A Case of Privacy

[Trinidad]

Yes, you have to give your CC#, but you can still limit yourself to only downloading free apps.

So, I should give my credit card number to Apple for an iPad used by an 11 year old? And I should agree to pay whatever Apple charges?

 

Does that seem wise (if even legal)?

 

Rik

[mycroft]

Until they have handed you the ticket, there is no debt, therefore there is no requirement to accept cash. They can simply choose not to contract you an entry on a cash basis. Unless the credit-cardless is a protected category, which at the moment it isn't, they can choose not to offer you a contract.

 

On the Apple (and everything else) front, yes, they want the CC on file so that buying doesn't have the hurdle of deciding if it's worth it to get your card. Because while I don't have that temptation (many others, yes, but not that one), I don't like the fundamental skeeviness of that tactic, it's worth it to me to spend $25 on a gift card which sits on their store forever. When I run out, I decide if I want to have more money available; but I don't think "oh, it's just $1.99..." And certainly I'm not putting a credit card on someone else's account, especially my children!

[blackshoe]

I have a "check card". It looks like a visa card, and can be used like a credit card, but it's actually a debit card tied to my checking account. I got tired of the credit card thing some years ago - I had Visa, MC, Discover, and AmEx, and I decided it just ain't worth the hassle - but as you say, you almost have to have something.

 

OTOH, I took my leather coat to the tailor for repairs the other day. He doesn't take credit cards - or checks. Cash only. Good for him!

[kenberg]

It was so long ago I don't recall the details well. Maybe I could have gone to a different office and paid in cash, for example. I just don't recall. But to live in the world today, you need a credit card. I still do not have a smartphone, but someday I suppose that I will have to get one. My wife broke her leg a couple of years ago and it was really a good thing thjat I was at home. Always being only a click away has its advantages, no doubt. But it goes against the grain. My grain.

 

Back to the Greenwald talk on TED. I think that in many ways this is a more conformist age than when I grew up in the 1950s, and part of it is that anything you do or say may appear on the net, and no doubt someone will be horrified. I can imagine 5000 tweets, all asking why I played for the drop when any idiot would know I should have taken the finesse.

[1eyedjack]

Slight thread drift, but I could never understand why (in UK at least) you get as the consumer a lot more statutory protection in respect of specific purchases if done through a credit card than a debit card.That is apart from any contractual protection that you have with the credit card company.

[helene_t]

For some reason, every time I log on to BBO they want to sell me women's dresses. I am not sure what to make of that.

They want to sell me Russian women. But I read somewhere that the cookie gender mismatches the self reported gender for about a quarter of Internet users.

[Trinidad]

They want to sell me Russian women.

That's what you get when you have a Vodkagirl quote in your sig...

 

Rik

[barmar]

Slight thread drift, but I could never understand why (in UK at least) you get as the consumer a lot more statutory protection in respect of specific purchases if done through a credit card than a debit card.That is apart from any contractual protection that you have with the credit card company.

It's the same thing in the US, I think.

 

I think it's because a debit card is considered to be just an electronic equivalent to paying with cash. The money is transferred immediately, just as if you'd gone to an ATM, withdrew the cash, and handed it to the vendor.

 

With a credit card, you're not paying cash, you're incurring a debt. I also suspect that the vendors, when entering into a contract to accept payment from the credit card company, agree to allow them to resolve disputes.

[barmar]

Rather disenfranchises anyone who doesn't have a credit card

I think it's fairly easy to purchase prepaid debit cards that can be used as credit cards. That's essentially what the "gift cards" are.

[jeffford76]

This hasn't happened to me yet, but I have my argument all ready. All US paper money says right on it, "this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private". I will therefore claim that they are legally obligated to accept cash, especially exact change. I may get barred from the place, whatever it turns out to be.

 

They are legally obligated to accept cash for debts. You don't have a debt - you're trying to purchase something. Not the same thing.

[kenberg]

Privacy and the law. Here is a link to a story in today's Washington Post. It is part of a series, I have read some but not all of the series.

 

 

http://www.washingto...a031_story.html

 

I find these seizures very troubling.

 

A summary of the incident described in the article:

 

Two guys were traveling through Iowa on the way to Las Vegas, they have out of state plates on their car. They are stopped for not signaling a lane change (video shows the charge was bogus) and after getting the citation the officer, in a friendly manner, asks if they have time to answer a few questions. They reluctantly agree. That gives enough time for a drug sniffing dog to arrive, who alerts on the trunk. This gives probable cause and they find a gaget (my knowledge of these matters in non-existent so call it a gadget) for grinding marijuana leaves, with evidence, maybe from the dog, that it has been used for that purpose. Possession of such a gadget is a misdemeanor. They also find cash, over a hundred grand. They seize it. The travelers got 90% of their money back but are also suing the police and a facility that trains police in how to conduct such seizures Except for the change of lane and the gadget, no charges are filed.

