"Civil Forfeiture": That's a nice property you got there. A shame something's happened to it.

[elfs]

Many years ago (2004), Belle Waring quoted David Friedman on how to have a libertarian utopia:

David Friedman: Rights could be enforced privately, and imperfect but workable solutions to the holdouts in the railway case could also be found. "To justify taxation we need the additional assumption that rights enforcement cannot be done by the state at a profit, despite historical examples of societies where the right to enforce the law and collect the resulting fines was a marketable asset."

Now, everyone close your eyes and try to imagine a private, profit-making rights-enforcement organization which does not resemble the mafia, a street gang, those pesky fire-fighters/arsonists/looters who used to provide such "services" in old New York and Tokyo, medieval tax-farmers, or a Lendu militia. Nothing's happening but a buzzing noise, right?

Well, guess what? Because police departments benefit from the forfeiture of "criminal assets," the inevitable has happened: what qualifies as "criminal assets" has now expanded to the point where a motel owner who has had approximately 60 arrests out of the 125,000 visitors to his motel is now forced to defend his business against "civil forfeiture." Check it out: The United States vs. The Motel Caswell.

Comments

[bolindbergh]

Next step: seize airports which let hijackers board planes.

Let's see...

[ideaphile.livejournal.com]

A private, profit-making rights-enforcement organization that (in short) behaves honorably...

Oh, you mean like private security firms.

...which employ more people in the US than all the police forces put together.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_guard#United_States

And then there are all the ways in which government police agencies perform contract work at a profit-- protecting attendees of private events, providing police services to neighboring communities, and so on.

And then there's the way the US was paid by foreign countries for its services in the Gulf War. This probably wasn't a profitable operation for the US (though to be sure of that conclusion would take careful analysis of oil prices and intangibles such as the value of the military skills gained by US forces), but not every business venture is profitable either.

Yes, I can imagine for-profit policing pretty well.

It's easy to quote some idiot, but you know, it isn't much more difficult to do your own thinking.

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Re: Let's see...

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

Guards can be jacked up by cops. We get arrested and prosecuted for stealing.

We don't get to use government authority to search, find illicit items (which may or may not have been planted) and then take the item without benefit of a trial -- because the item does not have the same rights as its owner.

This is the reality of asset forfeiture.

Some of the most corrupt and unethical behavior I've ever witnessed in the security industry was from former or current police officers, abusing their authority to undercut competitors, drum up business for themselves, and for blatant personal gain.

Re: Let's see...

[ideaphile.livejournal.com]

Say, that's another good argument in favor of my position! Thanks for bringing it up.

It certainly IS possible for a non-profit governmental agency to "resemble the mafia, a street gang, those pesky fire-fighters/arsonists/looters who used to provide such 'services' in old New York and Tokyo, medieval tax-farmers, or a Lendu militia."

In other words, the moral status of a rights-protecting organization is not determined by whether it's part of the government or operated for profit. This is a necessary element of David Friedman's position, and it's the element that John and Belle Airhead were trying to undercut in the too-too-clever little blog post that Elf liked so much.

At least we all agree about asset forfeiture. It's grossly immoral, which is probably somehow related to the fact that David Friedman didn't advocate it as part of his speculation about private for-profit police agencies in that Reason article or anywhere else as far as I know. Why John, Belle, and Elf chose to connect those two dots, I should not speculate.

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[resonant.livejournal.com]

"private, profit-making rights-enforcement organization"

RIAA/MPAA? Oh wait ...

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

I was thinking that. Beat me to it.