-By Warner Todd Huston
Decades ago when civil asset forfeiture laws were first proposed they seemed like a good idea. But at this point they’ve become a corrupting influence and just an excuse to steal from citizens. Now New Mexico has made a move to reverse the damage.
The corrupt law in question, here, is the civil asset forfeiture law, a rule that was created to give cops the ability to quickly seize property and assets so that drug dealers won’t have the cash on hand–or the ability to liquidate assets–to help them get away with drug dealing.
With this law cops can seize your property and assets even if they never charge you with a crime. Worse, they often never return the money and property even if you are eventually proven innocent in a court of law.
Unfortunately, once these laws spread across the country what ended up happening in practice is that cops simply started stealing the money and property of nearly everyone they came in contact with making a mockery of both the Constitution and the whole purpose the law was created for in the first place.
In essence, forfeiture laws ended up turning police into outright criminals.
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New Mexico Just moved Toward Restoring Private Property Rights Crimping Seizure Laws”
Here we have yet another example of why unions should never, ever be allowed for government workers. A union that claims to represent police officers in Moriarty, New Mexico, is attempting to force the city to negotiate raises for officers quite despite the fact that the union doesn’t count a single member of the force as a member.
New Mexico police chief Shane Harger recently attended an event in Las Vegas held by a group that urges police officials to be mindful of the U.S. Constitution in the execution of their duties. But upon returning home from the convention, Harger was suddenly fired from his job as the chief of Jemez Springs, New Mexico because, he says, he has been called a “terrorist” for believing in the Constitution.