A Spanking for the FBI

In 2021 the FBI raided a private safe-deposit company and seized more than $86 million in cash and valuables from people accused of no wrongdoing. At the time we called this a dangerous violation of their constitutional rights. It took three years, but a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed.

The FBI had a warrant, but this didn’t authorize a search of individual safe deposit boxes. Agents were supposed to open the boxes only to identify owners and safeguard their property until it could be returned.

But the FBI overstepped, seizing the property of innocents along with criminals. As the Ninth Circuit noted, one of U.S. Private Vaults’s selling points was not asking customers too many questions—e.g., demanding a Social Security number—which made it attractive to drug dealers and other criminals. But that’s still no excuse for the FBI to overstep its authority and then invoke civil forfeiture to keep everything it found worth more than $5,000, all without charging anyone with a crime. A group of seven safe-deposit renters sued in what became a class action, represented by the Institute for Justice.

The district court found for the government, but the Ninth Circuit has now reversed.

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