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(Mises Institute)—Seizure fever is toxifying law enforcement across the nation. For more than thirty years, federal, state, and local government agencies have plundered citizens on practically any harebrained accusation or pretext.
You could be at risk of being pilfered by officialdom anytime you sit behind a steering wheel. Between 2001 and 2014, lawmen seized more than $2.5 billion in cash from sixty thousand travelers on the nation’s highways—with no criminal charges in most cases, according to the Washington Post. Federal, state, and local law enforcement have institutionalized shakedowns on the nation’s highways to the point that “forfeiture corridors are the new speed traps,” as Mother Jones observed.
Police can almost always find an excuse to pull someone over. Gerald Arenberg, executive director of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, told me in a 1996 interview, “We have so damn many laws, you can’t drive the streets without breaking the law.” The Washington Post reported that police set up “rolling checkpoints on busy highways and pulled over motorists for minor violations, such as following too closely or improper signaling,” and “looked for supposed ‘indicators’ of criminal activity, which can include such things as trash on the floor of a vehicle, or abundant energy drinks.”
In Tenaha, Texas, authorities confiscated $3 million from motorists passing through East Texas. The names of the court filings capture Tenaha’s rapacity, such as State of Texas v. One Gold Crucifix. “The police had confiscated a simple gold cross that a woman wore around her neck after pulling her over for a minor traffic violation. No contraband was reported, no criminal charges were filed, and no traffic ticket was issued,” the New Yorker noted. If drivers “refused to part with their money, officers threatened to arrest them on false money laundering charges and other serious felonies,” an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit charged. Tenaha police stopped a twenty-seven-year-old black man who worked as a chicken slicer in an Arkansas Tyson plant and fleeced him of $3,900 after accusing him of “driving too close to the white line.” After the police warned Jennifer Boatright that they would take custody of her children if she refused to surrender the thousands of dollars she carried to buy a used car, she burst into tears and thought: “Where are we? Is this some kind of foreign country, where they’re selling people’s kids off?” The American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit and the Texas legislature compelled the town to cease the abusive seizures in 2012. However, most victims never got their property back.
In 2016, Muskogee County, Oklahoma, deputy sheriffs hit the sirens and pulled over a forty-year-old Burmese refugee driving down Highway 69 for a broken taillight. Eh Wah, a naturalized US citizen living in Dallas, was the manager for a Christian rock band that had been on tour raising more than $50,000 for a Thai orphanage and a Christian college in Burma. Police found the money and a drug dog alerted, so the money was seized—even though Wah had papers documenting his mission and the source of the income. No drugs were found on Wah’s vehicle, but a Muskogee deputy later insisted, “The fact that in this particular case we didn’t find drugs doesn’t mean it was a false hit” by the dog. Wah was interrogated and threatened for six hours; he was told, “You are going to jail tonight.” It was a terrifying experience for someone whose English was shaky and who fled a nation where the police were tyrannical. The sheriff’s department kept the money but let Wah travel on. Five weeks after he left Oklahoma, Wah was charged with “acquiring proceeds from a drug activity, a felony.” The primary “evidence” was the dog’s alert. The Oklahoma perfidy was torpedoed by Dan Alban, an Institute for Justice attorney who has thwarted many outrageous cash seizures. Alban took Wah’s case and told the Muskogee Phoenix that the timing of the charge suggests, “They were trying to strong-arm Eh Wah so that he would give up the money in the civil forfeiture case in exchange for a plea deal in the criminal case.” On the same day the Washington Post published an article on the case, Muskogee County dropped the charge and promised to send a full refund.
Perverse incentives propel plunder. Police in many states use confiscated property to pay their own salaries, bonuses, and vacations. A Missouri police chief said that forfeiture money was “like pennies from heaven . . . that get you a toy.” Federal agencies partner with local and state law enforcement to enable them to evade state laws limiting seizures of private property. Under a program euphemistically called “equitable sharing” (which sounds better than “shared plunder”), local and state law enforcement agencies retain most of the property they seize when they team up with the feds.
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In South Carolina, police keep 95 percent of the assets they commandeer. Drivers’ cash is routinely seized after they are stopped for picayune offenses. As the Greenville News reported,
Ramando Moore was cited for having an open container [of alcohol] in Richland County in 2015; he lost $604. Plexton Denard Hunter was pulled over for a seatbelt violation in 2015 in Richland County and had $541 seized. Tesla Carter, another seatbelt violation, this time in Anderson in 2015. She lost $1,361.
Most police seizures of cash involved less than a thousand dollars—a trivial amount for serious drug traffickers. “Black men . . . represent 13 percent of the state’s population. Yet 65 percent of all citizens targeted for civil forfeiture in the state are black males,” according to a 2019 investigation by South Carolinian newspapers.
