Posted on 10/13/2011 11:04:42 AM PDT by 92nina
...Another out of control regulation is the little known Lacey Act, originally passed in 1900 to regulate the trade of wildlife and expanded in 2008 to curb illegal logging. Under the Act, if the U.S. government interprets that a foreign law, concerning the exportation of wood or wildlife, has been broken it is up to the U.S. government to conduct raids and confiscate said products.
The Heritage Foundation recently wrote about overly broad criminal prosecution under the Lacey Act. Heritage cites an example where a small business owner spent six and a half years in confinement because he used plastic instead of cardboard to wrap fish, which federal prosecutors determined violated Honduran law. (The Honduran government said otherwise).
The most recent case that brought problems with the Lacey Act into the fore was the August 24 raid on Gibson Guitars Nashville and Memphis factories by armed federal agents. The Department of Justice seized 10,000 fingerboards, 700 guitar necks and 80 guitars as part of an investigation into whether the company had illegally imported ebony from India. All told, this raid has cost Gibson over $1 million and charges have yet to be brought against the company.
Gibson maintains its innocence and is still struggling to get back property from a 2009 raid (involving ebony imported from Madagascar), even though charges again were never brought against the company. Moreover, both Madagascar and Indian government officials have stated the exports were allowed under those countries laws. So apparently, not only does the DOJ interpret and enforce U.S. law, it has taken it upon itself to interpret, how they see fit, the laws of any nation on earth.
The Gibson case has nothing to do with conserving the worlds most valuable trees; rather this is protectionism at its worst...
(Excerpt) Read more at propertyrightsalliance.org ...
Take this article and others I found to the fight to the Libs on their own turf; put the Left on the defensive at Digg and at Reddit and in Stumbleupon and Delicious
This is NOT about “Regulation”!
This is simple POLITICAL INTIMIDATION!!!
“The Gibson case has nothing to do with conserving the worlds most valuable trees; rather this is protectionism at its worst...”
That maybe true. I know a guitar player who went around to different luthiers to find enough older stockpiled wood (the endangered South American species) to have a Les Paul built for him with the wood. He swears that it has everything to do with the tone (like listening to Nigel from Spinal Tap talk about it). According to him, Les Pauls after 59 went down in tonal quality due to the change in wood and I think Jimmy Page also says the same thing. I have a 76 Les Paul and the quality is not great but I’m not the kind of guy who goes around saying, “Hear that, hear that tone... (especially when it is not plugged in).”
In the case of Gibson, you are absolutely CORRECT, though I am sure there are several other such cases that this administration is responsible for.
I understand the owners of Gibson Guitars are big Republican contributors. Would that be why only GG was targeted, and not other luthiers?
Yes! Money spent defending false charges can’t be spent supporting conservatives.
Gibson Guitars is a privately owned company and has two owners: Henry Juszkiewicz, the Chairman and CEO; and David Berryman, the President.
Opensecrets.org is a free website where you can track political donations to candidates, political parties, and PACs since 1990.
Here are Juszkiewicz's donations since 1990:
The Consumer Electronics Association donates to both political parties.
Berryman has no donations. Gibson Guitars has no corporation donations. You can confirm this at the website.
Fox News correspondent John Roberts first wrote in an FoxNews.com article that Juszkiewicz had contributed to Republican and Democratic candidates. By the time that had been filtered through the blogs, Juszkiewicz was a big Republican contributor. In fact, he rarely contributes to political candidates and never to political parties, as you can see.
Please see Post #8.
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