Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
I never thought of flutes as an "invasive species."
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Another whistle blower!
...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.
-
This is not even the first time this has happened. There have been a small but published number of other instances of musical instruments being destroyed without appeal. It is a flaw in the TSA`s procedures and a problem with how its authority is structured. If they were law enforcement they could not simply destroy things, but they are not.
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
An important sentence was left out of the summary, which explained that customs mistook the instruments for pieces of bamboo. Judging from the photo accompanying the article, the confusion is almost understandable. It looks like a home made instrument that may or may not have been prepared properly given restrictions on agricultural products. (Example: they may not have been concerned about the bamboo per se, but rather invasive insects that may be in it since the reeds may not have been treated.)
The moral of the story is to verify that the stuff that you're taking across the border is actually legal for import or export. After all, it could have been much worse for this man. I would imagine that charges could have been pressed if they so desired.
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
the unfortunate thing (that I have learned to my regret) is that certain things are not allowed in carry-ons and will be confiscated anyway. and you *have* to check them. any useful tools for example. I've nearly had pliers and screwdrivers confiscated, (and that was before 9/11.)
one entertaining example (from 2004) was the day I traveled with a devil stick, (juggling toy,) that looks a bit like a disassembled pool cue. at the checkpoint they asked me if it was a pool cue, I said no and they said okay, but if it were a pool cue they would have had to confiscate it.
now mind you it looked just like a pool cue, weighed about the same as a pool cue, made out of similar wood to a pool cue, but because it wasn't actually a pool cue, they didn't have to confiscate it. if it had been in checked baggage, it wouldn't have been an issue. but it probably would have broken.
due to traveling with some odd juggling toys on a semi regular basis, I have taken to writing long, detailed notes to the TSA, explaining what all my props are and leaving it in the suitcase with the props. I have never failed to get a 'your bag has been searched note' and I haven't lost anything, (yet.) incredible pain in the ass.
on the other hand, I was once driving back into the US from Canada, where I had bought a flute to play. (normal metal type of flute.) and I nearly got penalized and the flute confiscated for not declaring the flute as a 'commercial object'. oddly, they said nothing about the 10 packs of peanuts that it was sitting on when they found it searching my car. I'm beginning to think Customs just has a thing for flutes...
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
/. 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.
TSA Public Relations representative Grebnedlog released the following statement regarding the incident: "We look for things. Things we need. Things that make us go. We need help. We look for things."
TSA Enforcement Officer Mongo added, "Mongo like candy."
Take off every Sig. For great justice.
The army has learned that stupid soldiers aren't good soldiers.
So those too stupid for the Army are sent over to the TSA, right?
The bigger concern is that nearly all non-digital musical instruments (and some digital instruments) contain agricultural products by such a loose definition. Almost every oboe, clarinet, stringed instrument, etc. worth more than a hundred bucks is made out of wood. Even brass instruments and metal woodwinds (e.g. saxes and flutes) use cork for pads, for stops on keys, for tunable joints, for the ring at the top of trumpet valves, for water key/spit valve corks, and so on (though in some cases, it may be a synthetic cork). Even the felt used in various parts of the instrument may be made from agricultural products.
What this effectively means is that the United States government has declared all musical instruments to be illegal contraband that may not be transported into the United States. Musicians around the world would be advised to avoid travel to the United States and its territories for any reason, or if you cannot avoid travel to this country, arrange to rent an instrument after you get here. It simply is no longer safe to carry your own instruments across the borders of this country until Congress passes a law explicitly forbidding these acts of grand theft.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
> So those too stupid for the Army are sent over to the TSA, right?
Are you saying TSA stands for The Stupid Army?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
In most U.S. ports, it's not Customs that makes the decision to inspect, it's actually ICE.
In the olden days, back when I worked as a contractor for Customs, entry into the U.S. went like this:
1. You went to Immigration Control first. Pre-ICE (US Immigration Control) checked your passport and entry form, OK'd you to enter, and then you reclaimed your baggage (whether you were traveling onwards or not).
2. You then had to clear Customs, which looked at your itinerary (e.g where you'd been), your bags (i.e were they bulging, smelly, etc.) and your face and non-verbal cues to determine if you warranted a further inspection. If you did have something questionable, there were actually expert (!!!) customs agents available to determine compliance.
Today, it goes like this:
1. You go to Immigration (ICE) first. Based on your facial expressions, non-verbal cues, and passport history, they determine if (1) you're OK to re-enter the US, and (2) if you need further "assistance" with customs. They make a mark on your entry form, which you later turn in to a customs agent, to indicate if you should be further "assisted". The decision regarding inspection and possible seizure of goods is left almost entirely with ICE, who specialize not in Customs enforcement but Border Control.
2. You move on to Customs Enforcement, which looks at your ICE-noted entry form and either inspects, detains, seizes, or lets you go based on ICE notes on your entry form. If ICE didn't mark your entry form for further scrutiny, you move through Customs very quickly.
The reason for the change? Efficiency. Most people re-entering the US don't need any re-entry assistance, and Customs agents are otherwise very busy. Giving ICE the job of determining 90% of Customs work saves time for travelers and money for the government. But the downside is that most ICE agents aren't trained to sniff out the difference between a guy with handcrafted musical instruments made of foreign raw materials from a guy bringing foreign raw materials into the US with the intent of defeating embargoes and/or tariffs.
The point is, it's not Customs that are dim, it's ICE... and as long as it saves most travelers some time at the desk, it probably won't change.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
I have a second cousin who plays with a big name orchestra in Denmark or somewhere, (upright bass) Anyways, he, and most other big time orchestral music people say that If you travel with your instrument, you buy a seat for yourself, and one for your instrument, and it comes on the plane with you. NEVER trust it to baggage handlers, or any other person you can't see. It never leaves your line of sight. (like the article says, that object is your living, it is your life, treat it as such.)
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
I've had an account at /. for over 15 years; you don't even have an account. So shut the fuck up and go to Techdirt if you don't like it. /. has never been solely about "science and technology". It's always had a very strong political part to it, and this cock up at US Customs plays to that part of the site.
Don't like it? Too bad, we won't miss you.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.