aleks,
The California fiasco was news months ago, but the SDB assets weren't seized. Due to egregious errors by Bank of America, the assets were turned over to the state of California as unclaimed property. That is entirely different from seizure by the state.
Just like in the British case, Bank of America paid dearly for those errors.
In my state, if an account is inactive for 7 years, the property goes to the state as unclaimed. Our state Auditor attempts to contact the owners, publishes a list in newspapers each year and lists the information on the Auditor's web site. The Great Arkansas Treasure Hunt is also publicized on TV.
I am more worried about BHO declaring a bank holiday than I am about losing the assets in my SDB.