Cash Laws
Man, from a writing standpoint I just love the way the government likes to fuck with us because it gives me an incredible amount of shit to write about.
You should know that it's illegal to leave the country with more than $10,000 in US currency. It's also pretty much a guaranteed confiscation of your cash if you enter the country with a lot of money. Why? Well, the presumption is that you're going to go buy drugs with it. Funny, though...
Read.I don't want to excerpt it, and I'm not going into their profiling complaint--other than to say that yeah, no shit they're going to stop people who
fit the profile of drug runners more, but it's a separate issue. Profiling goes both ways, guys; if the cops see a white guy in a nice car in the ghetto at 3 AM they'll probably assume he's a buyer and stop him. It's not racist, and the inflammatory claim-makers that spew that shit should be shot in the face with a fire hose.
Also, if you're wandering around town with a lot of cash and are stopped by a cop, prepare to lose it all. It's considered a crime, at least de facto if not de jure, to carry large quantities of cash. If you 'don't have a good reason' in the cops' view, you're screwed. Ok, if I want to carry my god damn life savings in a duffel bag on my back, I don't NEED an excuse. It's called freedom, mother fucker, and the response to a police inquiry
should be "What fucking business is it of yours?" The reality is that the police have every motivation to find enough suspicion to confiscate your cash because it goes directly to the system that employs them and I would be surprised not at all to find cops got a cut of whatever they confiscated.
Oh boy, enter the
tedious Constitutional pedantry. There's this little snippet of law called the Fourth Amendment, and it reads as follows:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
To go along with that, we have a piece of the Fifth Amendment:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Well now. I'd say that makes the actions of various JBT agencies rather unConstitutional, wouldn't you?
