March 30, 2011 12:19PM 

# Civil Forfeiture vs. Truth and Justice 

By [Caleb O. Brown](https://www.cato.org/people/caleb-o-brown) 

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Civil asset forfeiture strikes at the heart of property rights. Authorities simply seize private property without all the messiness of convicting someone of a crime. It’s blatantly unconstitutional and it shouldn’t happen, but it does. What’s worse, many state governments offer little to no information to the public about what they’re doing with those ill-gotten gains.

A new [report](http://www.ij.org/about/3746) and [video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB0pnvWr8t8) from the Institute for Justice illustrates the case of Georgia quite well. The video was produced by IJ’s multitalented Isaac Reese.

IJ’s Scott Bullock participated in [a lively discussion](https://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/policing-profit-abuse-civil-asset-forfeiture) of their “[Policing for Profit](http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/other_pubs/assetforfeituretoemail.pdf)” (PDF) report last April here at Cato.

##### Related Tags 

[General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) 

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