It’s A Revenue Generator


I’d like to think that the us senate respects the people and the constitution enough to toss out crap like the house recently passed on to it but, heck, it is the us senate so we will probably get to see this go all the way to the supreme court before we hopefully are rid of at least some of the more noxious provisions.
Radley in discussing some of representative pence’s (r-ind) additons to the Child Safety Act of 2005 also notes the following:

It gets worse. The bill’s enforcement provisions empower law enforcement with the power to seize the assets of violators, proving that there really is a graveyard of stupid ideas deep in the bowels of the U.S. Capitol Building that Congressmen return to when they’re out of stuff to legislate. Because asset forfeiture has worked so well with the drug war. Idiots.

Actually asset forfeiture has worked very well in the drug wars. See, assest forfeiture is not about stopping some type of alleged criminal activity. Rather, it is about adding another revenue source for government agencies. And they don’t have to call it extortion taxation.
Via Brian Doss at Catallarchy.