Ep. 1856 - DEEP DIVE: How "Civil Asset Forfeiture" Is Robbing Americans Blind

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We've covered our fair share of extraordinary injustices on this show, but aside from the scenarios where people died, horrible deaths, nothing comes close to the sheer unbelievable insanity of the absolute mockery of justice that we're about to talk about. So this is a story that has obvious ramifications for your rights to own private property, which is among the most important rights that you have. And because it's about to go to the Supreme Court, you need to know about it. So we'll talk about today. In April of 2012, an Air Force veteran named Kenneth Juppie, who was in his late 60s at the time, was running an air taxi company in Alaska called Ken Air LLC. He made his living by transporting food and supplies to remote areas of the state, as well as by ferrying tourists and other visitors around. And on this particular occasion, a woman chartered his services to fly from Fairbanks to Beaver, where she planned to celebrate her husband's birthday. It's a journey of a little over 100 miles, typically takes around 45 minutes to complete, because there's no road linking Fairbanks and Beaver. The only alternatives to flying are taking a boat via the Yukon River, if it's summertime, or dog sledding in the winter. So the woman hired Juppie to fly her to Beaver in a 1969 Cessna 206 Airplane, which she owned. So it was a routine job, but everything changed for Kenneth when the Alaska State Troopers decided to search his plane before takeoff. During the inspection, the authorities discovered to their horror that there were three cases of beer, 72 beers in total, in the plane's cargo. That was a problem because Beaver is a so-called dry village, meaning it's illegal to purchase or even possess alcohol there. And under Alaska law, if you attempt to transport alcohol into a dry village like Beaver, you're committing a crime. Even if the alcohol never gets there. And there were some dispute about whether he was even aware of the fact that there was alcohol in his plane, according to the government's version of events, one six pack of beer was packed on a grocery bag, and would have been visible in plane view as Juppie was loading the plane. But according to him, the beers were packed in closed boxes, and he never opened the boxes at any point. Unfortunately, though for him, a State Trooper testified that he saw Juppie opening and closing the boxes while loading the plane, and therefore the jury convicted him of the heinous crime of attempting to knowingly send transport or bring less than 12 gallons of malt beverage into the village of Beaver. Even though the beer never actually made it to Beaver, he was charged with attempting to facilitate the transportation of the alcohol into this sacred town, and that's all it took. As punishment, he was sentenced to 180 days in jail with 177 days suspended, as well as a $3,000 fine with $1,500 suspended was also put on probation for three years. Meanwhile, though, his company was hit with a $10,000 fine with $8,500 suspended, and you would think that that would be enough, but it's actually more than enough for the minor violation that was committed. But the court didn't stop there, and this is where the story takes a very sharp turn into the absurd. Juppie and his company were also ordered to forfeit the airplane that was supposedly used in the commission of this offense. That's because in Alaska, there's a law that requires the forfeiture of any plane that's used in the commission of this particular crime. For some reason, boats get more protections than planes under this law, but not sure why that is, but that's the way it is. So his airplane, which was valued at over $95,000, and which he depended on for his livelihood, of course, was seized by the state. The police department wanted a new aircraft, I guess, and so they just took his plane. Meanwhile, Juppie would have to find another airplane. His company only had one other plane, so this was like stealing a man's horse in the desert. It's exactly the kind of cruel and unusual punishment the Constitution prohibits. And, fortunately, in this case, the plane was returned to him while the proceedings were playing out, but that's not always what happens in these kinds of cases. So here's Juppie now, 83 years old, explaining what happened in his own words. This is from the Alaska news source. Listen. But the whole case hens you around a six-pack of beer. They found me guilty and $5,500 in three days in jail. And they hit my airplane. So a load, a misdemeanor, was, which gave him, actually, $10,000 fine, it cost me an airplane worth at that time, almost $100,000. So, but the whole thing hens you around that six-pack of beer. It was my intention to fight the thing to the very end until there was no fight left. And I was aware of the Institute for Justice, and I contacted them and they decided to take me and represent me in the US Supreme Court. And so they're very good attorneys, very good people. And so that's where we are now. It's important to me, you know what? I just don't want to give up, but I don't want to be falsely accused of something. And there's a lot of inconsistencies in this thing. I'm not going to go into that, but at this point, it's not only me, but it's the whole country. You know, there have been a lot of abuses over this excessive fines and forfeitures over the