A federal court has upheld the right of police to seize and retain funds on debit and credit cards, be they prepaid or otherwise. Adding to the ongoing national conversation about civil asset forfeiture, the case of Eric-Arnaud Benjamin Briere De L’Isle, who was pulled over for a driving infraction and then searched for drugs in Nebraska in 2014, which was appealed to the federal government after Nebraska asserted that the police had the right to seize and keep a large bag full of prepaid cards.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the cards have no expectation of privacy because they are used in daily transactions, and therefore do not fall under the 4th amendment, one of the oldest American civil rights protections which forbids the government to perform undue searches and seizures. Many civil libertarians have long argued that the practice of seizing cash and other things not directly illegal is a violation of the amendment, but this view is increasingly gutted by continued activities of local, state, and federal police agencies as well as courts upholding their activities.
It could be that De L’Isle’s case was not the best to present this issue in light of – in his case, there were several cards that did not bear his name, and others still that did not have any requisite personal information attached to them, indicative of some form of fraud. A better case to present this issue on might have involved an innocent party who was still bereft of their money with little or no relief – a common case in the United States anymore, as CCN has previously reported .
The ruling could have an effect on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not currently considered money at all by the federal government. Stocks and bonds […]