 

More details in the article but this is enough for a start.

 

Saying I find this troubling is an understatement. Their success in getting much of their money back appeared to hinge on the video showing that the original stop for a signal violation was bogus. Surely it shouldn't matter! Besides the fact that it is, to my mind, wrong on the face of it I also think it is very destructive of community support for the police. I am not a wild driver but sometimes I get a ticket. Maybe I feel the ticket is justified, maybe I don't. I was once given a ticket for slightly exceeding the speed limit while passing a car that was going significantly below the limit, I wasn't happy. But so what. I made a mistake, the cop is doing his job. No need for anyone to get huffy. If he wants to chat, ok, I don't mind. But if his plan is to delay me while he gets a drug sniffing dog to come out and scan my car, come on. A small traffic violation does not make me a drug lord. I may be the only person of my generation who has never smoked marijuana but even if I have a bong or whatever, why do they get to take my money?

 

To me, this is an extreme example of abuse by the law. One of the passengers was a professional gambler, they were on their way to Las Vegas, this perhaps explains the cash, but again, so what? I support the idea of seizing cash that has been acquired through criminal activity, of course, but surely there should be proof that the cash was acquired through criminal activity. Minor traffic violations don't cut it, and neither does possession of some gadget associated with marijuana. Or a gadget associated with cocaine or heroin, for that matter.

 

 

To my mind this is very wrong and I do think it create disrespect for the police, an attitude which will spill over to cops who do not engage in such conduct. I wish the plaintiffs well in their suit.

[GreenMan]

With a credit card, you're not paying cash, you're incurring a debt. I also suspect that the vendors, when entering into a contract to accept payment from the credit card company, agree to allow them to resolve disputes.

 

Government regulation plays a big part. The debt markets are much more heavily regulated than the cash markets, and AFAIK debit cards are generally treated as cash for these purposes.

[GreenMan]

Saying I find this troubling is an understatement. Their success in getting much of their money back appeared to hinge on the video showing that the original stop for a signal violation was bogus. Surely it shouldn't matter! Besides the fact that it is, to my mind, wrong on the face of it I also think it is very destructive of community support for the police.

 

...

 

To my mind this is very wrong and I do think it create disrespect for the police, an attitude which will spill over to cops who do not engage in such conduct. I wish the plaintiffs well in their suit.

 

Most USian public opinion defaults to "If the cops stopped you then you did something wrong, and if you had all than cash then you must be up to something, and if they seized it they must have had a good reason."

 

That won't change without a good number of high-profile reversals of bogus arrests and seizures like the one in the link.

 

The average American believes that if you've been arrested you deserve it and probably more, and if you haven't then either you're good or you're getting away with something and we need more cops so you can get caught. Many of us are more skeptical of the authorities, but that's the gut reaction that even us progressives often have to consciously resist.

[billw55]

Obviously they profiled the vehicle/driver to begin with. "Failure to signal" is a common default excuse to pull someone over to look for other things, usually drugs. Maybe it was the out of state plates, maybe the make and model ... or the color of the occupants?

 

Objectively, I think that having $100k cash on hand is very strongly correlated with criminal activity. Not every time, but usually. Doesn't matter though, this is legally pretty simple, the dog sniff was an unreasonable search.

 

I wonder, if they got 90% of their money back, what happened to the other ten grand.

[PassedOut]

Saying I find this troubling is an understatement. Their success in getting much of their money back appeared to hinge on the video showing that the original stop for a signal violation was bogus. Surely it shouldn't matter! Besides the fact that it is, to my mind, wrong on the face of it I also think it is very destructive of community support for the police. I am not a wild driver but sometimes I get a ticket. Maybe I feel the ticket is justified, maybe I don't. I was once given a ticket for slightly exceeding the speed limit while passing a car that was going significantly below the limit, I wasn't happy. But so what. I made a mistake, the cop is doing his job. No need for anyone to get huffy. If he wants to chat, ok, I don't mind. But if his plan is to delay me while he gets a drug sniffing dog to come out and scan my car, come on. A small traffic violation does not make me a drug lord. I may be the only person of my generation who has never smoked marijuana but even if I have a bong or whatever, why do they get to take my money?