years. And it's time to, you know, kind of put a stop to it. And so I'm not doing this for me personally now. I'm doing it for the country, actually, as the way I feel. And this will affect every law enforcement agency in the country. They've abused that power for a lot of years now, and it's just getting worse and worse. So if I can do that, that's still have done my job. So as you heard, he appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Alaska because we still have something called the Constitution in this country last I checked. And according to the Constitution, quote, excessive bail should not be required nor excessive fines imposed nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. This prohibition is also applied to the states under the 14th Amendment. And by any rational definition, the seizure of $95,000 worth of personal property, especially for a fake crime like this is clearly an excessive fine. It's a punitive measure to seize property because of a criminal act. And as Juppie just said, the maximum fine under Alaska law for transporting alcohol into a dry town like beaver is only $10,000, but in this case, the government was getting nearly 10 times what that fine was supposed to be. Nevertheless, in the single worst court decision that we've read recently, even worse than many of the things Contagia Brown Jackson has produced, the Alaska Supreme Court upheld the seizure of the airplane. The court found that it was not an excessive fine to steal this guy's $95,000 airplane because he transported a few beers that didn't even belong to him. This is one of those rulings where even if you don't have a law degree and even if you can't read the English language, you know it's absurd on its face, but we'll go through it anyway because it's truly a monument to human's stupidity and it marks an evolution in the government's ability to steal your property, at least for the moment. The Alaska Supreme Court began by talking about a 1998 Supreme Court case where a guy tried to fly out of LAX bound for Cyprus with $350,000 in cash and he didn't declare any of it, even though he was supposed to fill out a form indicating that he had more than $10,000 and as a result, the government seized all of his money, even though they had no proof that any of it was involved in criminal activity. In fact, they acknowledged that it wasn't in a five to four ruling with the majority opinion written by a Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court gave the guy his money back. They determined that under the Constitution, it was a violation of the Eighth Amendment to effectively find someone $350,000 for such a minor offense. It was a pretty straightforward ruling and that logic naturally should apply to the case involving this Alaska pilot and his beer. It wasn't even his beer, but and the plane and the Alaska Supreme Court though disagreed. They said that he had done something far more serious than the guy who boarded the plane from LAX. This is a direct quote from the decision of the Alaska Supreme Court. While Jupy was convicted of only one instance of alcohol importation, unconnected to other criminal activity, The nature and extent of the crime is more serious. He knowingly transported a six pack of alcohol in plain view while acting in his professional capacity as the operator of an air taxi company and the pilot of the airplane. This factor suggests the forfeiture of his airplane is not grossly disproportional. So in the view of the Alaska Supreme Court, if you're a bush pilot who's transporting some woman's groceries and those groceries include some beer, then you're engaging in downright, dastardly behavior. You're basically a hardened criminal and they've ever right to throw the book at you. Now in their opinion, it's much more serious to have beer in your plane's cargo than it is to leave LAX with $350,000 in undeclared cash. Now of course, this is totally backwards. The guy who's flying to Cyprus with 350 grand in cash, if we're being honest, is a much more likely candidate to be some kind of drug dealer or some terrorist or criminal or something as compared to the bush pilot with some beer on board. That's not to say the government is any right to take the $350,000, but just as a matter of common sense, someone transporting that kind of money could theoretically be engaged in some kind of hardcore criminal activity at least hypothetically. The beer on the other hand, well that's about as mundane as it gets. You know, there are people in Alaska who drink 18 beers a day and don't think anything of it, especially if you live out in the middle of nowhere in Alaska. What else is there to do? To be clear, there's no allegation that the pilot was drinking or anything like that. He's just carrying the cargo, but to the Alaska Supreme Court, that's somehow a very big deal. In their opinion, the judges on this court make it clear that they're deferring to the elected officials in Alaska who have apparently determined that alcohol consumption is a plague on the state. Again, this is from the court's ruling, quote, "The nature and extent of harm caused by Jupy's illegal alcohol smuggling is far greater. Alcohol abuse in rural Alaska leads to increased crime disorders such as alcoholism, conditions such as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and death imposing substantial costs on public health and the administration of justice." Within this context, it is clear that the