Civil forfeiture remains an enormous problem. Basically, law enforcement can confiscate anything they like, and it’s on you to try to get it back. Due process doesn’t apply.

In general, you needn’t be found guilty to have your assets claimed by law enforcement; in some states, suspicion on a par with “probable cause” is sufficient. Nor must you be charged with a crime, or even be accused of one. Unlike criminal forfeiture, which requires that a person be convicted of an offense before his or her property is confiscated, civil forfeiture amounts to a lawsuit filed directly against a possession, regardless of its owner’s guilt or innocence.

Go read it. It’s long; it’s from The New Yorker. But you need to read it. A critical fact here is that law enforcement organizations have grown fat and happy on the ill-gotten gains that civil forfeiture brings, and are loathe to back away from it as a result because it directly benefits them, and never mind the people they’re stealing from.

“But that won’t happen to me!” you may think, but you’d be wrong. It just takes a few corrupt officers to create a Tenaha situation. For a while, maybe it won’t happen to nice, upper-middle-class white people who can afford lawyers and a court fight — but it won’t stay that way. And it’s utter BULLSHIT that this happens to anyone, regardless of race, class, or wealth.

Is it a powerful tool? No one contests that. But it’s a tool the government should NOT have, because it’s so prone to abuse. There’s no real recourse for the victims, and insufficient oversight of the criminals in charge. As with most problems with law enforcement or prosecutorial misconduct, their fundamental immunity from any personal consequences to their actions exacerbates the problem.

To recap:

• The government has the capability to eavesdrop on every call and email, and the laws that govern this ability are state secrets that cannot be challenged in court.
• The government has asserted its right to declare someone and “illegal combatant” — basically, enemy of the state — and asserts that, in so doing, it is free to imprison, punish, or torture that person without due process, and without opportunity for judicial relief.
• The government can and does confiscate private property without compensation on trumped-up charges with only the slimmest of chances of getting anything back.

If we do not insist that this shit STOP with a furious quickness, it’s game over for this so-called land of the free. It’s not about what Obama might do with these powers; it’s about what a bad guy might do. Or a misguided good guy. We should never give the government a power that we would not want our worst political enemies to have, but we’ve been asleep too long, and the state has gradually acquired several such powers under cover of the (utterly bullshit) war on drugs, or because of 9/11.

It’s time to stop it.