“Every little bit adds up,” Flaherty said regarding the money the agencies are requesting. “This just goes to show the perverse financial incentive that underlies civil forfeiture. If the law allows agencies to be able to keep the money they seized themselves, it’s going to incentivize law enforcement to seize as much property as possible.”
In recent years, local and state law enforcement agencies have been using civil asset forfeiture to pad their budgets, and the proceeds from money and property seized has been used to purchase things like a Dodge Viper and pay for officers’ overtime. Additionally, seizures at airports, specifically the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, have also skyrocketed.
According to Institute for Justice, the airport conducted just a “couple dozen” seizures per year during the late 1990s. However, by 2013, the airport participated in 100 seizures, with proceeds totaling more than $2 million.
>>> Cartoon: A Police Officer Seizes $2K From Citizen
‘Not Right’
After Clarke finally made it back to Florida—without his $11,000—he was forced to move back in with his mother, as he planned to use the money to pay for his living and school expenses. Clarke also took out additional student loans to help get himself settled at the University of Central Florida.
“It was a struggle for me. It was my life savings. I didn’t have anything to my name after they took it. It’s really frustrating and hard, being that I had to rely on my family,” he said. “Other people had priorities. It was almost like a waiting game for me. People helped me out when they could and when they couldn’t, I was pretty much in a bind. It was really hard and frustrating, saddening, and so many emotions running through me.”
Though the Institute for Justice has been successful in fighting forfeitures in court, Flaherty said the government employs a preponderance of evidence as the standard of proof in forfeiture cases—a lower standard than what’s used in criminal cases.
“The deck is really stacked against property owners, and the law is not really in our favor,” she said. “But what we’re trying to do is fight back and say, ‘No, the odor of marijuana is not enough to take someone’s life savings when there’s absolutely no evidence of a crime occurring.’”
Law enforcement argued Clarke failed to provide sufficient documentation for where his $11,000 came from, but Flaherty said she’s confident they have documentation from his three jobs and mother’s benefits to prove exactly where the money came from.
As is the case in many forfeitures, the government offered Clarke a settlement. However, neither he nor Flaherty could discuss the details of the offer. Oftentimes, though, the federal government will return just 50 percent of the money if the victim agrees to the settlement.
Clarke, though, has no plans to accept any deal from the government.
“I want everybody to know that carrying cash is not a crime,” he said. “The law is not right. Innocent people are being treated like criminals without even being convicted of anything.”
http://dailysignal.com/2015/06/17/law-enforcement-seizes-11000-from-24-year-old-at-airport-without-charging-him-with-a-crime/
This doesn’t mean the privacy apocalypse is upon us; for now least, the Facebook “Moments” tool is just one more creepy-but-useful social media innovation. But if loss of liberty happens gradually, June of 2015 could be a watershed we look back on with regret. It marks a time when we took new steps towards accepting the use of our very faces as a universal ID card – without deciding on the rules for using it.
Facebook’s powerful, dangerous faceprint tool
Your face is like your fingerprint: It’s a set of identifying markers that are distinct to you and, short of major surgery, can’t be erased. In recent years, the FBI and others have amassed mass databases of “faceprints,” but Facebook has the biggest, and is best at using them. (“Faceprint” is a generic term, but one that has been adopted by online dictionaries and major media outlets).
My colleague Stacey Higginbotham this week described the remarkable feats of artificial intelligence that let Facebook FB 1.36% teach computers to “see” the same face across hundreds of millions of photographs. That AI power is what drives Facebook’s existing “tag” feature, which shows users a photo and a prompt like “Is this Jill?” (if the user says yes, Jill will typically be “tagged” when others see the photo).
That tag feature, notably, is not available in many countries. Regulators in the European Union and Canada, specifically, have found it to be intrusive so Facebook does not turn it on. Given that reaction, it’s unlikely those countries will be okay with the company’s new “Moments” feature either.
If you’re unfamiliar, Moments is one of Facebook’s sister apps for mobile devices. It works by burrowing into all the photos on your camera, and sorting them into discrete temporal events – that party, that bike trip, that office function – to create “Moments.” The app then tags everyone it recognizes by comparing the faces in the photos to existing Facebook friends (your “social graph” in tech parlance), and invites you to share the resulting “Moment” with everyone tagged in the photo.
