Not a good round up
Here’s a good round up of some civil liberties abuses. Some excerpts:
Arizona brake repairman Randy Bailey, 40, faced the loss of his three-decades-old family business when Mesa city officials used eminent domain to condemn his shop so the land could be used for a hardware store expansion. This form of coercion and corporate welfare, pursued in the name of the public good, is commonplace.
Tax consultant Judith Roderick, 55, of Lacey, Wash., had prepared a land trust for a client who was later charged with growing marijuana. The Thurston County Narcotics Task Force seized Roderick’s home, her bank accounts and her business records during their investigation into whether she knew the client had used drug money to buy the land. Left destitute by the seizures, Roderick had to represent herself in court. It took over a year for prosecutors to decide they had no case.
Classic car restorer Dan Peruchi, 35, of Fort Worth, Texas, was driving a vehicle he had just purchased through West Memphis, Ark., when police stopped him. They seized $18,890 in cash Peruchi was carrying for car purchases because a drug-sniffing dog reacted as if some of the bills had once been in contact with cocaine.
No charges were filed against Peruchi, and there was no evidence of drug involvement. But he never got his money back.
Remind me to add property and cash to my cold dead hands list.
