<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>tw04</author><text>Under federal rules, the departments got to keep the forfeitures.  IE: the cop who pulled you over could literally pocket the cash.  0 oversight.&lt;p&gt;Under State rules, in almost all states, the money goes into the general fund.  And there is due process to actually seize the asset.  We&amp;#x27;re essentially removing the incentive from the police officers to pull people over.  It does them no good to take your stuff if it just goes into one big pot that they&amp;#x27;ll never see again.</text><parent_chain><item><author>knodi123</author><text>&amp;gt; I really don&amp;#x27;t understand how this practice persisted for so long next when we have the right to due process.&lt;p&gt;Can someone clarify for me-  I read the article, and it SEEMS to be saying &amp;quot;the feds will no longer be participating in this process, which will of course still be carried out by state and city police&amp;quot;.  It&amp;#x27;s more about where seized money gets allocated, than about limiting the actual seizures.&lt;p&gt;Is that right?</text></item><item><author>clavalle</author><text>Good.&lt;p&gt;I really don&amp;#x27;t understand how this practice persisted for so long next when we have the right to due process.&lt;p&gt;For people who think it only happened to drug dealers who were difficult to prosecute; it happened to my elderly parents.&lt;p&gt;My grandfather died suddenly in Georgia and we were the closest family at the time.  My parents packed up their car in a hurry and started from Texas down I-10.  In Mississippi they ran into a drunk driving checkpoint.  They, being elderly conservative Republican business owners driving a luxury sedan that never conceived that the police would not be on their side, consented to a search of their car.  The police found an antique revolver (my dad is an avid collector) locked in its case in the trunk.  That plus the $800 he had in his wallet as travel money was enough to get them thrown in jail for the weekend and their property seized as suspected drug dealers.&lt;p&gt;$8000 in local lawyer fees later they got their car back but the antique gun had &amp;#x27;gone missing&amp;#x27; along with the cash.  Their lawyer said they were lucky to get the car back.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Holder limits seized-asset sharing process that split billions with police</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/holder-ends-seized-asset-sharing-process-that-split-billions-with-local-state-police/2015/01/16/0e7ca058-99d4-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>WillNotDownvote</author><text>This policy adjustment is in regard to a federal program that shared the seized proceeds with the state and local police that made the seizures using federal laws.&lt;p&gt;That is, the laws that were &amp;#x27;suspected&amp;#x27; broken were federal laws, and properly the seized goods belonged to the feds. The feds then shared a large portion of that back to the state and local cops. They will no longer do so.&lt;p&gt;This removes a great deal of the incentive for locals to use federal laws for seizures.&lt;p&gt;Many states require seizures go into the state general fund,  so there&amp;#x27;s no incentive there for cops to overstep, at least not financial incentives.&lt;p&gt;So in theory this should result in a pretty big reduction in  unwarranted seizures.</text><parent_chain><item><author>knodi123</author><text>&amp;gt; I really don&amp;#x27;t understand how this practice persisted for so long next when we have the right to due process.&lt;p&gt;Can someone clarify for me-  I read the article, and it SEEMS to be saying &amp;quot;the feds will no longer be participating in this process, which will of course still be carried out by state and city police&amp;quot;.  It&amp;#x27;s more about where seized money gets allocated, than about limiting the actual seizures.&lt;p&gt;Is that right?</text></item><item><author>clavalle</author><text>Good.&lt;p&gt;I really don&amp;#x27;t understand how this practice persisted for so long next when we have the right to due process.&lt;p&gt;For people who think it only happened to drug dealers who were difficult to prosecute; it happened to my elderly parents.&lt;p&gt;My grandfather died suddenly in Georgia and we were the closest family at the time.  My parents packed up their car in a hurry and started from Texas down I-10.  In Mississippi they ran into a drunk driving checkpoint.  They, being elderly conservative Republican business owners driving a luxury sedan that never conceived that the police would not be on their side, consented to a search of their car.  The police found an antique revolver (my dad is an avid collector) locked in its case in the trunk.  That plus the $800 he had in his wallet as travel money was enough to get them thrown in jail for the weekend and their property seized as suspected drug dealers.&lt;p&gt;$8000 in local lawyer fees later they got their car back but the antique gun had &amp;#x27;gone missing&amp;#x27; along with the cash.  Their lawyer said they were lucky to get the car back.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Holder limits seized-asset sharing process that split billions with police</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/holder-ends-seized-asset-sharing-process-that-split-billions-with-local-state-police/2015/01/16/0e7ca058-99d4-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html</url></story>