The idea is a good one. As Facebook points out, it could eliminate the need to take group shots on multiple cell phones, and it creates a quick and easy way to share pics of an event with those who were there. The catch, however, is that the whole thing turns on Facebook’s facial recognition technology in a way that requires everyone to accept the use of their face as a type of ID badge.
Think of the implications: Facebook already has detailed biographical data about each of its users, and now it is using faces to create an archive of where they were and who they were with. Here is how the Privacy Commissioner of Canada explains what could happen (my emphasis):
Of significant privacy concern is the fact that Facebook has the ability to combine facial biometric data with extensive information about users, including biographic data, location data, and associations with “friends.” […]That warning is from 2013 and relates to Facebook’s existing “tag” technology. The arrival of Moments, then, doesn’t introduce a new privacy risk, but expands an existing one: It normalizes the use of facial technology and makes it easier than ever to quickly track others’ whereabouts and the company they keep – all without their permission, and on the internet.
The availability of cheap facial recognition for the masses may have the effect of normalizing surveillance over time. We are not yet at the point where we can take pictures of people on the street with our smartphones, identify them, and gain access to information about them. However, this reality may not be too far off
In the worst case scenario, the technology could one day be used to compile and publish moments outside an AIDS treatment center, an abortion clinic, a gay bar, a church, a strip club, a mosque, a union meeting and so on.
Weak laws
It’s not fair to blame Facebook for every potential abuses of facial recognition software. After all, lots of other outfits are using it too, including Microsoft, Google, casinos, night clubs and the Department of Homeland Security. Meanwhile, the technology has many benefits.
Facial recognition not only offers a new tool for law enforcement and border security, but could bring convenience and safety to consumers too. Imagine, for instance, using nothing but your face to log-in to your computer, open your front door or control every sensor in your house.
But for now the dangers appear to loom larger than potential conveniences. That’s why nine public interest groups, including the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, decided this week to abandon talks aimed at setting guidelines for how companies can use facial recognition technology. The groups said the 16-month talks, hosted by the Commerce Department, were futile since industry groups refused to agree to even basic boundaries.
Unfortunately for consumers, in the absence of the proposed guidelines, there appear to be few other legal options to rein in the use of their faceprint.
If the government is involved, the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution offers privacy protections; the Supreme Court has already said traditional rules on search and seizure apply to newer technologies like GPS devices and smartphones. But such protections may be harder to invoke when it comes to facial recognition technology – especially since putting your face in a public place does not typically involve a “reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Meanwhile, constitutional checks don’t apply in the case of private companies like Facebook. This means consumers may have to rely on the Federal Trade Commission to regulate how companies use their faceprint. But while the agency is tech savvy, it lacks the teeth of its counterparts in other countries, many of which have dedicated Privacy Commissioners to protect consumers. Likewise, class action lawsuits over Facebook’s unauthorized use of users’ images have generally come up short; a case over the use of your face for “Moments” would likely do the same, especially as the feature is not directly tied to advertising.
Another option, suggested by privacy scholar and EFF lawyer Jennifer Lynch, could be to apply existing laws like the Wiretap Act or the Video Privacy Protection Act to facial recognition. Doing so might prove impractical, however, given that the laws are decades old and have already proven inappropriate for a variety of computer-related issues. A final legal recourse comes via state laws that restrict the collection of biometrics; however, such laws appear to exist only in three states (Texas, Illinois and Washington) and have not really been tested.
A laptop display at the launch of An Garda Siochana’s new facial recognition system Evo-Fit in Dublin.Photograph by Brian Lawless — PA Wire/APLeaving it up to Facebook
Facebook’s Moments tool pushes the privacy envelope by making it more normal than ever for others to quickly reveal where you were and who you were with. But it does at least offer a basic check on the tagging tool: Users who don’t like the idea of using their as an ID can use Facebook’s own settings to opt out. It’s unclear, however, if Facebook will make much of an effort to tell users they can do so.
In an email comment, a company spokesperson said “Moments” is designed for limited sharing among smaller groups.
“Moments is a private way to give photos to friends and get the photos you didn’t take. It is not designed to be a way to publish photos broadly. Like any photo you have on your phone, you could publish a photo more broadly, but the whole point of this app is a private sharing experience with friends who mutually agree to share photos with one another. If you share a photo in Moments to Facebook, you would have to actually tag the photo before the person would be identified on Facebook.”
