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Environmental Enforcement Agents Targeting Guitars
tetrahedrassface writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, Federal agents again raided guitar maker Gibson this past week, seizing several pallets of wood and computer documents. At the heart of the issue is the wood that is being used in guitars and whether or not it comes from sustainable sources. The company insists it is being harassed and made to 'cry uncle' to the government's enforcement laws. The article notes that exotic fret and tone woods are protected in order to prevent the equivalent of 'blood diamond like trade,' but the ramifications now extend to guitar owners. If you play a vintage guitar, or a hand-built guitar made of old stock woods that were legally obtained years ago, you better not fly with it. John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University and a blues and ragtime guitarist, says, 'there's a lot of anxiety, and it's well justified.' Once upon a time, he would have taken one of his vintage guitars on his travels. Now, 'I don't go out of the country with a wooden guitar.'"
Here's the conversation on the Gibson forums if anyone is interested...
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
The feds claim against Gibson is not that they are using wood from non sustainable sources, as stated above. Gibson has clear documentation showing that it is.The feds maintain that the issue is that the wood was not "finished" by Indian workers, as (possibly) required by Indian law.
Incidentally, the Indian government is not involved.
It's about time the EPA had its funding cut. There's nine billion that few would miss.
Why not cut the Department of Defense or the the FAA instead? I suggest this because they have just as much to do with the Fish and Wildlife Service as the EPA.
In case I am being too subtle, the FWS is not part of the EPA. In fact the service predates the EPA by about 100 years.
I am not a crackpot.
Forget it - this is asset forfeiture. The feds already raided Gibson once, back in 2009. They took a lot of ebony, but never filed charges. Gibson is still fighting the asset forfeiture case, and the burden of proof is exactly wrong: Gibson must prove their innocence of any wrong-doing. The feds want to keep the stuff; it would be auctioned off, and they would get to keep the proceeds. One of the theories explaining this second raid is that the feds are pissed that Gibson hasn't just rolled over on the first case.
Asset forfeiture is perverse: you aren't charged with anything at all - your *property* is. The Gibson case is entitled "United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms". There is no presumption of innocence, because your property isn't a person, and anyway isn't being charged with a crime. The fact that this is naked theft is apparently beside the point - it is a very lucrative racket for law enforcement agencies at all levels.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Or fining someone $17,000 with clearly grandfather ivory keys (which everyone acknowledges are legitimate to own) simply because his paperwork was a little out of order?
Saying that the guy had his paperwork "a little out of order" is disingenuous. The person in question was trying to import 11 pianos, and had declared that there was no Ivory on them. However, that was only true because he had removed the Ivory keys and hidden them in his luggage, where they were uncovered by customs inspectors. And not only that, his company had asked officials about the importation requirements prior to this, so he clearly knew what he was doing, and was caught red-handed.
http://www.justice.gov/usao/gan/press/2011/03-09-11.html