“Welcome
to America, where your assets are literally the government’s business, and
freedom is anything but free.”—Claire Bernish, The
Free Thought Project
For some time, I’ve been forewarning readers that, as the
governments of the former “free” world unravel, they’ll introduce capital
controls, both to continue to fund their failing policies and to limit the
freedom of their citizenries.
I’ve envisioned this as a “pincer” of sorts. First, it would be
necessary to institute laws that allow authorities to confiscate the assets of
anyone whom they “suspected” of a crime. (It’s essential to understand that an
actual arrest is unnecessary, as that would allow the individual the
opportunity to prove his innocence in a trial. No trial means he can never
regain the confiscated assets.)
The second half of the pincer would be a law requiring the
reporting of assets—a detailed declaration of all monetary holdings. (Of
course, it would not be possible to keep such reporting thoroughly up to date,
as it would be ever-changing. This would ensure virtually continual guilt
through the failure to report.)
Civil
Asset Forfeiture
In observing the US, we’re witnessing the completion of the
pincer. The first half has been in place for some time, under civil asset
forfeiture laws. It’s been described as a process in which law enforcement
officers take assets from persons suspected of involvement with crime or
illegal activity without necessarily charging the owners with wrongdoing.
That concept may seem odd to the reader, as, surely, if someone
had committed a crime, the authorities would wish to charge him, then see to it
that he was tried in court, so that he could be punished for his
transgressions.
But what
if the individual in question was not, in the traditional sense, a criminal;
that a law had been written that would effectively define virtually all citizens as criminals? And what if the
objective were not to prosecute offenders, but simply to rob them of their
possessions?
In this light, civil asset forfeiture makes complete sense.
First, the authorities decide that they want to take what they desire from
others. Then they target an individual who possesses desired assets (i.e.,
home, car, business, bank accounts, wealth in a safe deposit box, etc.). They
then detain the individual, state that he’s suspected of a crime (suspected
drug dealer? Terrorist sympathiser? Possible tax cheat?) and seize his assets.
In this
scenario, the authorities are actually advantaged by not charging the individual. He has no recourse,
as he can’t demand his day in court for a charge that hasn’t been laid against
him. Therefore, he can’t regain his assets, and they become the property of the
authorities.
Although civil asset forfeiture never seems to appear on the
evening news, it’s not because it’s a minor operation. Indeed, the total annual
take now exceeds that of the annual total for burglaries by traditional
criminals (those who rob others without a badge).
Declaration
of Assets
Considering
the severity of the above, it would be difficult to imagine that civil asset
forfeiture laws are only half of the pincer, yet that’s exactly the case. The
other half is Senate Bill 1241, which is intended “to improve the prohibitions
on money laundering, and for other purposes.” It requires that anyone
travelling beyond US borders declare his assets in writing and in detail, plus
provide ongoing access to all accounts held by the
individual. In essence, it’s providing the government with a license to track
your cash, cryptocurrencies, and other assets in perpetuity. Should, at any
point, your declaration come into question as
to its accuracy, the entirety of
those assets could be seized, not just those that were unreported. In addition,
you could face a prison sentence of up to five years.
The bill also seeks to curtail the individual’s right to travel
outside the US. Whilst this may seem to be a less significant loss, as compared
to the above, it serves the purpose of making it impossible for the individual
to escape the clutches of his government by relocating to another country. He
is, in effect, a trapped rat.
In addition, he’s a trapped rat who, having lost his assets to
arbitrary confiscation, has been crippled economically. He can no longer defend
himself, as he no longer has the means to pay an attorney.
How This
Is Likely to Play Out
At present, asset confiscation is undertaken largely at a local
level. Police go after many people at random. However, they also have the
ability to target specific individuals that they know of, either for personal
reasons or because they feel the haul would be substantial. Senate Bill 1241
places the robberies on a national level. It provides a database by which
authorities can review possible targets, based upon their assets. It also
allows the authorities the opportunity to go after those people who behaved in
a manner deemed unacceptable to authorities.
For example, a national repository of information would allow
authorities to target specific individuals who questioned the government or
sought to live independently of governmental controls. Both Aldous Huxley and
George Orwell described this concept as being central to the assurance that all
citizens would be fully compliant with their rulers’ edicts, 100% of the time.
One deviation from acceptable behaviour could result in a total loss of assets
and freedom.
It would work like this: Like the FATCA legislation in the US,
the premise is:
1. An
individual is required to provide a detailed report of his wealth (however
small).
2. The
regulatory body chooses to regard the report as “in error,” or “incomplete.”
3. The law
then allows all the assets to be
confiscated, including those portions that were correctly reported.
Of course, we’d like to think that no reasonable government
would abuse power in this way. Unfortunately, history shows that any government
that issues a license to itself to rob its citizenry, invariably uses (and
abuses) that license.
The beauty
of such a system is that it need not be enforced often. Once people understand
that, at any moment, they could lose everything and
have no recourse whatsoever, they learn to keep their
heads down and be compliant.
From that
point on, fear of government is a constant,
and the population is effectively under house arrest.
In the
late eighteenth century, American founding father Thomas Jefferson reportedly
stated, “When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
When a country degrades to the point that the government can
grip its people in the pincers of arbitrary loss of assets, with no chance of
recompense through the justice system, it’s safe to say that people can plan on
henceforth living in fear.