But even though, as the company explains, a Moment will be sent only to the people tagged in the photos, that does not mean the pictures won’t appear elsewhere. That’s because anyone who receives a Moment (perhaps with your face tagged in it), can then share it to the wider internet – a fact that Facebook downplays in its own Q&A page:
“Photos you sync with friends are only shared in Moments unless you or a friend decides to share them outside the app …Keep in mind once you sync photos to a friend, they can then save your photos or sync them to their friends.” (Translation: the photos are not private.)
The potential for abuse, and the larger privacy implications of facial recognition technology, means there is an obvious step Facebook should take in the case of Moments and other tagging tools: make them opt-in rather than opt-out. In a perfect world, Facebook would also show consumers a video about what they are giving up when they agree to let the company and others use their face as an ID badge in day-to-day life (though this is about as likely as Mark Zuckerberg selecting 1984 or The Circle for his monthly book club).
For now, Facebook is unlikely to change course in the absence of laws that require it to do so. As such, this could be the month where millions of people learn to trade control of their face for an internet sharing feature.
http://fortune.com/2015/06/17/facebook-moments-privacy-facial-recognition/
Law Enforcement Seizes $11,000 From 24-Year-Old at Airport Without Charging Him With a Crime
It was Feb. 17, 2014, and Charles Clarke, 24, just wanted to get home.
After spending several weeks with family in Cincinnati, Ohio, Clarke arrived at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in Hebron, Ky., for a flight back to Orlando, Fla., where his mother lived and where he would be taking classes at the University of Central Florida.
With $11,000 in his pocket—the culmination of five years worth of savings from various jobs, financial aid, gifts from family members and benefits from his mother, a disabled veteran—Clarke checked his bag and headed to the gate to await the departure of his flight.
He would eventually return home, but the cash Clarke had in his pocket didn’t make it.
Instead, the weight of the federal government came down on the 24-year-old, and his $11,000 was seized by federal and state law enforcement before he ever boarded the plane.
“I’m not a drug dealer. I’ve never been,” Clarke said. “I didn’t have any plans on doing anything illegal. I was just trying to get home.”
‘Treated Like a Criminal’
Clarke brought the money with him to Cincinnati, Ohio, he said, because his mother was moving apartments, and he didn’t want the moving company to find his money. Additionally, because his bank had few branches, he felt safer knowing his money was near.
After Clarke checked his bag and headed to the gate, a ticketing agent with U.S. Airways—unbeknownst to the young man—placed a call to agents with the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport Police Department. The ticketing agent told the officers that Clarke’s luggage smelled like marijuana, according to an affidavit filed by William Conrad, a Cincinnati-based officer with a DEA task force, with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
Conrad and Detective Christopher Boyd approached Clarke when he was waiting at the gate and asked if had drugs or money on him. According to Conrad’s affidavit, Clarke was “free to walk away at any time.”
Clarke told the agents he had $11,000 in his pocket and agreed to let the officers search both him and his carry-on bag. The officers didn’t find any drugs. However, Clarke admitted that he had smoked marijuana on his way to the airport.
Then, the officers seized his $11,000, cellphone and iPad.
Clarke received his phone and tablet two months later. But, more than a year later, he’s fighting to have his cash returned.
“I was being treated like a criminal, and I didn’t commit a crime,” he said. “It was very frustrating,” said Charles Clarke.>>> How Did Police Seizing Citizens’ Property Ever Become Legal? Here’s the History of Federal Forfeiture
“I was being treated like a criminal, and I didn’t commit a crime,” he said. “It was very frustrating.”
According to court documents, Conrad said the money was seized “based on probable cause that it was proceeds of drug trafficking or was intended to be used in an illegal transaction.”
“Mitigating factors” included the purchase of a one-way ticket, inability to provide documentation noting where the money came from, a positive hit by a drug dog and the strong smell of marijuana on his checked luggage.
When the officers attempted to take Clarke’s money, Conrad alleged the 24-year-old “became irate” and grabbed Boyd by the wrist.
“A short struggle ensued and Clarke was eventually arrested and charged with assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct,” Conrad said in court documents.
However, the charges against him were dropped, and Clarke was never charged with a crime related to the alleged drug trafficking.
“I was nervous,” Clarke said of his encounter with the officers. “I didn’t want them to take my life savings. I worked hard to save this money.”
