title:  DOJ Tells Cops To Go Ahead And Start Stealing Money And TVs From The Public Again
text: If you don t know what  civil asset forfeiture  is, the short answer is: The police get to take your money and property and keep it for themselves even if you didn t commit, or were even charged with, a crime. If you want the long answer, watch John Oliver s definitive take on it here. Needless to say, introducing a profit motive to policing is a terrible idea, so a lot of people were understandably happy when the federal version of the program was suspended last year.But that s all done with now:The Justice Department today announced that it is resuming a controversial practice that allows local police departments to funnel a large portion of assets seized from citizens into their own coffers under federal law.The  equitable-sharing  program gives police the option of prosecuting asset forfeiture cases under federal instead of state law. The Justice Department had suspended payments under this program back in December, due to budget cuts included in last year s spending bill.This program allows the police to walk into your house with little to no justification, take your giant flatscreen TV and keep it to watch football games back at the station. Just to be clear, the police have admitted that they like to target people they KNOW will have nice stuff to take. They go after nice cars, expensive computers, etc. because they get to keep it and use it knowing there s almost no chance they ll ever have to give it back.Does that sound constitutional in any way, shape or form?Even worse, as the law enforcement community tumbles to the fact that they can rob the public blind, they ve gone on a spree that puts actual criminals to shame:Asset forfeiture is fast growing  in 2014, for instance, federal authorities seized over $5 billion in assets. That s more than the amount of money lost in every single burglary that year.And the police wonder WHY they ve lost the public s trust? Seriously?Now that the program has resumed, they re going to want to make up for lost time so expect to hear an increasing number of horror stories in the news. Also look for stories of the police using asset forfeiture as retaliation against all those pesky Black Lives Matter protesters that keep making them look bad by filming the police unnecessarily beating/killing unarmed black people. Because why stop at abusing your power for personal gain when you can get some payback at the same time? Murika.Featured image via memes.com 