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I think the policy almost guarantees unlawful seizure of private property without due process.
Many LE agencies derive a large part of their operating revenue from seizing private property and cash.
It turns into a "prove you are innocent and you might get your stuff back." Eventually.
20 years ago, my Senior 18E had the fire department called to his house after a minor fire while he was TDY. The FD called the cops to report ammo cans in the garage. (If you were in the military and do not own at least one ammo can, you did something wrong.)
The cops came by and asked his wife if they could search. She consented. (Mistake number two.) The answer, whether you are home or not is "Not without a warrant."
During the search, the overenthusiastic and imaginative young LEOs found a black commercial parachute and some cash he kept at home. Both were seized under the presumption that the Golden Knights (who were not missing or looking for any of their parachute rigs) used black (and gold) canopies, and the cash was close enough to the suspect parachute that it might have been acquired from the sale of stolen military property. These charges were eventually dropped, but not until he got yanked back from a TDY, charged, dragged through the mud, hired a lawyer, and waited several months.
Just because you wear a badge does not entitle you to violate the rights of American citizens, and allowing it to occur against certain people or groups of people because of suspicion should not be tolerated in this country. One day, it is drug owners, the next it is gun owners ("hey, this could have been used in a crime!") I do not believe our founding fathers would have allowed this abuse, and as Peregrino noted, specifically forbade it in the Bill of Rights.
This is a very slippery slope.
TR
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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