illegal importation of even a six pack of beer causes grave societal harm. This factor strongly suggests that the forfeiture is not grossly disproportional. Taking into consideration all the factors discussed above, we conclude that the forfeiture of Jupy's airplane is not grossly disproportional to the gravity of his offense. It's a six pack, a six pack arriving in a town is going to cause grave societal harm. Social order will break down because of a six pack of, you know, heineken or something. I don't know what kind of beer it was. So notice what's happening here. They're identifying all kinds of problems that are caused by alcohol consumption in aggregate across the entire state. And they're acting like this one guy is responsible for all of it. If that were the case, then, you know, maybe I could see an argument for taking his plane. If he was single handily responsible for all the alcoholism and fetal alcohol syndrome and DUI's and domestic abuse in the entire state, then sure, take his plane. But in reality, he's not actually responsible for any of that. There's no different from taking someone's car when they go five miles over the speed limit on the grounds that 40,000 people die in car accidents every year. It's completely ridiculous. It's like reverse collective punishment. They're going after one guy as if he somehow caused the actions of millions of other people. That's not to downplay the idea that alcohol can cause problems, big problems sometimes. But in general, there's a genuine hysteria about alcohol that's taken hold in parts of this country, which we've talked about before on the show. In the span of about five years, the experts went from telling us that red wine will, you know, save our lives or at least make us healthier, to telling us that a single drop of alcohol will increase our risk of cancer. There's no safe amount. It's in coherent. We also talked about the book, The Alcohol, Alcoholic Republic and the central role that alcohol played in the colonization of America and the founding of the United States. Simply a historical fact that when our country was doing well, people were not deathly afraid of alcohol. So that's something for the town of Beaver to consider, I suppose. In any event, whatever you think about the modern day prohibition that towns like Beaver have enacted, there's no reason to destroy this pilot's livelihood over it. The logic on display here contradicts many different cases from around the country, including Tim's Verse, Indiana, which was decided just a few years ago. In that case, the state of Indiana tried to seize someone's $42,000 land over SUV saying it was used to transport heroin. The guy purchased the car legally with funds that he acquired legitimately. But ultimately, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that it would be grossly excessive to seize the car, even though it was used to transport heroin, since the car costs $42,000 and the maximum fine under the law was just $10,000. But in Alaska, they're doing things very differently. And now a group called the Institute for Justice is representing the pilot. Supreme Court has just agreed to hear the case. The Institute for Justice, by the way, also says that it's in the process of appealing a $437,000 fine, the IRS imposed on a retired professor for failing to file a one-page form and informing the agency of his legal foreign bank account. So they're doing the Lord's work as far as I'm concerned. And with this case, they have a real opportunity to change the law on these asset seizures. You know, the government simply cannot be allowed to take your property without any justification whatsoever. That's what the government has been doing all over the country for a very long time. As the pilot put it, quote, "I'm thrilled that the US Supreme Court has agreed to hear this case because this case isn't just about me or my airplane anymore, I'm in my 80s now. I've been fighting this for over a decade because I see it as my duty to ensure that the Bill of Rights actually means something and protecting against government overreach." So to be clear about this, the case in Alaska is about criminal asset forfeiture, which is to say the government taking your property after you've been convicted of a crime. But the Supreme Court's ruling in this case also has implications for civil asset forfeiture, which is a concept that maybe you've heard about. John Oliver did a viral show about it a little over a decade ago. In civil asset forfeiture, the government doesn't even need to secure a criminal conviction. In fact, it doesn't even matter if you've done anything wrong at all. Instead, the government can sue your property directly if there's reason to believe that it was involved in criminal activity. This is called an in-rem action. The burden of proof in these civil cases in federal courts is called the preponderance of evidence. Sometimes the states have established their own standards, but it's generally how it goes. And this means that the government must demonstrate a 50% or greater likelihood. So what's called 51% that your property is substantially connected with some criminal activity, meaning it was used to facilitate that activity. So the normal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt which applies to criminal trials is not relevant here. It's a very relaxed standard and the government takes advantage of it all the time. I tell my kids to finish what they start all the time. It's basically my entire parenting philosophy if I had to boil it down. And I repeat it until they're sick of hearing it. So I should probably mention that if there is a degree, you started and you never finished Grand Canyon University offers more than 100 online undergraduate degrees. So you can begin college or go back and finish on your own schedule. And these aren't empty promises about accessibility. 