(RepublicanDaily.org) – Overreach by federal agencies is becoming a bigger and bigger problem nowadays. Last week, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced legislation to abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). She and some of her party colleagues think the agency is imposing too much on the freedom of ordinary Americans. Now, the FBI is in hot water too.
On Saturday, June 19, Just the News reported on a developing situation around an FBI raid and the contents of approximately 800 safe deposit boxes. During the course of the investigation of a Los Angeles business called US Private Vaults about drug and money laundering offenses, federal agents seized the boxes and attempted to confiscate their contents. That included around $86 million in cash and other valuables worth millions more.
However, the warrant under which the FBI carried out the seizure expressly required agents to return these items to their owners.
FBI Seized Innocent Customers' Valuables During Raid of Safety Deposit Boxes, Alleges Group https://t.co/GNClWGOtJ7
— Inside Edition (@InsideEdition) June 14, 2021
The Institute for Justice is a watchdog group representing several box holders who have filed a class-action lawsuit against the FBI. A spokesperson for the group said what agents were doing amounted to “the most outrageous” abuse of the Fourth Amendment he had ever seen. He compared the FBI’s actions to “breaking into every apartment in a building because the landlord was dealing drugs in the lobby.”
The FBI has alleged this step is justified because the individual account holders have engaged in criminal activity. However, they’ve offered no evidence to support this assertion.
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