John Oliver tackled civil forfeiture laws, by which the government can seize someone’s property without charging him or her with a crime, on Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight.”
Oliver played a clip that described civil forfeiture as “legalized robbery by law enforcement” and noted how difficult it would be to report asset seizure to police.
“Give me a description of what the guy looked like,” the comedian said, imitating a police officer before switching to the victim’s voice. “Well, to be honest, he looked a lot like the guy currently asking me what the guy looked like.”
Oliver noted that our property has fewer rights than we do.
“At this point, I’m surprised objects don’t have their own civil rights leader,” he said.
He then explained that law enforcement officers “are allowed to keep most or all of the money they seize,” describing them as an “anti-Spiderman” with “great power” and “no responsibility.”
Noting the case of officers in Texas who bought a margarita machine with seized funds, he said the officers “were literally using this money as their own personal slush fund.”
Oliver said the issue of civil forfeiture leaves society with two choices.
“We can take a hard look at reforming them or, at the very least, we need to reform our network cop dramas to make them a lot more representative of what is actually happening,” he said.
Watch the video below, courtesy of HBO:
