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than 200,000 forfeitures, the
* Justice Department Asset Forfeiture Fund took in over $3.2 billion.
*
* In 1993 alone the department took in $556 million, twenty times more
* than it did when the program began in 1985.

And what were some of the reasons of the dramatic
increase in forfeitures between 1985 and 1993?

What caused it to increase by more than a MAGNITUDE?

* "Above the Law", by David Burnham, ISBN 0-684-80699-1, 1996
*
* In June 1989, the Deputy Attorney General ordered the nation's U.S.
* attorneys to "take all possible actions" on forfeitures, even if it meant
* dropping other matters. "You will be expected to divert personnel from
* other activities."
*
* One year later, the Attorney General himself warned the U.S. attorneys
* that the Justice Department had fallen far behind its budget projection
* in the collection of assets. "We must significantly increase production
* to reach our budget target... Failure to achieve the $470 million
* projection would expose the Department's forfeiture program to criticism
* and undermine confidence in our budget projections. Every effort must be
* made to increase forfeiture income during the remaining three months of
* fiscal year 1990."
*
* In addition, forfeiture activities affect how many federal prosecutors
* will be allocated to each U.S. Attorney by the Justice Department.
[snip]
*
* Says Senator Henry J. Hyde: "The more they seize, the more they get for
* their own 'official use'. Federal and state officials now have the power
* to seize your business, home, bank account, records and personal property,
* all without indictment, hearing, or trial. Everything you have can be
* taken away at the whim of one or two federal or state officials operating
* in secret."
*
* The so-called War on Drugs, the Congressman continued, "has been
* perverted too often into a series of frontal attacks on basic
*

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