Law allows police to seize and sell cars of non-lawbreakers, keeping proceeds
> A controversial law that allows police in Minnesota to take and sell someone's personal property is coming under more scrutiny after the state patrol seized a woman's car during a drunk driving stop late last year, even though she was not driving or charged with a crime.<p>> ...<p>> Troopers seized Dietrich's car under Minnesota's forfeiture law that has allowed police agencies across the state to take close to 14,000 vehicles, generating nearly $10 million for those departments in just three years, according to a review of statewide data by 5 INVESTIGATES.<p>How can any patriotic American read something like this and not at least start to wonder what happened to this country?<p>The system of "checks and balances" that we're taught (maybe not anymore) has clearly failed here and in hundreds if not thousands of other cases, ranging from ravenous petty theft of private property owned by people charged with no crime:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...</a><p>to secret courts and clear violations of the constitution:<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/12/22/790281142/scathing-report-puts-secret-fisa-court-into-the-spotlight-will-congress-act" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2019/12/22/790281142/scathing-report-put...</a><p>This is not what freedom looks like. It resembles another system, though. One that gets trotted out pretty regularly to smear political candidates and organization that try to effect change.