(The Hill) -- By any stretch of the imagination, it hasn’t been a banner couple of weeks for federal agencies that engage in the little-known practice of civil asset forfeiture.
Two separate reports—one by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), and the other by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA)—painted a bleak picture of both departments’ use of the practice, which allows federal law enforcement to seize, keep, and repurpose assets on the suspicion that they’re involved in criminal activity. This process was intended to target bona fide lawbreakers. However, it has become a veritable Godzilla of late, targeting not just proven criminals but individuals who have never been convicted of a crime, let alone even charged with one.
The process has come under withering scrutiny from across the ideological spectrum for years—from the Heritage Foundation to the ACLU—for its increasingly broad scope of practice and limited due process protections for innocent property owners.