How The IRS Seized $35k From A Michigan Grocery Store With No Warning Or Explanation

I covered the out of control practice of government theft known as “civil forfeiture” earlier this year in my post: Why You Should Never, Ever Drive Through Tenaha, Texas. At the time I explained:

In a nutshell, civil forfeiture is the practice of confiscating items from people, ranging from cash, cars, even homes based on no criminal conviction or charges, merely suspicion. This practice first became widespread for use against pirates, as a way to take possession of contraband goods despite the fact that the ships’ owners in many cases were located thousands of miles away and couldn’t easily be prosecuted. As is often the case, what starts out reasonable becomes a gigantic organized crime ring of criminality, particularly in a society where the rule of law no longer exists for the “elite,” yet anything goes when it comes to pillaging the average citizen.

I was appalled to discover recently just how big business civil forfeiture really is, with over $4 billion seized by the feds using this method in 2012 alone. While some of these seizures were no doubt legitimate, clearly many of them were not.

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