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Friday, August 26, 2011

Another business under attack

  So the makers of musical instruments now have to worry about the DOJ swooping in, confiscating instruments, fining the makers, putting them in jail... these are not just business unfriendly government employees. They're attempting to criminalize behavior for unknown reasons. From the WSJ:
It's not enough to know that the body of your old guitar is made of spruce and maple: What's the bridge made of? If it's ebony, do you have the paperwork to show when and where that wood was harvested and when and where it was made into a bridge? Is the nut holding the strings at the guitar's headstock bone, or could it be ivory? "Even if you have no knowledge—despite Herculean efforts to obtain it—that some piece of your guitar, no matter how small, was obtained illegally, you lose your guitar forever," Prof. Thomas has written. "Oh, and you'll be fined $250 for that false (or missing) information in your Lacey Act Import Declaration."
  Department of Fish and Wildlife are the ones, you'll remember, who came after the woman who saved a woodpecker, demanding she pay a fine of $500. 
  According to the WSJ report, one individual who simply did not have the proper paperwork  to prove that the ivory keys on his piano were grandfathered in from a time when ivory was not illegal faced criminal charges, ultimately pleading guilty to avoid the prospect of going to jail.
Facing criminal charges that might have put him in prison for years, Mr. Vieillard pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of violating the Lacey Act, and was handed a $17,500 fine and three years probation.
  TWO DOZEN federal agents raided his home to enforce this rule. 
  There's a scene in the musical 1776 which is about the process of the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence in which a character (Caesar Rodney) who is dying of cancer, nearly faints. He's held up by his fellow patriots and then exclaims his dismay at Britain's squeezing of Americans' lives and livelihoods. "They're cutting off our air," he cries. "We cannot breathe."
  Sound familiar?
UPDATE:
SO APPARENTLY THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT JUST WANTS JOBS MOVED OFFSHORE: Gibson Guitar Responds To Federal Raid: “The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.” More, including video, at the link.

2 comments:

  1. Yeah poor old Gibson Guitar is hardly as criminal as GE. I friend of mine used to be their web master.

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  2. Combine this with attacks on gas and oil industries, light bulbs, Gulf businesses....attacks on people whose spouses don't pay their education loans...it goes on. Why are they trying to ruin every business in the US? It has to be intentional. It's certainly immoral.

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