In Phelps County, Missouri, police have seized millions of dollars in cash and property from people traveling on Interstate 44. Two-thirds of Phelps County forfeiture victims have Hispanic names. Phelps County deputies justify seizures simply by asserting that the owners are shady characters—with evidence such as “driving a rental vehicle . . . bloodshot eyes, nervousness or even air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror.” Drivers were commonly stopped for failing to signal before changing lanes, another tell-tale sign of drug trafficking. Phelps County police “almost never file state criminal charges against those whose cash they seize, nor does it make big drug seizures during these stops targeting cash,” reported a 2020 investigation by St. Louis Public Radio.
In 2021, the feds partnered with local police to commence robbing armored cars. Though thirty-six states have legalized marijuana for recreational or medical use, federal law continues to prohibit engaging in cannabis transactions. Local police in California and Kansas began stopping and searching armored cars owned by Empyreal Logistics, which transported cash from licensed marijuana dispensaries. More than a million dollars was taken and split between local and federal lawmen. The Federal Bureau of Investigation justified the seizures because the proceeds were derived from narcotics crimes or money laundering—even though state law in California explicitly permits the transport of money from legal cannabis operations. In May 2022, the feds and California police departments agreed to return the seized money after Empyreal signed a settlement declaring, “San Bernardino deputies are not highway robbers as previously reported in the media.” Alas, the official statement did not deter a local paper, the Riverside Press-Enterprise, from summarizing the resolution: “The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has agreed to stop operating like highway robbers.”
Forfeiture is a rigged game in which low-income Americans suffer worst. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in 2017, “These forfeiture operations frequently target the poor and other groups least able to defend their interests in forfeiture proceedings.” Similarly, Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett declared in a 2014 dissent, “Civil forfeiture . . . now disproportionately ensnares those least capable of protecting themselves, poor Texans who usually capitulate without a fight because mounting a defense is too costly.” “Due process” in forfeiture cases often depends solely on the media coverage an abuse receives. Sporadic government defeats are no consolation to forfeiture victims who cannot afford a lawyer to fight for their rights.
Almost two hundred and fifty years ago, Arthur Lee of Virginia aptly proclaimed, “The right of property is the guardian of every other right, and to deprive the people of this, is to deprive them of their liberty.” But increasingly, private property is something that officialdom merely tolerates until they concoct some pretext to seize it.
If police can detain and plunder Americans as they please whenever people drive down the road, all the other rights and liberties in the Constitution are of scant consolation. And if politicians and the Supreme Court don’t care enough to end the forfeiture travesty, all their other claims of devotion to freedom are not worth a tinker’s damn.
Five Things New “Preppers” Forget When Getting Ready for Bad Times Ahead
The preparedness community is growing faster than it has in decades. Even during peak times such as Y2K, the economic downturn of 2008, and Covid, the vast majority of Americans made sure they had plenty of toilet paper but didn’t really stockpile anything else.
Things have changed. There’s a growing anxiety in this presidential election year that has prompted more Americans to get prepared for crazy events in the future. Some of it is being driven by fearmongers, but there are valid concerns with the economy, food supply, pharmaceuticals, the energy grid, and mass rioting that have pushed average Americans into “prepper” mode.
There are degrees of preparedness. One does not have to be a full-blown “doomsday prepper” living off-grid in a secure Montana bunker in order to be ahead of the curve. In many ways, preparedness isn’t about being able to perfectly handle every conceivable situation. It’s about being less dependent on government for as long as possible. Those who have proper “preps” will not be waiting for FEMA to distribute emergency supplies to the desperate masses.
Below are five things people new to preparedness (and sometimes even those with experience) often forget as they get ready. All five are common sense notions that do not rely on doomsday in order to be useful. It may be nice to own a tank during the apocalypse but there’s not much you can do with it until things get really crazy. The recommendations below can have places in the lives of average Americans whether doomsday comes or not.
Note: The information provided by this publication or any related communications is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. We do not provide personalized investment, financial, or legal advice.
Secured Wealth
Whether in the bank or held in a retirement account, most Americans feel that their life’s savings is relatively secure. At least they did until the last couple of years when de-banking, geopolitical turmoil, and the threat of Central Bank Digital Currencies reared their ugly heads.
It behooves Americans to diversify their holdings. If there’s a triggering event or series of events that cripple the financial systems or devalue the U.S. Dollar, wealth can evaporate quickly. To hedge against potential turmoil, many Americans are looking in two directions: Crypto and physical precious metals.
There are huge advantages to cryptocurrencies, but there are also inherent risks because “virtual” money can become challenging to spend. Add in the push by central banks and governments to regulate or even replace cryptocurrencies with their own versions they control and the risks amplify. There’s nothing wrong with cryptocurrencies today but things can change rapidly.
