There are 217 provisions in federal law as of 2009 that allow for the civil and administrative forfeiture of property. They range from the obvious (18 U.S.C. 794 serious espionage) to the dated (22 U.S.C. 287c violation of import restrictions on Rhodesian chromium) to the vague and selectively enforced (18 U.S.C. 1461 mailing obscene material, 18 U.S.C. 1463 mailing indecent material).
The major problem with all of these provisions, of course, is that none of them require a conviction, and most of these processes can be initiated on the simple suspicion that your property is linked (in whatever nebulous fashion) to criminal activity or the intent that your property will be implicated in criminal activity. In other words, the government can initiate forfeiture proceedings against your property for crimes that have nothing to do with you and haven’t even happened yet.
Additionally, while many of these forfeiture provisions are well thought out and well-intentioned, many of them contain such vague language that they criminalize a wide variety of conduct. Sending “obscene” or “indecent” things by mail is particularly something that is open to a wide variety of interpretations, as is are many of the forfeiture provisions enacted for currency (31 U.S.C. 5111 U.S. coins exported, melted or treated contrary to regulation), internet domain names (18 U.S.C. 2252B misleading internet domain names), and running away from danger (50 U.S.C. 224 unauthorized departure during time of insurrection).
Many of these provisions are probably unconstitutionally vague, and all of these provisions should have stronger requirements for being associated with actual convictions, barring extraordinary circumstances. Moreover, the actual list is a good example of how the expansion of federal criminal and civil law has criminalized a lot of ordinary, innocuous, harmless conduct, and exposes otherwise law-abiding citizens to politically or financially motivated punishments.
The whole list is under the fold, here. Continue reading Let me count the ways the government can take your property….all 217 of them
