Note that these are operations that haven't waited for any new bills to pass.
As has been debated here previously, these actions are based on importing the draconian "civil forfeiture" device from the drug war into a "war on counterfeiting" or whatever they would call it.
Some have argued that this wasn't a big expansion of US state power.
Indeed, this is not technically an expansion of legal power. It is certainly a expansion of effective powers. It's so not much that someone just put a knife in US rule of law. It's more someone grabbed the wound already opened by the "war on drugs" and ripped it a fair bit wider. I don't know to what degree civil forfeiture" found been found constitutional by the courts. Regardless, in my opinion, it makes a mockery of basic justice in the US (specifically, innocence until proven guilty and the right to face your accusers).
As has been debated here previously, these actions are based on importing the draconian "civil forfeiture" device from the drug war into a "war on counterfeiting" or whatever they would call it.
Some have argued that this wasn't a big expansion of US state power.
Indeed, this is not technically an expansion of legal power. It is certainly a expansion of effective powers. It's so not much that someone just put a knife in US rule of law. It's more someone grabbed the wound already opened by the "war on drugs" and ripped it a fair bit wider. I don't know to what degree civil forfeiture" found been found constitutional by the courts. Regardless, in my opinion, it makes a mockery of basic justice in the US (specifically, innocence until proven guilty and the right to face your accusers).