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We've seen their playbook before, they tried impeaching him, they tried putting him in prison, tried everything, don't let them win. Because if we lose, they'll undo everything our movement is flawed for, need you to vote early. You can bank your vote and fight back against the left's turnout machine. Go to GOPvotes.org right now, find out when you can vote. If you live in the critical Senate battleground states of Maine, Ohio, or Iowa, early voting is already underway this week. Making your voice heard is easier than ever. You can get election reminders, look up your polling location and pick a date to vote early. Go to GOPvotes.org today, paid for by SLF PAC, not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. There was a case out of Michigan where a woman lost her car because her husband hired a prostitute while he was driving it, even though the woman had no idea he was doing that. There was another case out of Massachusetts where the government tried to confiscate an entire hotel because some of the guests were selling drugs, although that particular attempt failed because the hotel didn't really facilitate the crimes. There was a famous case along these lines in 2008, called United States V, approximately 64,695 pounds of shark fins. Yes, those were the two parties in the case. So one party was the United States and the other party was approximately 64,695 pounds of shark fins. The case was based on a situation developed off the coast of Guatemala in 2002 when the Coast Guard stopped a U.S. flagged vessel. The Coast Guard found the shark fins on the ship, even though there were no sharks. the carcasses to go along with the fins. And it soon became clear the vessel was buying shark fins from various fishing vessels, presumably so that they could use the fins to make shark fin soup, which is apparently a delicacy in some parts of the world. The problem is that under the a very specific law called the Shark Fimming Prohibition Act, it's illegal for fishing vessels to buy shark fins in that way. So the Coast Guard simply took the shark fins. In case you're curious, the seizure was eventually overturned because the vessel was determined not to be a fishing vessel within the meaning of the law. But even when you eventually get your property back, it could take a very long time. Here's another one from a few years ago. The US Supreme Court will now consider a case that involves civil asset forfeiture in Alabama. The state seized a woman's car after her son was arrested for marijuana possession during a traffic stop in Mobile County. And it took almost two years for the woman to get her car back. The question before the Supreme Court, should there be a probable cause here in prior to the state seizing your property? On February 17, 2019, set summa police pulled Tage on Cully over on I-65 and arrested him for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. 10 days later, the state filed this complaint, seeking to seize the nine millimeter gun he had on him during the stop, and the Nissan Altima he was driving, even though according to the state's own complaint, the car belonged to his mother, Halima Cully, who was not charged with a crime. 20 months later, Judge Young Peter ordered the state return the car to her. - That's crazy. - Dom Soto is a defense attorney who did not represent Cully, but says the state overuses its ability to seize property connected to Cromes before anyone is found guilty. - Well, the problem with that is a pre-trial taking, it gets all involved in excessive fines, there's a $15,000 car. Sometimes they take people's homes. - So the reason this woman was eventually able to get her car back, even though it was technically involved in the commission of a crime, is the innocent owner defense, which many states have, and the idea is that she owned the car, and she had no idea that it was being used to commit a crime, but it took her nearly two years to get her car back. And the Supreme Court eventually ruled that there was no problem with this delay. So you didn't commit any crime, but the police can take your car for nearly two years anyway. The court ruled that you're entitled to a timely final forfeiture hearing when the police take your stuff, but you're not entitled to separate preliminary retention hearing that determine whether the police can hold on to your car in the meantime while the process plays out. This is the power of civil asset forfeiture. It's prone to all kinds of abuse. It has indeed been abused many, many times. Now it's not to say that civil asset forfeiture is the worst thing in the world. It's used to seize assets from gangs and terrorists, even where a criminal case would be difficult, or impossible to build. I mean, if the police discover an abandoned vehicle with drugs in it near the Mexican border, obviously they should be able to seize it. So there's some nuance here that gets lost, but the guardrails have been nonexistent in recent years, which is why this