 

To me, this is an extreme example of abuse by the law. One of the passengers was a professional gambler, they were on their way to Las Vegas, this perhaps explains the cash, but again, so what? I support the idea of seizing cash that has been acquired through criminal activity, of course, but surely there should be proof that the cash was acquired through criminal activity. Minor traffic violations don't cut it, and neither does possession of some gadget associated with marijuana. Or a gadget associated with cocaine or heroin, for that matter.

I agree completely. To make such seizures legal is not only appalling for any civilized society, but also guarantees the corruption of law enforcement. Take the cash if there is good reason to believe it was gained illegally, but then give it all back if there is no conviction to establish that it was in fact gained illegally.

[kenberg]

The more I think about it, the worse it seems. I think most peole have a pretty clear understanding of "That money is his, not mine, until proven otherwise" but this good sense can be eroded. I definitely include "most cops" in "most people" understanding what is and isn't theirs. . But now imagine yourself a cop engaged in this stuff, almost certainly because you are told to do it. You realize that effectively you are the bag man. You take money that isn't yours and give it to someone, and it isn't theirs either. You might stop to think a bit, might you not? I mean no disresepect at all here, but I would be thinking maybe next time I will "find" only 75K.

 

The whole thing stinks and corrupts anyone who has a hand in it.

[barmar]

I saw a story a few weeks ago, I think it was either on CBS Sunday Morning or 60 Minutes (or maybe it was on National Public Radio), about police seizures. There's a statute that's intended to be used in RICO (aka organized crime) investigations. Police departments use the proceeds from these seizures to supplement their budgets, and it can sometimes be really difficult for accused people to get their property back, even if charges are dropped or they're exonerated.

[GreenMan]

I definitely include "most cops" in "most people" understanding what is and isn't theirs. . But now imagine yourself a cop engaged in this stuff, almost certainly because you are told to do it.

 

More than that: As Barry points out, since law enforcement agencies can turn around and use seized goods and cash for themselves, they have a systemic incentive to "acquire" these things. It thus becomes just another part of the officers' job and morally neutral or positive, overriding the "do not steal" ethic.

[jeffford76]

John Oliver had a humorous, but serious piece on civil forfeiture recently:

[mike777]

Ya, don't see much privacy by any of these users. As Ken points out we almost never used our CC but now seem to use it every day. As Ken points out it came to the point you could not purchase stuff without one.

 

btw I was probably one of the first to ever use a debit card back in 1980 which my company came out with tied to its money market account. I tried to use it to buy a new car and the dealer did not know what the heck it was and refused it.

[blackshoe]

To my mind this is very wrong and I do think it create disrespect for the police, an attitude which will spill over to cops who do not engage in such conduct. I wish the plaintiffs well in their suit.

It has already created disrespect for the police.

[kenberg]

I have ben examining my thoughts about just why I find the practice so repulsive. When I was 17 or so, it was not rare to have cops treat me like "You are 17, you are guilty of something". There were times that they were right, but mostly they were not. Bill, earlier, commented that someone carrying around 100K in cash is likely to be guilty of doing something or planning something and no doubt this is also often right but not always. Still, fundamentally, if someone is to be punished you have to prove he is guilty of something, and the something he is guilty of should have some relevance to the punishment. Having a gadget for preparing marijuana may, depending on the jurisdiction, make you guilty of something but it is absurd to have the punishment be that the police can take all the money you have with you. One pothead has twenty-five bucks taken, another guy has 100K taken. It is not in any way demonstrated that the violation has anything to do with the money that was seized. In the case in the article, and in other cases in other of the Post's articles, it seems pretty clear that the money and the offense were unrelated. Or, at the very least, there is no demonstration that they are related.

 

This just can't be right. I really cannot see how it can be within the bounds either of the Constitution or of good sense, it is far outside my views of proper legal authority, it should be stopped.

[barmar]

John Oliver had a humorous, but serious piece on civil forfeiture recently:

Right, that's where I heard about it.

 

I should have remembered that it was somewhere more reliable than a regular news report.

[billw55]

But now imagine yourself a cop engaged in this stuff, almost certainly because you are told to do it. You realize that effectively you are the bag man. You take money that isn't yours and give it to someone, and it isn't theirs either. You might stop to think a bit, might you not? I mean no disresepect at all here, but I would be thinking maybe next time I will "find" only 75K.

Yep. Every time I read/see a news story about a drug bust where cash and/or product was seized, I wonder how much was really there.

[barmar]

Yep. Every time I read/see a news story about a drug bust where cash and/or product was seized, I wonder how much was really there.

I wonder how much TV shows like "The Shield" have contributed to attitudes like this.

 

I still like to be optimistic and assume that corrupt cops are the exception, not the rule.