The fourth amendment, protection against unlawful search and seizure, was put into the constitution as a direct consequence of the very laws that civil forfeiture was based upon. That makes me sad. How can we, as a society, function in which we've incentivized our own police force to take property from our citizens without proof of a crime? It just doesn't make sense.
This is a dangerous precedent that obviously does not have enough oversight if they are willing to take $2,500 moving money that a son received from his father.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_...