pilot in Alaska lost his plane. Again, yes, that was criminal asset forfeiture, not civil, but both criminal and civil asset forfeiture are subject to the eighth amendment when the forfeiture is punitive, which is to say when it's intended for the purpose of punishing someone. Under our constitution, the government can't use any kind of forfeiture to exact an excessive fine. And with this case out of Alaska, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to establish some clear, bright line rules on where the boundaries are, when it comes to determining what fines are considered excessive. According to the decision by the Alaska Supreme Court, it's not excessive to take someone's plane away for transporting a few beers, because in aggregate, alcohol causes mass casualties and despair and whatever. And if that's the standard, then it applies to civil asset forfeiture as well. But the Supreme Court can and should shut down this standard, which is totally ridiculous, when you're determining what kind of punishment to give someone, you should only look at what the person actually did without holding them responsible for every other crime that's tangentially related. And that was committed by millions of other people who have nothing to do with you. If the Supreme Court sets the standard, then it will apply to both civil and criminal asset forfeiture, and it will end some of the worst abuses of civil asset forfeiture, which have attracted a lot of attention over the past decade. And for good reason. Already we've seen a lot of progress in this regard. This is from Reuters back in 2024. Quote, the USWD Attorney General has suspended a controversial civil asset forfeiture program by the DEA that targeted unsuspecting airline passengers and subjected them to potentially unlawful seizures of cash from their bags. And one such example, a DEA office, tapped an airline employee as a confidential source who tipped off agents anytime a passenger purchased a plane ticket within 48 hours of departure. Agents would use that last minute purchase as a justification to then approach those passengers and try to get the passengers to agree to let them search their bags. In cases where the agents searched and seized cash, the confidential source received a cut of the proceeds from the seizure. This program, which is ridiculously corrupt, was terminated completely. On one hand, you can argue that it's reasonable for the government to subject passengers, actually screening if they buy a ticket within 48 hours of departure or paying cash or something like that, maybe. But this program was very different. What's happening here is that after passengers go through security, the DEA is dragging them off of their flights, potentially making them miss the flight, unless they agree to waive their rights and have their property searched. And they're not even looking for drugs or bombs for the most part. They're looking for cash, the confiscate. In practice, here's what this looks like. This was obtained by the same Institute for Justice I mentioned earlier. The DEA was tipped off by an informant, and they're looking for cash to confiscate. And here's how that goes. Watch. - Set your bag down and then you can walk on the plane. You can do that. - No, but I'll do that. - You're not with the, we call it. I've seen these like videos. I'm not with the DEA, it's from the government. - That's great. Do you have like legal bill in the search? - Yes, yes. - He's in Cincinnati on a business trip, and I got sick the prior night, so I had to rebook my flight to a last minute flight back to New York. He'd basically just asked me for ID and to search, if he could search my bags. And when I started decline, he pulled out his badge and said that he was with the DEA. I almost imagined that this had to be some kind of mix up. - Oh, that's my, hey. - Where's your bag at? - I don't consent to search, sir. - You don't have to consent, where's your backpack at? - And so I thought the plane was gonna take off because we were well-planned past the kind of gate closing time with the time he boarded. (intense music) - Do you wanna watch the dog? - Yes, please. - I would like to watch the dog. - Then come out. - That's the unit. - That's it. - Well, I followed him up the plane because he had my backpack, and I wasn't going to leave an airport with my work laptop, my passport, a lot of my documentation from work, and so I didn't have a choice. - The agent again insists that he does not need David's consent to take his bag, but without probable cause of a crime, DEA agents cannot seize your belongings against your will, period. - Okay, so when you buy a lifespan ticket, you know, we get alerts. We promote that any and all flights, doesn't matter who you are, race, sex, nothing, right? We come out and we talk to those people which I've tried to do, which you wouldn't allow me to do. - Am I under suspicion of a crime right now? Do you probably cause? - We have a lot of money and drugs going out of every airport. - I understand. - To New York. - Okay. - It's an influx of it. - Okay. - Okay. - That's my-- - Do you do? Am I being suspected of a crime? I just want to speak with you. - I don't know. - Do you have probable cause for a crime? - I have probable cause for a dog to walk up to my bed. - Yeah, that's my-- - My lawyers are going to be taking this off with you. - You didn't take your bag off like I asked you to. - I don't always ask you to. - I asked