The forfeiture provision now covers 140 other federal offenses, and a large number of state and local forfeiture laws have been added to the books. Forfeiture has proved to be a boom for law-enforcement agencies, as they are permitted to keep the money. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde has noted that agents conducting drug stings chose valuable sites for their sting operations because the presence of drugs at those sites permit them to be seized for facilitating a drug crime. Look at it from the standpoint of the police. Their budgets are squeezed to pay for welfare entitlements and political payoffs.
Asset forfeitures are a way of augmenting their funding.
Lawmakers show scant signs of learning from their mistakes. They have introduced a bill that would, in effect, place each of us under constant criminal investigation of our financial behavior. Financial institutions would be required to maintain profiles of their customers' finances without a warrant, evidence or reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Moreover, Leach and Kerry want this done on an international level. If Americans paid attention, Leach and Kerry would be defeated at the ballot box.