This demonstrates why no government agency should be self-funding. If fees are collected they should be refunded to taxpayers. If a budget is needed it should go through the normal budget process and be given a budget directly from incoming taxes. So everything’s aboveboard and transparent.
As soon as an organization is self-funding it’s open to both regulatory capture and corruption. We need to remove the incentives for bad actors, not just trying to catch bad actors after the fact.
This would have a huge impact on small police departments who self-fund through tickets in the community exploitation. Police should not be tax farmers. Police should be for the people and buy the people, tax farmers are exploitive by their very nature. They should not be the same person.
I’ve never really understood how a “public” institution is expected to be funded by anything other than tax dollars
At the very least no fine or enforcement mechanism. I’m ok with for example a postal service charging for some service. But involuntary charges going towards funding the institution charging it is just rife with perverse incentives.
I see your point. But I still think the perverse incentives exist. Once you have customers, you deviate from your mission. Right now the US postal service is largest customer is bulk mail, spam. They’re basically stuck in regulatory capture now. They can’t do things to reduce unwanted spam, they can’t offer services to people to not deliver bulk mail. Because their largest customer is bulk mailers. The people receiving the mail aren’t their customers anymore. They’re the product.
I forget the name of the company exactly I think it was inbox, they were working in San Francisco, they would go to the post office and receive the mail for individuals then scan the mail and send it to people digitally. Basically it was the postal service but no physical delivery. They had a pilot program going, but then the bulk mailers got wind of it, and used pressure to shut it down. So innovation that’s available I think in Finland or Sweden is not a possible in the US due to regulatory capture.
That’s an known issue with any customer driven org too. Prioritizing existing markets and customers vs up and coming ones.
The postal service almost was set up to do small time banking and email services but got cut down by Congress. So they had tried to push for providing more services to meet existing demand, but we’re hamstrung on their efforts.
The push towards privitazation at all cost has really hurt the effectiveness and efficiency of government ran orgs in the United States.
Cops are just gangsters most people trust sadly. They are a protection racket that steals from you (taxes) and is actually not required to protect you at all.
If they were required to protect you, it would be better (not perfect, but better).
Alass, they have no duty to protect the people; Police Have No Duty to Protect the Public
TaXaTiOn iS tHeFt
What do you call taking someone’s money without their consent, using force/threat of violence?
Taxes pays my education and healthcare, it funds the military that makes russia think twice before invading my country, it builds and maintains all the roads and bridges I use every day to move around, it pays food and housing for the people that can’t afford that themselves.
I’m gladly paying taxes as long as it’s not all going to the pockets of corrupt politicans.
Listen, I hate cops too, but if you’re taking part in and benefitting from modern society, you’re gonna have to chip in for that convenience. If you don’t like it, live off the grid.
People always tell me I should trust cops more, this is a handy fact to have in my back pocket.
This was a good article, US centric, but interesting. Would have been better if it didn’t start with a picture of a happy looking dog and a seizure of $100k cash which the author can’t even explain. The law says you have to prove you didn’t get the money illegally, if I had $100k in my suitcase I think I would be able to explain how I got it.
You don’t just have to explain it, you have to hire a lawyer and take them to court to prove it, which is opposite of every other law in the country where you are innocent unless proven guilty.
I’m not agreeing with it, but if I had $100k in my back pocket I would know how I got it. Like I said, the article should have focused on normal people with reasonable and understandable amounts, who probably wouldn’t be able to afford the court costs either.
The point is, that’s not enough. You have to prove it in a court of law. Which, for $100,000, might cost most of that $100,000 and years of time.
There have been some clear-cut seizure cases where the legitimacy of the money was obvious and it was either not worth the legal fees to clear up or simply insane to clear up. We are a “reasonable doubt” country for a reason, and if you can’t prove someone came about their money illegally, you shouldn’t be stealing it from them.
In the US, you are innocent until proven guilty. Civil asset forfeiture runs against this idea. The burden should be on the government to prove this stuff is ill-gotten gains, anything else is unamerican.
It must be nice to have thousands of dollars and have no idea where it came from. But realistically it’s highly unlikely that you would walk around with it.
Presumably you either were handed it in which case you know where you got it from, or you got it out of the bank in which case you must have a business or lottery winnings or inheritance you can point to.
I cannot imagine any innocent scenario where you have vast of money (in currency form) of which you are unable to provide origin information on.
This is the same argument as “you wouldn’t object to a search if you have nothing to hide.” The fact is that anyone walking around with thousands of dollars, however “nice” you imagine that to be, is entitled to do so without any explanation due to you or the government.
No it’s common for cash. Anytime you buy anything very expensive, such as a house or you want to take out a fun contract you have to submit to anti money laundering searches. This is also true of physical cash.
Sorry, but you’re conflating “using” cash with “having” cash. I can’t speak to the rest of the world, but in the United States, the 4th amendment of the Bill of Rights states that you’re to be free of unreasonable search and seizure. You can have any amount of money on your person for any reason you like, so long as you don’t do something illegal with it. These cops are stealing cash under the pretense that it could have been used for something illegal, which directly conflicts with the idea of being innocent until proven guilty. The sham they perpetrate is that it’s the cash being accused, not the person. It’s bullshit and they have no intention of doing anything other than keeping the cash.
Want to withdraw all of your cash in dollar bills so that you can lay on it like a mattress? Legal, and cops shouldn’t have any claim to it.
Want to withdraw all of your cash in golden dollar coins and try to swim in it like Scrooge McDuck? An ill-advised plan, considering how fucked the American healthcare system works, but legal, and once again, cops should have no claim to it.
Just having property - cash, gold, diamonds, very small unicorn figurines, whatever - is not an illegal or even inherently suspicious act.
Without probable cause, there’s no reason a government agent should ever be able to take any property from you.
Civil Forfeiture is theft and Qualified Immunity is a murder license. Not that there seems to be any way to convince anyone in power to fix it
In case you didn’t know: Fuck the police. It’s not that I don’t like them, i fucking hate them…
I really think it is the system. It is a system that gives positive feedback for negative human behavior. And I have no solution for it. But I believe that regardless who becomes police it will break their humanity. And that seems like a bad system to me.
thanks for coming to my ted talk.
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