Giuliani has made
some emphatic statements proposing $100 dollar bills be eliminated
to combat drug dealers. Perhaps all cash will be next.
]

* On November 11, 1993, apparently tipped off by a friendly bank clerk who
* thought Alvarez's redeposits looked like "structuring", the Internal
* Revenue Service seized $88,315.76, the life savings of a hard-working
* immigrant.
*
* The government, of course, had no evidence that Alvarez was using the
* money for improper purposes, or was in any way connected with drugs or
* drug-dealing, for the simple reason that he wasn't doing any such thing.
*
* In this case, under the astonishing provisions of our nation's asset
* forfeiture laws, the mere administrative finding that Alvarez had
* "structured" his transactions was enough to justify the seizure.
[
We have Federal laws against terminating someone's benefits based solely
(automatically by computer) on "computer matching" hits of possible
ineligibility. But NOTHING to protect us from this nearly IDENTICAL
use of computer data to terminate "benefits".
]
* To the government, the question of whether the money had been legally
* earned or was the product of a nefarious drug sale was of no concern.
*
* Maybe worse than the nebulous structuring provision is a feature of the
* same group of laws that places the burden of proof on the victim. In
* other words, rather than the government having to prove that Alvarez
* had violated the statute before it seized his money, Alvarez had to
* prove that he was innocent of any wrongdoing before he could get it
* back. Further adding to the