This is a significant improvement over the current system and should go a long way toward stemming the abuses that have so offended Americans across the country and the political spectrum. It is not often that we see the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ACLU, NRA, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, American Bankers Association, the Institute of Justice, Americans for Tax Reform, and the American Bar Association joining together on the same side of a legislative effort. Working with Chairman Hatch, Chairman Hyde, Mr. Conyers, Senator Sessions and Senator Schumer, we have crafted a good bill, a balanced bill and a reform package that should move forward as consensus legislation and be enacted without further delay this year. I want to thank all who have worked with us in this process. In particular, I want to thank Janet Reno, our Attorney General, for working with us, meeting with us and lending her support to this effort and last night joining our coalition by agreeing to the consensus civil asset forfeiture reform legislation that we are considering today.
Asset forfeiture is a powerful crime-fighting tool.
It has been a particularly potent weapon in the war on drugs, allowing the government to take the cars and boats and stash houses amassed by drug dealers and put them to honest use. Last year alone, the government was able to seize nearly half a billion dollars worth of assets, cutting a big chunk out of criminals profit stream and returning it to the law-abiding community. In hearings on this issue, the Judiciary Committee has heard examples of what happens when prosecutorial zeal skirts the boundaries of due process, leading to the taking of private property regardless of whether the owner is innocent of, or even cognizant of, the property s use in an illegal act, or whether the seizure is entirely out of proportion to the criminal conduct alleged. I am well aware from incidents in Vermont about how aggressive use by Federal and State law enforcement official of civil asset forfeiture laws can appear unfair and excessive, and thereby fuel public distrust of the government in general and law enforcement in particular. For example, in 1989, federal prosecutors seized a Vermont homestead that a family had built and lived in for over a decade.