In one example, a courting couple find their fledgling relationship abruptly terminated when the girl's father confiscates her phone.
It carries out raids, confiscates stock and prosecutes offenders.
The state filters the internet, often confiscates editions of newspapers that dare publish dissident views, and jails independent journalists such as Fahem Boukadous, who was sentenced this month to four years in prison for reporting worker unrest in the mining region of Gafsa in 2008.
But officialdom draws the line, stamps the stamp, or confiscates the consignment when it comes to maps showing the India-Pakistan border as it is, rather than as it would be were all of Kashmir under Indian control.In Sri Lanka, the government never "bans" The Economist.
But it often confiscates dissidents' passports, brings trumped-up charges against them, and inflicts petty bureaucratic torment on friends and families.
Such dodges are popular because until recently, if you sent money through a formal bank, the government confiscated most of it, by means of a rigged exchange rate.Mr Gono has made official channels more attractive by reducing the amount the government confiscates, and by cracking down on illegal foreign-exchange dealing.
But few of the 30,000 Colombians who used to cross each day to shop do so now, because Venezuela's National Guard confiscates their goods when they recross the border, says Mr Uribe, the shopkeeper.
"Hot sauce does wonders for airline food," he says:I usually try to bring my own hot sauce on board, but sometimes the security guard confiscates it.
Italy confiscates pot-smokers' driving licences.
Gazprom says this confiscates its assets.
It confiscates the houses of the people who were previously employed in the police, courts, and security forces.
