RatherBeOnATrain

An official agency TSA post from Transportation Security Administration spokesperson Lisa Farbstein:
If you had $75,000, is this how you'd transport it? Just asking! TSA@ #RIC spotted this traveler's preferred method.

An excerpt from an article about the post:
The article goes on to explain:
Source:

Washington Post: Why the TSA posted a photo of a passenger’s cash-filled luggage on Twitter
June 30, 2015

petaluma1

Seems to me this is in violation of rules that Holder issued:

http://tinyurl.com/p9fzakx

If the passenger wasn't arrested, then there doesn't seem to be any case.

MaxBuck

Here's what WaPo said about Holder's rules:

Seems to me as though it was TSA that seized the cash, so his rules don't seem to have been violated. Not that that makes the situation any less troubling.

Boggie Dog

I'd be willing to bet a cold Coca Cola that some other agency did the seizure.

Why would TSA seize cash and under what authority?

GUWonder

With regard to

"In January, Holder barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash and other property without warrants or criminal charges, unless federal authorities were directly involved in the case."

note that Holder can't bar local and state LEOs from using state law to seize cash under the state's asset forfeiture laws. Nor can he bar the TSA from calling local/state LEOs. And in this matter, the federal authorities were either involved or the TSA is playing tin cop wannabe again.

Asset forfeiture laws (as they are now) need to be scrapped if we want a less authoritarian governmental regime.

I'm just guessing on the following, but it looks to me as if the cash was a fresh withdrawal out of the bank -- before the TSA disorganized the bag -- with clean, new currency notes nicely stacked.

chollie

Holder, and now Lynch, it appears, have no control over what their attorneys do. That has been made abundantly clear with the US attorneys who not only target medical marijuana dispensaries in compliance with state laws, but even individual medical mj users.

I give zero credence to anything Holder and Lynch say.

It's perfectly clear that behind the scenes, DHS and more particularly, TSA, continue to focus on drugs and cash at the checkpoint. Perhaps this is why they keep missing guns and other more serious contraband.

exerda

I find civil forfeiture abhorrent and am further annoyed with TSA participating the way they did, calling in LEOs to seize the cash.

I do wonder, though, what would make someone think it was a good idea to travel with $75k in cash for legitimate purposes? That doesn't excuse seizing the cash at all... just me wondering why someone would choose to do something so dumb?

chollie

Someone who doesn't hang out on FT, but who knows that on the books, it is legal to travel domestically with any amount of cash.

What he didn't realize, unfortunately, is that any amount of cash, anywhere, any time, is now subject to seizure with due process. Nor did he realize, apparently, that TSA is more focused on cash than on guns.

I worked with a guy who used to go to Vegas to gamble a lot and who also co-owned four racehorses. Very middle class, conservative. He sold a horse once in Vegas and flew back to Seattle with $40K cash on him. He said he not only was comfortable carrying large amounts, he liked the 'feeling'. Heaven help him if he tried that today.

We do not want to fall into the TSA trap of thinking that if we don't get it, it must be 'illegal'. There are people like my co-worker who simply like the feeling of carrying large amounts of cash, there are activities (like horse-racing and gambling) where some people have always felt comfortable carrying around cash. There are people who don't trust banks.

petaluma1

Thought I had responded to this before. I got confused with the "sharing of assets" article and the one that is the subject of this thread.

Boggie Dog

As long as marijuana use/possession is subject to federal laws no one is safe from prosecution regardless of what state laws may allow.

JohnnyColombia

How much cash can you realistically and legally carry on to an international flight? Thinking about this at the moment as my Colombian bank is rubbish at everything. If I wanted to repatriate my money back to the UK then flying it on my person back via the USA is an option, unless of course it is not.

Section 107

The US has no limit on the amount of currency, negotiable instruments or high value items that may be transported into or out of the country. Any amount over $10,000US (or US equivalent in other currency) must be declared and proper forms completed. Most other countries have the similar requirements.

However, even at amounts less than $10k be prepared to document your rightful and legal ownership, source of the assets and purpose for transporting the assets. If not, any of a number of US federal agencies may seize the assets (without warrant) and hold it until such time as you are able to PROVE beyond some undetermined level of their satisfaction your ownership and the provenance of the assets.

Also be aware that the $10k limit applies in aggregate to everyone in your travelling party - whether or not they are on the same itinerary. So don't think you can put $9,999 in each of your kids' bags and get all skate through.

Good luck. Depending on how much you are talking about you might consider trying the Sinaloa cartel's fleet of submarines or the tunnels in Tijuana.

JohnnyColombia

I was aiming for about $30K. How would I document this? Bank statements showing I withdrew it from an account in my name? Then a receipt to change it into USD from a money exchange place?

chollie

However, DOJ is just as out-of-control as DHS/TSA.

Any organization can assign priorities and it is not up to the peon to ignore those priorities.

I used to live in Seattle. At one time, urban crime was steadily rising - the kind of crime that upsets the middle and upper classes. SPD's answer was always 'not enough money, not enough cops'. After a lot of citizen pressure, SPD was forced to announce that minor mj offenses were the lowest SPD priority. The citizens, SPD's bosses, felt that car thefts, breakins, violent assaults and hard drug crimes were higher priorities. If the cops could handle all those, then there was time to focus on the 'easy' stuff.

After legalization last year, a friend sent a link. An SPD cop took it upon himself to start frequenting an area where a few homeless guys regularly hung out under an overpass. He started going there to write pot citations. IIRC, he wrote more citations than the rest of the PD combined. He added comments to one citation, addressing it to the city attorney. On another one, he flipped a coin to decide which of the two guys (both equally 'guilty') would get the citation. He was appropriately reined in and told there were more important matters to address.

It's not unlike TSA: so busy focusing on 2-inch toy guns on sock monkey puppets and expensive bottles of perfume and large amounts of cash that they miss the higher priority items the red team brings through. That's clearly not because of one or two rogue agents; they are failing the tests because they're not being tested on the items their management tells them to focus on: illusions, drugs and money.

If Holder or Lynch tell their people, "We don't have enough resources to go after everything - this is what I want you to focus on and this is the least important", it isn't up to their employees to over-ride their decisions. The fact that it happens either means the AGs are lying or incompetent.

Boggie Dog

I don't disagree with you but.... Marijuana is still a Schedule I drug under Federal Controlled Substance Act. While the Feds might not prosecute, and probably would not for small quantities, they can prosecute if they want.

Who is willing to wager their freedom, job, or what have you on that bet?