The United States attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky did not return The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Equitable ‘Sharing’
The Drug Enforcement Agency and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport Police Department seized Clarke’s cash through civil asset forfeiture, which gives law enforcement the power to take money or property if it’s suspected of being related to a crime.
In many cases, though, the property owner is never charged with a crime, and those who fight to have their cash and property returned are forced to prove that their belongings are innocent. The practice, policy experts argue, flips the presumption of innocence—innocent until proven guilty—on its head.
In Clarke’s case, the money was seized under the Department of Justice’s Equitable Sharing Program, which entitles local and state law enforcement agencies to up to 80 percent of the proceeds from seized cash and property.
From 2008 to 2013, according to the Arlington, Va.,-based Institute for Justice, $6.8 billion in cash and property has been seized through the Equitable Sharing Program.
Though just two agencies—the Drug Enforcement Agency and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport Police—were involved in the seizure of Clarke’s $11,000, 11 agencies across Kentucky and Ohio are arguing they’re entitled to a cut of the cash.
That’s according to Renee Flaherty, one of Clarke’s lawyers at the Institute for Justice, who spoke with The Daily Signal.
The airport police department is requesting 40 percent of the money and the Cincinnati Police Department wants just 6 percent, with the remaining 11 agencies requesting 3 percent of Clarke’s $11,000 each.
“Every little bit adds up,” Flaherty said regarding the money the agencies are requesting. “This just goes to show the perverse financial incentive that underlies civil forfeiture. If the law allows agencies to be able to keep the money they seized themselves, it’s going to incentivize law enforcement to seize as much property as possible.”
In recent years, local and state law enforcement agencies have been using civil asset forfeiture to pad their budgets, and the proceeds from money and property seized has been used to purchase things like a Dodge Viper and pay for officers’ overtime. Additionally, seizures at airports, specifically the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, have also skyrocketed.
According to Institute for Justice, the airport conducted just a “couple dozen” seizures per year during the late 1990s. However, by 2013, the airport participated in 100 seizures, with proceeds totaling more than $2 million.
>>> Cartoon: A Police Officer Seizes $2K From Citizen
(Photo: Institute for Justice)
After Clarke finally made it back to Florida—without his $11,000—he was forced to move back in with his mother, as he planned to use the money to pay for his living and school expenses. Clarke also took out additional student loans to help get himself settled at the University of Central Florida.
“It was a struggle for me. It was my life savings. I didn’t have anything to my name after they took it. It’s really frustrating and hard, being that I had to rely on my family,” he said. “Other people had priorities. It was almost like a waiting game for me. People helped me out when they could and when they couldn’t, I was pretty much in a bind. It was really hard and frustrating, saddening, and so many emotions running through me.”
Though the Institute for Justice has been successful in fighting forfeitures in court, Flaherty said the government employs a preponderance of evidence as the standard of proof in forfeiture cases—a lower standard than what’s used in criminal cases.
“The deck is really stacked against property owners, and the law is not really in our favor,” she said. “But what we’re trying to do is fight back and say, ‘No, the odor of marijuana is not enough to take someone’s life savings when there’s absolutely no evidence of a crime occurring.’”
Law enforcement argued Clarke failed to provide sufficient documentation for where his $11,000 came from, but Flaherty said she’s confident they have documentation from his three jobs and mother’s benefits to prove exactly where the money came from.
As is the case in many forfeitures, the government offered Clarke a settlement. However, neither he nor Flaherty could discuss the details of the offer. Oftentimes, though, the federal government will return just 50 percent of the money if the victim agrees to the settlement.
Clarke, though, has no plans to accept any deal from the government.
“I want everybody to know that carrying cash is not a crime,” he said. “The law is not right. Innocent people are being treated like criminals without even being convicted of anything.”
http://dailysignal.com/2015/06/17/law-enforcement-seizes-11000-from-24-year-old-at-airport-without-charging-him-with-a-crime/
Blow Up the Tax Code and Start Over
Apply a 14.5% flat tax to personal income and to businesses. Cut deductions. Watch the economy roar.
Some of my fellow Republican candidates for the presidency have proposed plans to fix the tax system. These proposals are a step in the right direction, but the tax code has grown so corrupt, complicated, intrusive and antigrowth that I’ve concluded the system isn’t fixable.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/blow-up-the-tax-code-and-start-over-1434582592
http://www.wsj.com/articles/blow-up-the-tax-code-and-start-over-1434582592
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