Oklahoma State Police Forfeiting Motorists' Debit And Prepaid Cards

[Alphabob]

OHP Uses New Device To Seize Money Used During The Commission Of A Crime

 

OKLAHOMA CITY - You may have heard of civil asset forfeiture.  

 

That's where police can seize your property and cash without first proving you committed a crime; without a warrant and without arresting you, as long as they suspect that your property is somehow tied to a crime.

 

Now, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a device that also allows them to seize money in your bank account or on prepaid cards.

 

It's called an ERAD, or Electronic Recovery and Access to Data machine, and state police began using 16 of them last month.  

 

Here's how it works. If a trooper suspects you may have money tied to some type of crime, the highway patrol can scan any cards you have and seize the money.  

 

"We're gonna look for different factors in the way that you're acting,” Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. John Vincent said. “We're gonna look for if there's a difference in your story. If there's someway that we can prove that you're falsifying information to us about your business."

 

Troopers insist this isn't just about seizing cash.  

 

"I know that a lot of people are just going to focus on the seizing money. That's a very small thing that' s happening now. The largest part that we have found ... the biggest benefit has been the identity theft," Vincent said.

 

"If you can prove can prove that you have a legitimate reason to have that money it will be given back to you. And we've done that in the past," Vincent said about any money seized. 

 

State Sen. Kyle Loveless, R-Oklahoma City, said that removes due process and the belief that a suspect is presumed innocent until proven guilty. He said we've already seen cases in Oklahoma where police are abusing the system. 

 

"We've seen single mom's stuff be taken, a cancer survivor his drugs taken, we saw a Christian band being taken. We've seen innocent people's stuff being taken. We've seen where the money goes and how it's been misspent," Loveless said.

 

Loveless plans to introduce legislation next session that would require a conviction before any assets could be seized.

 

"If I had to err on the side of one side versus the other, I would err on the side of the Constitution,” Loveless said. “And I think that's what we need to do."

 

News 9 obtained a copy of the contract with the state. 

 

It shows the state is paying ERAD Group Inc., $5,000 for the software and scanners, then 7.7 percent of all the cash the highway patrol seizes. 

 

http://www.news9.com/story/32168555/ohp-uses-new-device-to-seize-money-used-during-the-commission-of-a-crime

 

Edited June 8, 2016 by Alphabob

[+washtenaut]

Wow!  This is getting to be outrageous.   Ya think there just might be a potential for abuse?

[t-pain]

holy crap. so dont have any debit cards. got it.

[Willy]

time to go to bitcoin..https://bitcoincryptobank.com/

 

Run it thru the dark web..with Tor..

Edited June 9, 2016 by Willy

[+Malamute]

Far right authoritarian elected government results...

[t-pain]

time to go to bitcoin..https://bitcoincryptobank.com/

 

Run it thru the dark web..with Tor..

you know they already make viruses and worms to scan for and steal bitcoins?

 

you know the FBI already knows bitcoin, already has agents seizing bitcoin, and has already charged fbi agents with stealing seized bitcoins?

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/30/politics/federal-agents-charged-with-stealing-bitcoin/

 

those fbi guys are smart! they thought they could steal currency that has a better tracking system record than visa/check/cash!

[Wild Bill]

 

Now, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a device that also allows them to seize money in your bank account or on prepaid cards.  . . .

 

"If you can prove can prove that you have a legitimate reason to have that money it will be given back to you. And we've done that in the past," Vincent said about any money seized.

 

If you can prove you have a legitimate reason to have money in a bank account?

 

Is it now safer to put your money under the mattress to keep it away from highway robbers?

 

[Alphabob]

People in Oklahoma should be driving around with a bag full of fake cash in the trunk, loaded with dye packs to protest.

 

‘Good evening, do you have any large amounts of cash on you?’

 

‘Yes officer, I got a bag of cash in the trunk.’

 

‘Pop your trunk and get out of your vehicle’

 

‘Ok’

 

Splat!

 

Yea, that’s what bank robbers get, a face full of permanent ink. I've seen too many videos of the conversation going just like that in various states.

Edited June 9, 2016 by Alphabob

[t-pain]

you know, they started a revolutionary war because of taxation without representation.

[Alphabob]

Jokes aside, with Oklahoma bordering Colorado, marijuana is probably going to be a prime target. Oklahoma has the second highest incarnation rate in the US and it’s marijuana laws are horrible. In addition, it looks like some businesses are already prohibiting travel to Oklahoma in fear of having company-prepaid assets seized.

 

In a June 9 letter to Sen. Kyle Loveless, R-Oklahoma City, Derek Goldberg, principal with Florida-based Peak Power & Mfg., Inc., said his company and its affiliated companies had banned employees from traveling to Oklahoma.

 

Employees of Peak Power & Mfg., which designs, builds and installs automated manufacturing equipment, often travel across the country and carry personal and business banking cards.

 

“We simply cannot risk seizure of our employees’ and our company’s assets based upon the whims of an honorable, dedicated, and well-intentioned Oklahoma Highway Patrol Officer,” the letter states. “We look forward to the time when the state of Oklahoma discontinues this practice that we may remove our travel ban.”

 

http://oklahomawatch.org/2016/06/09/will-out-of-state-residents-avoid-oklahoma-because-of-seizure-of-prepaid-cards/

 

Although these card readers are currently not capable of draining normal checking or bank accounts, they can grab and store data from any card. The company who makes the device also claims that hundreds of agencies throughout the US have the product. Who else is behind this technology but homeland security… what a surprise.

 

ERAD card scanners were first developed around 2012 for the science and technology arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to combat the use of prepaid debit cards by drug cartels to transport drug money, according to a Homeland Security media release.

 

So robbing innocent people of their property wasn’t enough, so then we needed to start robbing financial institutes, what’s next? Are we going to go back to slavery? Oh wait, that is pretty much what many of these prison systems have turned into. You know what isn’t secure? Where we are currently headed; a broke country with a failed infrastructure, no clean water and very little food because were busy blowing all our resources on endless, futile wars and locking everyone up.

[t-pain]

well its depressing when you say it

[Alphabob]

True, as they say ignorance is bliss. But taking all things into consideration, the next 30-50 years are not looking to good. Asides from the severe consequences of things we have already put into motion (climate change), there is still an active push to destroy what's left in the mean-time. For example, we have Monsanto and other biotech companies destroying crop diversity, creating super bugs/weeds and poisoning everything with herbicide (which appears to be directly linked to the significant spike in asthma over the past few decades). Then there are the issues of failing infrastructure and the consequences of rapid climate change. Droughts, torrential rains, hurricanes, coastal flooding, fires, ect. will continue to become more severe in the future. For anyone paying attention to all of the record-breaking weather events recently taking place, well that’s only a 1.8C temperature spike due to a strong el nino. The most up-to-date models predict we will hit 3-4C around 2050 and 6-8C around 2100.  4-6C is the limit for sustaining large-scale societies with modern technology.

 

Stopping the war on drugs and properly treating addiction is a good step, but it’s taken 30+ years to make real progress when the science had already been there. Stopping LEO from imprisoning or robbing victimless ‘criminals’ by telling them to do so is a hell of a lot easier then fixing our agriculture, infrastructure, economy, weather and climate.

Edited June 12, 2016 by Alphabob

[budpuffer]

i mustn't put in writing what i'm thinking...because i'd get put on someones watch list for sure..lol..but someone let me know when we can start fighting back..okay...bp