you if I was being detained, and I can walk with not. - You can, yes. - But not with the prostitution. - Your bag goes to the property. - I ask you to put your bag there. - You don't have rights for my bag. I don't know who you are. - So the DEA agent without any probable cause has now seized this guy's property without his consent. He tries to claim that he was-- he has probable cause because the passenger didn't immediately surrender his bag, and because airports are used for drug activity, and because the guy bought the ticket within 48 hours of departure. But that's not remotely sufficient for probable cause, and the passenger knows it. So to end this standoff and to generate probable cause, the DEA brings in a dog and based on the footage, it looks like they signaled the dog to alert on the bag. Don't lose hope. Real tax relief programs are available that can give you a fresh start, so don't wait. Go to TRA.com. Again, that's 800-575-1753. Tax rate. relief advocates, real solutions for real people. Watch this closely here. So I was waiting by the jet bridge for about five minutes. And I remember seeing the dog headler pop up through one of the kind of airport gates. And at first, you know, he pointed the dog towards my bag. And the dog took a spell and just ran straight past it. A few seconds later, he started, you know, clicking his fingers. And the dog dogs are coming back. And I saw him basically gesture at my bag. Here, here, here, here. Broke. Oh boy. Oh boy. You see that? You got to report it. Don't edit that one out of the video either way. Can you work on your bag? OK. Now this is your legal right. You can allow us to look at it. Or you can tell me, though, and we can go right if we can write a search for it. We can apply for one. I don't know if we get one or not. But we'll find a more constructive search. So you don't want us to search your bag any day. You don't consent to be searched. OK. All right, well then, we've got to take your bag back. So if you want to serve us the PD, while we try to get a warrant on your bag today, what do you want to do? Just don't-- I don't consent to be a searcher, I'm sorry. With the questionable dog alert, the agent now claims that he can easily get a warrant to search the bag. David continues to refuse to consent to a search. We know, and while we know what we're doing out here, and what we can't it cannot do. It's a piece of paper that will literally stay with us. It just says that you're lying as a searcher. If you want to sign your name, it says that we can search you, which I don't know why it's so difficult. We'll search it if not, we're going to do the same thing I just told you in my paper if you know what we're going to do. Think about it for a minute. I know you're here to date it. I know you're annoyed. And I'm annoyed, too, that you cause such a scene for something so silly. But the law she doesn't distinguish between bodily property. You know, I'm being detained now because my bag is a property for it. You're in an airport in the public. This is a public. This is a public area for what it's going to be. Your bags are not, they're different than your person. OK. There's a difference. I'm sure there are some canine handlers and police officers who are watching the show right now, and they'll have feedback on whether this look like an appropriate way to handle the situation or not. But from what I understand, the appropriate procedure is for the handler to walk the dog around the general area of the object. In this case, that's what happened initially. And the dog walked past the object without alerting. Then the handler pointed directly at the bag while making some kind of noise with his mouth, a kissy noise, as they described it. And at that point, the dog alerted on the bag. It looks like a very unscientific fraudulent process. And it's confusing as well because as you heard, the DEA agents tell the guy to record the dog with their phone. They don't see any problem with what they did. They seem to convince that based on this dog's behavior, which seems designed to appease his handler more than anything else, that they can easily get a judge to sign a search warrant for the bag. And in the meantime, this guy will miss his flight. It's enough to make you think all these drug-sniffing dog tests should be banned completely since it's easy to abuse, at least the ones that are in the airport. I mean, especially if someone isn't recording with the video, they're like lie detector tests. They're simply no way to tell if the handler is sending some kind of coded message to the dog. Reminds me of the story of Clever Hans, a German horse who made the rounds in early 20th century, impressing everybody with his ability to do arithmetic. So they might ask the horse what's three times two and the horse would tap its hooves six times and the crowd would go wild. It's a little bit like a Charlotte's web thing, but with a horse. A government commission apparently investigated this and couldn't discover any fraud. And even when the horse was separated from his handler, and someone else was asking the question, the horse got the question right. But it turns out, of course, that the horse was simply reading body language. If the handler didn't know the right answer if the horse couldn't see the handler, the horse would get almost every question wrong. Its accuracy rate would drop from 89% to around 6%. So the horse was paying very close attention