The A and F subset together represent the most egregious violations of the 4th Amendment, in that through the creation of the civil assets forfeiture program as well as its ancillary availability of appropriations specificity clause, new opportunities for the abuse of this edict were revisited.
The A subset in UNITED STATES CODE - SECTION 524 allows for a considerable expansion of the Attorney General's jurisdictional authority, specifically in the delegation of fees or expenses essential to the seizure, detainment, inventory, or disposal of property obtained through the civil assets forfeiture program.
The F subset in UNITED STATES CODE - SECTION 524 explains how the militarization of law enforcement agencies throughout the country has attained precedence, specifically through the misappropriation of monetary or material assets via civil forfeiture proceedings.
The advent of this particular measures enactment effectively fostered an atmosphere of policing for profit, as the following registry links* will attest to:
*NOTE: The inclusion of the first link functions as a tool of reference concerning the full contents of US CODE - SECTION 524 in contextual form.
LINKED ARTICLES OF REFERENCE:
28 U.S.C. § 524 : US Code - Section 524: Availability of Appropriations
Policing for Profit Examined: The Documented Abuses of the Civil Asset Forfeiture Program
Policing for Profit: Purchasing Military Equipment and Ordnance With Stolen Assets
Under Civil Forfeiture, Americans Who Haven’t Been Formally Charged With Wrongdoing Can Be Stripped of Their Monetary Assets, Vehicles, or Place of Residence
The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 and the Civil Assets Forfeiture Program as Operant Extensions of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970
The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 is, in reality, the operant extension of the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) (Link 1, Link 2) Statutes - a set of stipulations created through the passage of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (Public Law 91-452), an Act of Congress sponsored by Democratic Senator John L. McClellan and signed into law by U.S. President Richard Milhous Nixon. The RICO Statutes implementation effectively merged state-level law enforcement agencies with their Federal counterparts, overturning several protections ascribed to the outlined guarantees presented within the contents of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the right of due process. These protective clauses are emblematic parameters of the Fifth Amendment (Link 1, Link 2 - The Fifth Amendment creates a number of rights relevant to both criminal and civil legal proceedings. In criminal cases, the Fifth Amendment guarantees the right to a grand jury, forbids “double jeopardy," and protects against self-incrimination. It also requires that “due process of law" be part of any proceeding that denies a citizen “life, liberty or property” and requires the government to compensate citizens when it takes private property for public use), a legislative measure negated by the actualization of the RICO Statutes. The aforementioned stipulation is essentially the seizure of one’s assets or property rights obtained as a result of ACCUSED or SUSPECTED criminal activity. In accordance with the RICO Statutes, an individual who is believed to have committed “at least two acts of racketeering activity” drawn from a list of 35 criminal infractions - 27 federal offenses and 8 state crimes - within a 10-year time frame; acts which are found to be inherently connected in one of four specified methods pursuant to the active establishment of an “enterprise,” would be subject to the charge of racketeering in a court of law. Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $25,000 and sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count. In addition, the racketeer must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business acquired through a pattern of “racketeering activity.” The RICO Statutes also permit private entities adversely affected by the actions of the offending parties to seek civil restitution, that; if successful, would allow for the collection of treble damages (damage assessments triple the amount of actual/ compensatory fines levied in accordance with the court’s decision). The confiscation of an individual’s personal property, in conjunction with that person’s presumption of guilt, violates the basic tenets associated with the Fifth Amendment, as these assets oftentimes remain in the custody of the law enforcement agency initially involved with the documentation of these suspected infractions - items later sold in auction to the benefit of the parties in question, a fact lending credence to the notion that such actions have effectively engineered the creation of a militarized domestic extension of government subsidized entities. The following illustrations alluding to these findings in greater detail:
LINKED ARTICLE OF REFERENCE:
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