Posted on 09/21/2011 7:09:53 AM PDT by indthkr
Federal officials have shed a little light on last month’s raid of Gibson Guitar Corp. facilities in Memphis and Nashville – without really revealing much at all.
In a letter dated Monday, Sept. 19, Christopher Mansour, the director of congressional and legislative affairs in the U.S. Department of the Interior, and Ronald Weich, assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, wrote to congressional leaders in broad terms about the federal Lacey Act. That’s the legislation that provided the backdrop of the Gibson raids.
Their letter was in response to a letter sent by congressional leaders, including U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., requesting details about the raids. In it, they declined to provide specific details about the raid because of an ongoing investigation into Gibson, but they spoke to some general facts about the matter.
“By prohibiting trafficking in wood illegally harvested overseas, the Lacey Act prohibits companies from undercutting law-abiding U.S. wood-product companies, including numerous small businesses, by trading in artificially inexpensive raw materials that have been illegally harvested from foreign forests,” the two federal officials wrote. “The Lacey Act provides the federal government with an important tool to ensure that all businesses, including foreign companies that send their goods into this country, are operating on a level playing field by using only legally harvested wood.”
The officials went on to say the federal agents’ search for evidence at Gibson began with authorization from a U.S. magistrate judge, who signed off on the raids. And because law enforcement agents are required to carry side arms for their own protection when executing warrants, they said that explains the presence of armed agents during the raids.
Federal agents executed four search warrants at Gibson facilities in Memphis and Nashville around 8:45 a.m. Aug. 24. They seized several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. Both the company and its supporters have criticized several aspects of the raid – including the presence of armed agents – as indicative of government overreach.
Blackburn touched on that same theme in a statement she released in response to the Sept. 19 letter.
"I am frustrated by the administration’s refusal to brief me and our committee with real answers," Blackburn said. “Specifically, why did they send armed agents into Gibson's facilities? It is beyond me why not once, but twice, the administration felt the need to act like a bunch of cowboys, when I am sure a letter like this or a simple phone call stating their concerns to Gibson's leaders would have prompted a very cooperative response.”
Meanwhile, Gibson and supporters are stepping up a public-relations campaign that began almost in the immediate aftermath of the raids, via everything from a Twitter #thiswillnotstand hashtag to a flurry of media interviews by Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz.
As of mid-day Tuesday, the company was closing in on 20,000 signatures for a petition it plans to deliver to the White House asking for the government to drop its criminal investigation of the company.
That's a pretty lame regulatory over-reach--how much fretboard rosewood and ebony is grown domestically?
Another indicator of how screwed up Barry’s Amerika really is. Armed game wardens raiding a guitar manufacturer’s factory? I’ve never read anything about Adolf Hitler’s boys ever raiding any accordion or tuba factories.
“the Lacey Act prohibits companies from undercutting law-abiding U.S. wood-product companies, including numerous small businesses, by trading in artificially inexpensive raw materials”
Because from years of being involved in music, I know that Gibson’s primary market is cheap, inexpensive guitars that don’t cost much, right?
Even the governments non-explanations stink. Facists.
Ready to invest in gibson (buy a Les Paul)
They Nazi's raided hundreds of businesses and levied millions of Reichmarks in fines over nit picky paperwork errors. Sound like anyone you know?
It was political pressure, pure and simple
Ebony - India, Sri Lanka, western Africa, Mauritius.
That’s because Adolf’s tuba mfgr’s were good party members and converted over to making cannons built by concentration camp slave labor.
Gibson isn’t a good little party member, and they don’t use union labor.
Cloward & Piven; kill as many businesses as possible.
FedGov; kicking down your door. Because we can.
Or raiding Gibson’s competition. Maybe the fact that Gibson’s owner is a republican and donates to the RNC, and Gibson’s competition is democRAT and donates to the DNC might have something to do with it?
And meanwhile, the elected representatives from the Congressional districts in which Gibson is located, and the Senators from the Volunteer State, have done very little to protect this business and its associated constituents.
Gibson CEO isn't a Republican and he's never donated to the RNC. He donates to candidates from both political parties. Most of his donations are to his musical industry trade group, which donates to both parties. He's a close friend of the Clintons and quite active in liberal causes (global warming, rainforest protection, Clinton Global Initiative, MTV Rock the Vote, and grants for school poetry jams for diversity).
If you would like links, I'd be happy to post them.
