This Goes Without Saying

From the Houston Chronicle: Federal asset forfeiture is both an effective crime-fighting tool and a civil-liberties nightmare that has victimized many innocent citizens, a Hearst investigation has found...
Federal asset forfeiture is both an effective crime-fighting tool and a civil-liberties nightmare that has victimized many innocent citizens, a Hearst investigation has found.
Fifteen federal agencies have the power to seize assets. Over the past dozen years, those agencies have taken more than $20 billion in cash, securities and other property from scruffy drug dealers, pinstriped Wall Street tycoons _ and ordinary Americans who have not committed crimes.
"The government is going seizure crazy," says attorney Philip Hilder, who formerly led the busy Houston field office of the Justice Department's organized crime strike force.
Seizures have grown more than 600 percent over the past decade.
Federal agents often pursue forfeiture through sealed documents _ or avoid the court system entirely by seizing assets without charging the owners with any crime, a procedure called "administrative forfeiture." The result: Thousands of cases each year where the feds take cash, guns or other items from U.S. citizens without a judge or jury.  http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Asset-forfeiture-both-an-effective-tool-4546043.php?cmpid=hpfsln
Every week in the Las Vegas Review Journal, I see court notices about money fortitures in Federal Court.
It makes you wonder if the Feds are taking money from criminals or innocent people, especially when no names are mentioned.