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The government says money isn't property—so it can take yours
In a jaw-dropping argument, the Department of Justice claims seizing $50,000 from a small business doesn’t violate property rights because money isn’t property.
reason.com
As a lawyer who sues the government, you get used to the different kinds of arguments that government lawyers use to justify abuses of individual rights—sweeping claims of government power, bad-faith procedural obstacles, and more.
This was a new one: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that confiscating $50,000 from a small business did not infringe the business' right to private property because money is not property.
"Money is not necessarily 'property' for constitutional purposes," the government's brief declared—putting the very idea of property in square quotes. Reading at my desk, I practically fell out of my chair.
The DOJ gave three rationales for the argument, all packed into a doorstopper of a footnote: (1) the government creates money, so you can't own it; (2) the government can tax your money, so you don't own it; and (3) the Constitution allows the government to spend money for the "general welfare."
If a libertarian was asked to write a satire of a government lawyer's brief, this is what they might come up with. But here it was, in black and white.
