Thread: Oklahoma Police Can Seize Your Entire Bank Account On A Traffic Stop Without Charges

Oklahoma Police Can Seize Your Entire Bank Account On A Traffic Stop Without Any Charges

Blog/The Hunt for Taxes
Posted Jun 9, 2016 by Martin Armstrong

The one state that has gone complete anti-democratic is Oklahoma. It is wise not to travel in that state at all. Oklahoma should be on a no-fly zone. Now, Oklahoma police can outright seize everything you have from debit cards to bank accounts on a traffic stop without any criminal charges being filed. If some policeman thinks you’re doing something illegal, your life is over. Without money, you cannot hire a lawyer and they can just rob everything you have on a whim.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol has introduced a device called Electronic Recovery and Access to Data (ERAM) that allows police officers to seize money in your bank account or on prepaid cards. State police began using 16 of these machines last month, and now the police have become literal highway robbers. This makes the traffic cops in Russia, who you can bribe to go away if they pull you over for a speeding ticket, as a far more civilized arrangement. Here, they can rob you of everything.

Let’s say a state trooper suspects or just thinks you may have money tied to any sort of crime. He can now scan any cards you have and seize the money in your wallet. He does not have to charge you with a crime. There is no right to remain silent, for he is not charging you. He is after all your money because the governments is broke.

Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. John Vincent said, “We’re gonna look for if there’s a difference in your story. If there’s some way that we can prove that you’re falsifying information to us about your business.” So all he has to do is “believe” you lied about anything and he has the right to take everything you have. They justify this by claiming it is not about seizing money. Of course not. It is criminal prosecution but there is no crime. Forget innocent until proven guilty. That will not apply. They pretend the money committed the crime – not you.

This is simply nullifying the Constitution. You have absolutely ZERO rights. He can rob you of everything and leave you with not even enough money for gas. The police have become the criminals. This is precisely how Rome fell. When they could not pay the army, they began sacking their own cities. This is exactly what the police are doing now and there is nobody to defend us against this new criminal organization.

Just stay out of Oklahoma at all costs. If other states follow, you better migrate to another country and fast. Look for a country not based on common law (English countries). This will destroy the freedom to travel for broke police have become highway criminals with guns.


https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...harges-at-all/

Anyone from Oklahoma here know anything about this? A friend told me about this and if it's true, wow, something must be done about it. I don't think the good people of Oklahoma would want such a thing going on in their state.

Would appreciate any input.

http://www.snopes.com/oklahoma-polic...l-forfeitures/

Seize The Money And Run

While Oklahoma police did get a new device to make civil forfeitures, this device cannot empty anybody's bank account.



Dan Evon

1 hour ago

CLAIM: The Oklahoma Highway Patrol is using a device called an "ERAD" to seize money from people's bank accounts.

MIXTURE

WHAT'S TRUE: The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety has purchased Electronic Recovery and Access Devices (ERADs), allowing them to seize money on gift cards and prepaid debit cards.

WHAT'S FALSE: ERADs do not give the Oklahoma Highway Patrol access to people's bank accounts.

EXAMPLE: [Collected via Email, June 2016]

An article claiming Oklahoma Highway Patrol can scan your bank card or credit card and remove money from your accounts while pulled over on a traffic stop. It is attached to a petition to call for the use of the "ERAD" device to be stopped.

ORIGIN:On 8 June 2016, the web site Oklahoma Watch published a report concerning the purchaseof Electronic Recovery and Access to Data machines (ERADs) by the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, which gives the state a new tool to conduct civil forfeitures:

The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety has purchased several devices capable of seizing funds loaded on to prepaid debit cards to aid troopers in roadside seizures of suspected drug-trafficking proceeds.The portable card scanners are designed to be carried in law enforcement vehicles, allow troopers to freeze and seize money loaded onto a prepaid debit card, and to return money to an account whose funds were seized or frozen.The vehicle-mounted scanners are also capable of retrieving and storing limited account information from other cards as well, such as banking debit cards, credit cards and “payment account information from virtually any magnetic stripe card,” according to the website and patent documents of the device manufacturer, Texas-based ERAD Group Inc. ERAD stands for Electronic Recovery and Access to Data.

Shortly after the Oklahoma Watch article was published, a petition was started on ActionSprout.io, which claimed that the Oklahoma Highway Patrol now had a device that could take money out of your bank account:

Oklahoma Highway Patrol have begun using a new device called ERAD. This device allows cops to scan any credit or ATM cards and seize any money connected with that card. How is this legal? A REPUBLICAN state senator has already sounded off on this civil liberties nightmare. "We've seen single mom's stuff be taken," he said, "a cancer survivor his drugs taken... We've seen innocent people's stuff being taken. We've seen where the money goes and how it's been misspent."

The petition is, whether intentionally or not, misleading.

While the state of Oklahoma has purchased ERADs, the devices are not capable of taking money directly out of bank accounts; according to a FAQsection on the Texas-based ERAD group's web site, the devices only work with prepaid cards:

Fin Cen defines prepaid access as "access to funds or the value of funds that have been paid in advance and can be retrieved or transferred at some point in the future through an electronic device or vehicle, such as a card, code, electronic serial number, mobile identification number, or personal identification number." Open Loop prepaid cash cards, closed loop retailer gift cards and stored-value cards are example of prepaid access devices.

The ERAD group writes that these devices after customs officials noticed a "significant number of prepaid cash cards moving across the border":

Even with probable cause, they had no way of identifying the card value, freezing the funds or seizing the money at the point of arrest. ERAD-Prepaid solved that problem by condensing a process that takes many days, weeks or months into one that takes a few seconds.

Civil forfeiture is a major issue in Oklahoma. While law enforcement officials argue that it is a necessary measure to curb drug trafficking, critics claim that these seizures often affect innocent people:

Law enforcement officials in Oklahoma and elsewhere describe civil asset forfeiture as an important weapon against the drug trade, allowing them to target illicit proceeds that may not be in proximity to contraband. They say ERAD technology is a necessary tool to keep up with criminals who have begun putting money on prepaid cards in order to avoid having cash seized by police.“If someone has 300 cards taped up and hidden inside the dash of a vehicle, we’re going to check that,” Lt. John Vincent, public information officer for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, told Oklahoma Watch.[...]A hidden stack of hundreds of cash cards may seem inherently suspicious, but critics of civil asset forfeiture say hypotheticals like this obscure concerns that the practice is overused, often in ways that violate people’s due process and property rights.“Whether someone has 100 debit cards or one, that in and of itself is not illegal,” state Sen. Kyle Loveless (R), who has spearheaded an unsuccessful push to overhaul Oklahoma’s civil forfeiture laws, told The Huffington Post.

Officers in Oklahoma can't wipe out anyone's bank account with an ERAD, but they can use these devices, along with current civil forfeiture laws in the state, to check, freeze, and seize funds on prepaid cards.


LAST UPDATED: 09 June 2016
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 09 June 2016

http://www.snopes.com/oklahoma-polic...l-forfeitures/