to the handler's body language and the reaction of the crowd, which would relax when he got the right number of hoof stumps. So that's all it was. Still a really smart horse though, we'll give him that. The drug-taking dogs can work the same way. You know, I'm not denying that these dogs can be accurate, but if the handlers want to use the dog as a pretext to conduct a search, if they want the dog to alert, that's very easy to engineer, to get the dog to comply. And that's what we're seeing here. How often does that happen? How often does it happen in airports? One of the problems with asset forfature and practice is that it leads to these kinds of abuses. When the government invokes this doctrine, some very absurd scenarios can result. People lose their airplane over some beer. And in other cases, people get pulled off airplanes because they bought their ticket of the last minute and the ticket agents want a cut of any cash they might be carrying. The incentive structure is perverse at a fundamental level. It's stacked in favor of the government's right to take your property when the balance of power under our constitution should be on your side. And the fact that we're seeing this abuse of power in Alaska to punish a guy for transporting some beer is insane. This is a news report from the 1980s where people reacted to laws against drinking while driving. Watch. Any attempt to restrict drinking and driving here is viewed by some as downright undemocratic. It's kind of getting calm and it's when a fellow can't put in a hard day's work, put in 11, 12 hours a day, and then getting your truck in the lace-ring one or two beers. They're making it laws where you can't drink when you want to. You can't you have to wear a seat belt when you're driving. Pretty soon we're going to be calm in this country. People used to think that DUI laws were anti-American. And they reacted the same way, by the way, to seat belt laws. And now they'll take away everything you own in Alaska if you're caught anywhere near a sealed case of beer. That's 40 years of progress for you in one video. People used to have a much more expansive views of view of their own freedom, much more expansive. And in turn, at least nominally, the government used to respect your property rights to some degree because they had to, but they just don't anymore. This is a problem that's persisted for a very long time. And now after many years of increasingly bizarre and unconstitutional scenarios, it could finally be ending. In December, the Supreme Court is going to hear arguments in the Alaska case. Decision will likely be made by the middle of next year. We'll finally learn straight from the high court whether or not the government can steal $95,000 from you because you put a few cans of beer in your airplane. Under our Constitution, we all know the government can't do that. But as to the much narrower question of whether five justices on the Supreme Court still believe the Constitution applies to your property. As to the question of whether you can rely on the judicial system to protect the property you've spent your whole life working for, well, that's something that we'll find out in just a few months. These are rights and privileges that many of us took for granted, but we simply can't do that anymore. This is one of the main reasons we're releasing our latest documentary, The Real History of Communism, for free on YouTube on Friday. It's a deeply research narrative of the Russian Revolution and how quickly the Bolsheviks took power. It can happen much faster than you think, like we talked about yesterday. And that's why you should watch that on Friday. And then when you're done watching that, The Daily Wire has a new movie also related to this coming out on November 11th set in Stalinist Russia called Confession. Now I saw this movie a couple of months ago, and I can tell you genuinely it's a very well-made, serious piece of art, with easily far and away the most impressive cast ever assembled for a "conservative film." In fact, I really wouldn't call it a conservative film at all. It does have an important message, a conservative message, but this is a movie that is trying to be a good film, not just a good conservative film, which is what we need to be doing, in my opinion. And I think it succeeds. The cast includes Rob Lowe, who does tremendous work, James Franco, who will surprise you in the villain role. Also Nick Maltese in it, Jennifer Jason Lee, Emil Hirsch, who I think does a fantastic job. Many others, even the small roles have recognizable and talented actors like Dean Norris appears in kind of a cameo role. Probably my favorite cameo performance in the film. And we'll end the show today with the trailer, and take a look and we'll see you tomorrow. Godspeed. (dramatic music) (door slams shut) - Take it. (door slams shut) (door slams shut) (door slams shut) (door slams shut) (door slams shut) - Professor. (door slams shut) (door slams shut) (door slams shut) (door slams shut) (door slams shut) - You will remember your duty. - This isn't heroin. - You're useless, son. You sit there and shake, because you're dependent on drink. You're sick as all over you. (dramatic music) - Have you ever seen a child start a death professor? - No. - I am. (dramatic music) Now we've all heard the radio ads about owing the IRS money. Don't lose hope. So don't wait. Go to TRA.com. Tax relief advocates, real solutions for real people. [BLANK_AUDIO]