As for physical precious metals, many Americans pay cash to keep plenty on hand in their safe. Rolling over or transferring retirement accounts into self-directed IRAs is also a popular option, but there are caveats. It can often take weeks or even months to get the gold and silver shipped if the owner chooses to close their account. This is why Genesis Gold Group stands out. Their relationship with the depositories allows for rapid closure and shipping, often in less than 10 days from the time the account holder makes their move. This can come in handy if things appear to be heading south.
Lots of Potable Water
One of the biggest shocks that hit new preppers is understanding how much potable water they need in order to survive. Experts claim one gallon of water per person per day is necessary. Even the most conservative estimates put it at over half-a-gallon. That means that for a family of four, they’ll need around 120 gallons of water to survive for a month if the taps turn off and the stores empty out.
Being near a fresh water source, whether it’s a river, lake, or well, is a best practice among experienced preppers. It’s necessary to have a water filter as well, even if the taps are still working. Many refuse to drink tap water even when there is no emergency. Berkey was our previous favorite but they’re under attack from regulators so the Alexapure systems are solid replacements.
For those in the city or away from fresh water sources, storage is the best option. This can be challenging because proper water storage containers take up a lot of room and are difficult to move if the need arises. For “bug in” situations, having a larger container that stores hundreds or even thousands of gallons is better than stacking 1-5 gallon containers. Unfortunately, they won’t be easily transportable and they can cost a lot to install.
Water is critical. If chaos erupts and water infrastructure is compromised, having a large backup supply can be lifesaving.
Pharmaceuticals and Medical Supplies
There are multiple threats specific to the medical supply chain. With Chinese and Indian imports accounting for over 90% of pharmaceutical ingredients in the United States, deteriorating relations could make it impossible to get the medicines and antibiotics many of us need.
Stocking up many prescription medications can be hard. Doctors generally do not like to prescribe large batches of drugs even if they are shelf-stable for extended periods of time. It is a best practice to ask your doctor if they can prescribe a larger amount. Today, some are sympathetic to concerns about pharmacies running out or becoming inaccessible. Tell them your concerns. It’s worth a shot. The worst they can do is say no.
If your doctor is unwilling to help you stock up on medicines, then Jase Medical is a good alternative. Through telehealth, they can prescribe daily meds or antibiotics that are shipped to your door. As proponents of medical freedom, they empathize with those who want to have enough medical supplies on hand in case things go wrong.
Energy Sources
The vast majority of Americans are locked into the grid. This has proven to be a massive liability when the grid goes down. Unfortunately, there are no inexpensive remedies.
Those living off-grid had to either spend a lot of money or effort (or both) to get their alternative energy sources like solar set up. For those who do not want to go so far, it’s still a best practice to have backup power sources. Diesel generators and portable solar panels are the two most popular, and while they’re not inexpensive they are not out of reach of most Americans who are concerned about being without power for extended periods of time.
Natural gas is another necessity for many, but that’s far more challenging to replace. Having alternatives for heating and cooking that can be powered if gas and electric grids go down is important. Have a backup for items that require power such as manual can openers. If you’re stuck eating canned foods for a while and all you have is an electric opener, you’ll have problems.
Don’t Forget the Protein
When most think about “prepping,” they think about their food supply. More Americans are turning to gardening and homesteading as ways to produce their own food. Others are working with local farmers and ranchers to purchase directly from the sources. This is a good idea whether doomsday comes or not, but it’s particularly important if the food supply chain is broken.
Most grocery stores have about one to two weeks worth of food, as do most American households. Grocers rely heavily on truckers to receive their ongoing shipments. In a crisis, the current process can fail. It behooves Americans for multiple reasons to localize their food purchases as much as possible.
Long-term storage is another popular option. Canned foods, MREs, and freeze dried meals are selling out quickly even as prices rise. But one component that is conspicuously absent in shelf-stable food is high-quality protein. Most survival food companies offer low quality “protein buckets” or cans of meat, but they are often barely edible.
Prepper All-Naturals offers premium cuts of steak that have been cooked sous vide and freeze dried to give them a 25-year shelf life. They offer Ribeye, NY Strip, and Tenderloin among others.
Having buckets of beans and rice is a good start, but keeping a solid supply of high-quality protein isn’t just healthier. It can help a family maintain normalcy through crises.
Prepare Without Fear
With all the challenges we face as Americans today, it can be emotionally draining. Citizens are scared and there’s nothing irrational about their concerns. Being prepared and making lifestyle changes to secure necessities can go a long way toward overcoming the fears that plague us. We should hope and pray for the best but prepare for the worst. And if the worst does come, then knowing we did what we could to be ready for it will help us face those challenges with confidence.
