On a more practical note, I wish I knew the magic words for escaping an encounter with a highwayman with your property intact and no extra holes in your corpus. Sadly, I don’t think there are any guarantees any more, if there ever were. Every situation is different, and what works for one person might not work for another.

You’re missing the point. You aren’t guilty, your money is so only your money is being punished. You were guilty of nothing so you aren’t punished in anyway. But that criminal money (or car or house or whatever else they can grab) is punished by being used to fund the police.

So it’s all good.

So now we have to prove to the government that everything we possess, we possess legitimately or they’ll take it from us? What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

‘I don’t know,’ the officer said.”

He left it out because it was EXCULPATORY.

As others have said, Reby should not have mentioned the money and he should never, ever have consented to a search. That doesn’t excuse the behavior of the mindless thieving goon in question, of course. But the compliance of people like Reby doesn’t help matters either. Refuse searches and say “am I free to go,” people. If people stop cooperating and stop boot-licking then maybe we can cripple this drug war yet.

As a tactic it dovetails nicely with the “end money” movement. David Wolman has been making the rounds on lefty talk shows pimping his book “The End Of Money” which calls for ending the use of cash – replacing it with traceable electronic transactions. He (and those interviewing him on sympathetic venues like NPR) touts the advantage of eliminating the use of cash in criminal enterprise, particularly drug trafficking. He also talks about all of the costs associated with minting and transporting money. Odd concerns for nominally privacy-oriented leftist media outlets.

Then he gets around to the real objective – capturing the taxable transactions that are currently flying under the radar and raising revenue for the government. Ah-ha! I suppose that explains the relative rarity of scary “they’re stealing your stuff!” stories in the media. There are a few every now and then, but you’d think this would be an easy go-to scare story for local TV stations and national news magazine shows that make their living on trumped-up scare stories.

Minus the condescension, this is exactly right. The correct answer for how to handle this kind of stuff? IT DEPENDS. It depends on the suspect, the cop, the location, whether you actually have stuff on you… The “there’s no right answer” (I’d say no one universal right answer, but thats splitting hairs) is exactly the truth. I think “Am I free to go” is a near-universal good question, outside of that most everything is situational

The “wars” will never end, because to end would result in an end to the tyranny wielded by its beneficiaries. there’s too much freaking money in it!

FIFY

It’s only surreal if you are still in denial of our police state. Once the reality of the police state is accepted, this conversation no longer seems surreal but, rather, quite real!

@#17 | perlhaqr
Yes! The war drugs is an amazing success. It has accomplished exactly what it was intended to accomplish. Like the “war on terror,” these “wars” are designed to advance authoritarianism, the police state, and their Fascist beneficiaries in the Military–industrial-congressional complex. The “wars” will never end, because to end would result in an end to the tyranny wielded by its beneficiaries. Please watch the recent Larken Rose video about the “war on drugs” on YouTube.

That doesn’t happen often, but it happens. More in city departments than suburbs or rural areas. In my town the street kids call it a “free case”, as in “there go Officer Colicchio, he tried to free case my cousin last year.” Which is why it’s such incredibly BAD ADVICE to tell people they should refuse requests for ID, or try to remain silent on a car stop (as suggested in a few posts above and elsewhere).

A traffic stop is a lousy starting point for revolution. It’s easy for middle class libertarians who stopped driving with weed in their car after they got married, to sit back and tell idealistic young kids how to fight for their rights.

You know what is good advice for a car stop? “Be as careful as you have ever been in your life, because you are in danger from the moment of police contact. There is no right answer for how you should handle this.”

Its usually better to play dumb than to assert a right to silence. Its almost always better to refuse consent, but that won’t stop a cop from lying about your consent anyway. Saying clever things like ‘Am I free to go, Officer?’ might work, but only on cops who weren’t too bad to begin with. With the vicious kind you should be worrying about, that line will trigger a contempt-of-cop reaction, which is the most dangerous thing of all.

I used to like those Know-Your-Rights videos, too, until I learned what can really happen on the street.

This is a battle for public opinion. It should not be fought by individual people against armed state agents amidst the terrifying privacy and isolation of a traffic stop.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/henry-kissinger-given-full-tsa-pat-down-airport-145256060.html

I wonder if they treated him to the colo-rectal exam. One can only hope!

The answer seems obvious to me: If they had to give the money back most of the time, would they keep doing this? As I understand it, you must prove that your money isn’t drug money in order to get it back. That’s an expensive proposition–you might save money by abandoning it.

Stop consenting to ANYTHING. I know it will look like you’re being a “smart ass” to the cops, but for your own safety and financial wellbeing keep your mouth shut and take your god damn speeding ticket. Don’t answer their questions. Don’t chit-chat with them. Don’t assume you didn’t do anything wrong.

They wreck people’s lives over and over again. It’s not worth the risk.

Reby is the perfect example of a typical “Free Country(tm)” American until he realizes it’s not.

It’s almost like we live under feudalism. We mere peasants are at the mercy of the ‘royal class.’ These goons with badges will take what they want, when they want, whenever they want. They framed me.

I’ve been outspoken for 15 years, as many of you have, but it’s impossible to get through to those who will not listen.

I wonder how often the cop tosses a little pot or meth into the car after he finds the cash. “Sure, you can sue for the cash back. And then we will charge you with drug possession. What, you claim the policeman planted the drugs in your car. Oh, good luck with that defense!”