Cops Have a New Way to Take Your Money: Prepaid Debit Cards

The Daily Beast reports:

Being pulled over by the police can be a harrowing experience, but it becomes undeniably more distressing when the police can wrongly assume you’re a criminal and take your cash from you as if it’s drug money. That can happen under the practice of civil asset forfeiture, and it might have just gotten a lot worse.

It’s been reported that Oklahoma Highway Patrol (OHP) is currently using a device called the Electronic Recovery and Access to Data machine (ERAD), which lets the police scan prepaid debit cards and seize the money on them if they suspect it’s from criminal sources. This isn’t drug money taken away after a criminal conviction, this isn’t a huge wad of cash you had sitting in your lap when you got pulled over, this is the police saying “there’s a criminal” and seizing the money on your prepaid cards.

Prepaid debit cards are used by people who don’t have bank accounts but want the convenience of paying for things with a card. They’re typically used by low income Americans. You load the thing up with money, then you can use however much money you put on the card.

The state as thief.