{"id":51814,"date":"2017-10-17T07:43:05","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T14:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/?p=51814"},"modified":"2017-10-17T07:43:05","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T14:43:05","slug":"leaked-ice-guide-offers-unprecedented-view-of-agencys-asset-forfeiture-tactics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/?p=51814","title":{"rendered":"Leaked ICE Guide Offers Unprecedented View of Agency&#8217;s Asset Forfeiture Tactics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Via: <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2017\/10\/13\/ice-hsi-asset-forfeiture-handbook\/\">The Intercept<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><em>AN INTERNAL HANDBOOK obtained by The Intercept provides a rare view into the extensive asset seizure operations of ICE\u2019s Homeland Security Investigations, an office that trains its agents to meticulously appraise the value of property before taking it.<\/p>\n<p>HSI\u2019s 71-page \u201cAsset Forfeiture Handbook,\u201d dated June 30, 2010, underscores the role seizures play in \u201chelping to fund future law enforcement actions\u201d and covering costs \u201cthat HSI would otherwise be unable to fund.\u201d It thus offers an unprecedented window into ICE\u2019s wide-ranging asset forfeiture operations and the premium the agency places on seizing valuable property. Forfeiture proceeds can bolster ICE\u2019s partnerships with local police departments, which are now the subject of heightened debate given the Trump administration\u2019s hard-line immigration agenda.<\/p>\n<p>ICE confirmed to The Intercept that the handbook reflects the agency\u2019s most up-to-date guidance on asset forfeiture. Agents under its instruction are asked to weigh the competing priorities of law enforcement versus financial profit and to \u201cnot waste instigative time and resources\u201d on assets it calls \u201cliabilities\u201d \u2014 which include properties that are not profitable enough for the federal government to justify seizing. \u201cAs a general rule, if total liabilities and costs incurred in seizing a real property or business exceed the value of the property, the property should not be seized,\u201d the document states.<\/p>\n<p>The handbook also instructs ICE agents on the various ways laws can be used to justify the seizure of a property, and devotes a significant portion of its pages to the seizure of real estate. The manual instructs agents seeking to seize a property to work with confidential informants, scour tax records, and even obtain an interception warrant to determine whether \u201ca telephone located on the property was used to plan or discuss criminal activity\u201d in order to justify seizing the property.<\/p>\n<p>The handbook acknowledges that civil forfeiture can be used to take property from a person even when there\u2019s not enough evidence for a criminal indictment.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via: The Intercept: AN INTERNAL HANDBOOK obtained by The Intercept provides a rare view into the extensive asset seizure operations of ICE\u2019s Homeland Security Investigations, an office that trains its agents to meticulously appraise the value of property before taking it. HSI\u2019s 71-page \u201cAsset Forfeiture Handbook,\u201d dated June 30, 2010, underscores the role seizures play [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,8,48,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dictatorship","category-economy","category-fraud","category-police-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51815,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51814\/revisions\/51815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}