Sorry if I came across that way, I really do not think it is that black and white. At all. Nor do I think any person, police or not, is infallible. That said, the US is emphatically NOT a police state. East Germany and the Soviet Bloc were police states. North Korea is a police state. Applying that term to asset forfeiture shows a tremendous ignorance of what it means. You might not think so, but in an asset forfeiture case in the US you do, in fact, have access to courts. Courts where primarily impartial judges sit, that have no connection to the police force. Is the system perfect? Gosh no. But to say 21st century american police officers are like the Stasi is absurd, and seeing people up-vote those sentiments on HN is sort of terrifying.