Boston Police Use Asset Forfeiture Funds to Secretly Purchase Stingray Spy Device

Civil asset forfeiture is a pernicious policy in its own right. It is nothing more than legalized, institutionalized, government-sanctioned theft. Forfeiture laws flip due process on its head and create perverse “policing for profit” incentives. It’s bad enough that police can take people’s stuff, oftentimes without even charging them with a crime. But the damage done by this insidious policy is magnified when police use asset forfeiture money to fund the ever-growing surveillance state.