One thing I never understood -- and these articles don't appear to cover, is how laws enabling civil forfeiture were never struck down as unconstitutional in the first place. Isn't this an obvious disregard for the fourth amendment?
The economics of disputing it don't work for the person who's assets were seized most of the time. Either the amount that was seized is relatively small and it would take several times that amount to battle the government over years. On the other hand say that clean out your whole bank account then you have no assets to fight them even if they took your life savings and it would make sense to fight them.
The way it is portrayed here (I'm not sure if it is portrayed accurately), it is not constitutional.
But civil forfeiture is definitely constitutional as long as you get due process. The NYTimes is wrong in stating you have the burden of proof in these cases, the government does. It's just not as high as a criminal case. The civil burden is the same that govern all sorts of property issues.
