In East St. Louis, Police Cell Phone Search Tech Funded by Forfeiture Dollars

In other words, Madison County’s forfeiture racket allows its law enforcement agencies to fund ever more aggressive policing tactics in the hunt for more revenue. Indeed, the Cellebrite technology allows law enforcement the power to leverage illegal highway stops and false arrests into witch hunts through personal notes, records, and documents that can provide law enforcement with information about property to seize. Indeed, as the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has noted:

A modern cell phone is in one aspect a diary writ large. Even when used primarily for business it is quite likely to contain, or provide ready access to, a vast body of personal data. The potential invasion of privacy in a search of a cell phone is greater than in a search of a “container” in a conventional sense even when the conventional container is a purse that contains an address book (itself a container) and photos. Judges are becoming aware that a computer (and remember that a modern cell phone is a computer) is not just another purse or address book. USA v. Abel Flores-Lopez, No. 10-3803 (7th Cir., Feb. 2, 2012)

The Institute for Justice grades Illinois’s forfeiture law a D, noting:

Illinois has burdensome civil forfeiture laws for property owners, and these laws provide the bulk of forfeiture proceeds to law enforcement.  The state need only show probable cause to forfeit your property.  If you believe your property has been wrongly seized, you bear the burden of proving your innocence.

Moreover, law enforcement keeps 90 percent the proceeds for any sales of seized property, which creates a strong incentive for law enforcement to police for profit.  Despite these broad laws, there is no requirement in Illinois that law enforcement account for forfeited currency and property, so we know little about its use under state law.  We do know law enforcement in Illinois takes great advantage of federal equitable sharing, receiving back nearly $88 million from 2000 to 2008.

Constitutional scholar Ilya Somin provides further warning:

In other words, DAFPA authorizes the government to take away the valuable property of completely innocent people for over six months at a time, without giving the owner any opportunity to contest the seizure whatsoever. The 187 day time limit applies to any personal property worth less than $20,000, which includes most cars. And, even after an asset forfeiture action is filed, many more months might pass before any court actually hears the case. In this case, the three cars were held by the police for over a year.

Laws like DAFPA pose a serious danger to the property rights of innocent people caught up in the War on Drugs. In many jurisdictions, police departments are allowed to auction off property seized in drug investigations and keep the profits, giving them a clear incentive to seize cars first and ask questions later. Moreover, many of the people whose cars are seized are poor or minorities. They often lack the political power necessary to persuade police to release their property without judicial intervention.