If the failure to keep your large sums of money in a bank means that you stand a good chance of losing it — on no further evidence whatsoever — then, for large sums of money, banking is compulsory. On pain, as I said, of forfeiting your money. You may not have said as much, but it is the de facto result of the asset forfeiture laws.

Perhaps Mr. Gonzales was indeed being stupid. But I do not think that the law exists to protect people from their own stupidity. And I also can’t see how the law would even advance that objective, if we, as a society, say “ah, you’re stupid, therefore your money must be transferred to the government.” (And by what theory of justice could we possibly arrive at that result?)

unless he was being stupid or paranoid, was almost certainly doing something that would get him in trouble.

I’d agree, actually, but I don’t believe that the government has any proper claim over the money of the stupid or the paranoid. He should face no penalties at all, unless he was found — beyond a reasonable doubt — to have been breaking the law. Asset forfeture laws subvert all that, which is why they are so unjust.

The most the government can say is that he probably did something illegal.

I’m not so sure about how probable this is. To my cynical mind, there are, I think, nearly as many simple paranoiacs and idiots in the United States as there are criminals. Perhaps more, even.

Really, if I had to guess what was happening here, I’d say that perhaps one or more of Mr. Gonzales’ associates may have been undocumented immigrants. They wanted a cut of the business, but they couldn’t do this by starting a bank account, which would leave a paper trail. Therefore they dealt in cash.

And to claim that suggest that I suggested that not using one was grounds for forfeiting money is a false presentation of what I said: indeed I suggested the exact oppose. If the government can’t prove that Gonzolez did a very specific crime than it has no grounds to keep the money. The money should be GIVEN BACK to Gonzolez.

That being said, if Gonzolez was not up to something illegal, he was being very stupid. There is a reason why people almost never carry that kind of cash around: it too easy to get robbed, destroyed, lost. Not to mention the risk of what happend in this case. The cost of using some kind of financial institution is trivial compared to the risks of not doing so. Indeed, pretty much nothing good could possibly come out of carrying that kind of cash unless one likes being mugged. The vast majority of people who are not some kind of conspiracy theorists understand this. That is why carrying such sums of money is correctly considered to be suspicious. That he also lied to the police, etc. only increases the suspicion.

But people should NOT face penalities for merely acting in a suspicous manner. They should only face penalities for proven violations of the law. The only evidence beyond the suspicious activity was the drug traces on the money which is worthless evidence. I will make no bones that unless he was being stupid or paranoid, was almost certainly doing something that would get him in trouble. I see no reason to assume that it had to be drugs either. The most the government can say is that he probably did something illegal. Which brings back to my speeding example. Virtually all drivers have illegally exceeded the speed limit or committed some other kind of traffic infraction that they have not been charged with. The government can’t say that 99% of drivers speed, so we will assume you speed, and punish you for it. No, the government has to say: John Smith, drove 29 MPH in at 20 MPH zone at 11:30 AM on August 24, 2006 and then provide some sort of evidence for it. Gonzolez has only done things which usually indicates some kind of illegal activity. Not good enough.

Now for what really came back for. Look at the following outrage: Police property: It’s finders keepers in NH Here the NH Supreme court rules that because someone might have done something wrong justifies forfeiture. Maybe the person in question did violate the law, but a specific violation of the law was not shown. Thus the ruling was an outrage much like the Gonzolez case.

Since when did banking become compulsory, on pain of arbitrarily forfeiting your money? Sounds like a racket set up by the banks, if you ask me, and that’s not how “legal tender” money is meant to work.

With the reasoning the government is using here, it might as well say 99% of drivers sometimes speed and thus it is okay fine and randomly pull people over and fine them on the basis that they are drivers.

Meanwhile I would introduce Mr. Gonzolez to this thing called a bank. It has many wonderful services that can be used by people with that kind of money including far safer storage and transfer of monetary wealth.

The majority of the voters in the U.S. are poor citizens who are too lazy (mentally) to take their power seriously — they have (and will continue to) elected their representatives based on looks and rhetoric instead of research and clear thought, and they pay for their choices by lost liberties and abused freedoms.

This is the majority that’s running the country — running it into the ground — these are the same people who are the prey of scam artists (among them politicians) and who are always looking for something for nothing.

Its almost as scary as terrorism!