Incidentally, Gibson's main competition is Fender. The first blogs that headlined Gibson's main competitor being a Democrat mentioned C.F. Martin. Chris Martin IV is clearly a Democrat, but none of Martin's acoustic products compete with any of the products that come out of Gibson's Nashville (solid body electric) or Memphis (archtop electric and Custom Shop) factories.
All of Gibson's acoustic guitars are produced in Bozeman, Montana - a site that wasn't raided in 2011 or 2009.
Democrat Congressman Jim Cooper, to whose campaign Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz has donated, has introduced legislation to amend the Lacey Act.
The amendment would protect guitars in private hands and is intended to protect constituents.
No elected representative has stepped in to deal with the ongoing civil suit, which the government filed about fourteen months ago.
The main 'illegal product" from Madagascar as far as the government's 2010 civil lawsuit against Gibson is concerned was ebony, although Madagascar rosewood was the product that everyone else wanted for the back and sides of acoustic guitars. Madagascar rosewood wasn't used for fretboards. Gibson makes very few rosewood acoustics (other than the J-45, its famous acoustics are maple and mahogany guitars), but it was using Madagascar ebony for fretboards.
Madagascar rosewood was the long-sought substitute for Brazilian rosewood, which became illegal to import into the U.S. under CITES in late 1992 (unless you could show that the tree was harvested pre-November 1992.
Without going into the long story, it became virtually illegal to get Madagascar rosewood or ebony after 2006. There were some exceptions that required specific government intervention at the highest levels (and, yes, Africa is corrupt).
Mauritius is an interesting addition to the list of countries because it's one of the known countries used to 'launder' illegal shipments of Madagascar ebony and rosewood, using French ships, usually through China but also through some European countries (notably Germany).
Nobody in the guitar industry uses union labor. PRS, Fender, Martin, Taylor, Gretsch (some U.S. made), Guild, Collings, Rickenbacker, Hamer, Washburn (some U.S. made), Jackson (some U.S. made) - none of them are union.
Gibson was union back in Kalamazoo, Michigan. When Gibson was owned by Norlin, it started moving manufacturing to non-union Nashville in 1974. By 1984, the Kalamazoo plant was closed. In 1987, under the current ownership and due to the lack of skilled labor in Nashville and quality control problems, Gibson bought Flatiron Mandolin in Bozeman, Montana and moved some manufacturing there (mandolins, temporarily, and acoustic guitars permanently).
There's an ongoing civll forfeiture case from the 2009 raids on the three Gibson facilities and the Red Line warehouse. U.S. v. Ebony Wood in Assorted Forms, Case No. 3:10-cv-00747, filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville Division, on August 9, 2010. Gibson's still fighting that case. You can download the pleadings in .pdf form at www.pacer.gov by case style (name) or number for $.08 per page.
Before the August 2011 raids, the government issued a statement that indictments were likely.
Then, after catching the June shipments through Dallas and Canada (neither of which had Gibson's name on them and both of which used a proxy ultimate consignee), the government filed a sealed pleading in the 2010 case, suggesting indictments or an expansion of the case to cover additional facts or charges.
Then the government raided Gibson's Nashville and Memphis plants and the Red Line warehouse again. Charges from those raids are likely to appear in the existing litigation.
I think the government's wrong on its position on East Indian Rosewood. I've read India's Harmonized Tariff Schedule and it's clear that India on paper permits the export of veneer (under 6mm thick) but prohibits the export of chipped, split, or cut wood over 6mm thick, but we all know India's never enforced that part of its HTS regarding rosewood fingerboard. Either that, or somebody's been buying rosewood logs for the last 40 years and making the blanks outside of India.
If the new charges are based on the HTS 4407 claim, then I think the government's charges on East Indian Rosewood are nonsense. But those are only the charges used to get the search warrant. What the government got when it took computers and the thumb drive could be as damning as the internal emails the government got in the 2009 raids.
However, Gibson - a founder through Henry Juszkiewicz of the Rainforest Alliance - elected not to get a Forest Stewardship Council certification on these shipments. That's something that Gibson helped invent, something that Juszkiewicz publicly promotes, and that Gibson always gets. And Gibson used the proxy ultimate consignee, the contents of the containers didn't match the HTS designation, the Lacey Act declaration was missing. These recent shipments were quite sloppy on paperwork for a regulated industry when you know the government is already looking at you.
It’s easier to fascistically control a few larger businesses than many small businesses.
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