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US Customs Destroys Virtuoso's Flutes Because They Were "Agricultural Items"
McGruber writes "Flute virtuoso Boujemaa Razgui performed on a variety of flutes, each made by himself over years for specific types of ancient and modern performance. Razgui has performed with many U.S. ensembles and is a regular guest with the diverse and enterprising Boston Camerata. Last week, Razgui flew from Morocco to Boston, with stops in Madrid and New York. In New York, he says, a US Customs official opened his luggage and found the 13 flutelike instruments — 11 nays and two kawalas. Razgui says he had made all of the instruments using hard-to-find reeds. 'They said this is an agriculture item,' said Razgui, who was not present when his bag was opened. 'I fly with them in and out all the time and this is the first time there has been a problem. This is my life.' When his baggage arrived in Boston, the instruments were gone. He was instead given a number to call. 'They told me they were destroyed,' he says. 'Nobody talked to me. They said I have to write a letter to the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. This is horrible. I don't know what to do. I've never written letters to people.'"
...and recognize this for what it is. Fascism.
...that going through US customs could ruin your life. DON'T DO IT.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Many musical instruments are made of wood. So I guess they are all at risk if the owners come to the US.
Not sure why this is on ./
The dude does have a very legitimate beef though, considering he's taken these around to probably dozens of countries and crossed several hundred borders with them. He apparently had some "raw" material with him to make new flutes, but that wood typically needs to be completely dry and aged. Either way the carved flutes were likely sealed and shouldn't have been destroyed without a very, very good reason, which I doubt the CBP had.
It think because it's about out of control security apparatus, so it's kind of topical?
I guess they will start siezing wood furniture from Ikea now, since,, you know, wood is an agricultural product.
US no longer stands for "Uncle Sam." Now it's "Uncle Stupid." Leather luggage comes from cowhide, isn't that an agricultural item? Fucking morons in charge.
and I never once have regretted that decision. Wouldn't go to dubai either for similar reasons. Toxic culture. I do feel sorry to anyone living there and do hope you are armed.
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I lived and worked in the US for a few years prior to 9/11, and travelled to many parts of the country. I still have a lot of good friends down there, and surely there are a lot of places that I'd love to visit again.
The problem is that since I moved back to Canada there have been a seemingly endless series of stories like this. Whether it's Mahar Arar being grabbed and shipped to Syria for torture and imprisonment; Jacob Appelbaum being detailed by US customs with no reason and no explanation; innocent people who are having their laptops and phones seized and copied with no warrant or explanation, or who are quite simply harassed at the border on the whim of any customs agent. - it just seems to be happening more and more each year.
Being innocent (whatever that means to Homeland Security) is no protection. All it takes is one renta-cop with a bad attitude.
To my American friends: I am honestly terrified by the thought of crossing your border, and I am not alone.
Three Squirrels
Well then, explain how this article relates to science and technology. What's that? It doesn't? Shut up then.
If you go through US customs, the tools you use to do your job may not make it with you. Like your phone, laptop, textbooks, thumb drives, or hand made wooden flutes.
You make much over-use of the "we". You do not speak for me or for the reasons why I come to slashdot. Take your doltish, bigoted views and STFU.
I read slashdot because I am interested in science and technology, and because I am also interested in anything others with similar interests find interesting. I do not use slashdot as a mirror that would let me pimp and preen in what I already know; I also value its use as a periscope that looks around corners I am unaware of to show me things of interest I would never otherwise see.
This story has value on slashdot.
Will
/. has for the longest time covered articles about politics, civil rights and stupidities of the government.
This in my view isn't a story about customs protecting agriculture but rather about a civil servant removing equipment which belonged to someone and without notice or recourse destroying that equipment.
I guess it's not as fun sounding as the TSA confiscating a laptop and not having due process to get it back, but what's really the difference?
Stuff that matters is part of the slogan so they can post non tech stories sometimes. Seriously, get the fuck over yourself. You do not own /.
Along with the concerns already mentioned, there is also a legitimate concern about the method of destruction. I'm pretty certain that TSA does not keep a yard debris chipper at each customs station. So what are the odds that these primitive artifacts were destroyed by distribution through craigslist sales, curio shops, or to fill somebody's Christmas shopping list?
This whole thing stinks. It definitely has relevance to slashdot: we are talking about persons with no understanding of a technology being put in positions where they can destroy the artifacts of that technology. Would I have trouble taking my collection of slide rules and 1970 era hand calculators through customs? I guess probably so.
Will
The relevancy is this: if a musician can't get a set of flutes through Customs without having them ruined, what happens when we travel with our laptops and other techie devices?
Rare materials. Well, rare reeds can be harder to find than gold, so let's put a $1000 raw materials price per ounce of reed used.
Time. Hand craftsmen are incredibly rare. Those skills are expensive. IT can charge $120/hr for skills twice as common. Using that as a guideline, let's say $240/hr for the skills.
If we assume it takes one year to make a flute, then the combined cost is roughly half a million per flute, so $6.5 million so far. I will assume QA would mean some flutes have to be made again from scratch. Let's assume a 50% rejection rate at the virtuoso level, which doesn't seem unreasonable given you're making the best of the best with uncontrolled materials. This raises the price to $9.75 million.
But provinence matters. These instruments had established history, the main reason a Strad is worth ten times anything with identical acoustics. We don't have enough history to bump the price up that much, but doubling sounds fair. This gives us $19.5 million.
I would start by taking the money out of the TSA official's paycheque and bank account, with the remainder seized from TSA funds. If the funds are insufficient, continue to the next department up.
I would further require the TSA to publish a public apology as a full-page announcement in every newspaper, artisan journal and music journal. Finally, I would require all TSA officials involved in any way with the harassment to serve 250 hours community service.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I bought some nice wood carvings into Australia a few years back. Customs noticed. They quarantined the items at the airport and said I'll get them back in a month after they had been fumigated due to what appeared to be signs of worms in the wood. They were couriered to my door 3 weeks later.
THAT is how things are supposed to work, without the wholesale destruction of property that occurred in this case.
whatever. the flutes were destroyed similar to how the X-ray machine makes iPads evaporate. he should check ebay.