Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
If you relocate your guitar factory to a developing country and export the finished product to the United States you are guilty of “offshoring” jobs. If you build the factory in the United States, importing the wood and manufacturing the product domestically, you are just guilty; guilty of a federal offense, punishable by imprisonment.
Gibson Guitar Corp., a big user of ebony and other scarce woods, for years has allied itself with Greenpeace and other environmental groups to show it was serious about preserving forests.
That didn't stop the Nashville-based company, whose guitars are used by such musicians as B.B. King and Angus Young of AC/DC, from running afoul of U.S. authorities over allegedly illegal imports of wood. Though no charges have been filed, Gibson factories have been raided twice, most recently last week, by federal agents who say ebony exported from India to Gibson was "fraudulently" labeled to conceal a contravention of Indian export law.
Under the Lacey Act, U.S. importers must comply with the export laws of each country they source for materials.
The government has focused on a March 2009 shipment of ebony from Madagascar intended for guitar fingerboards. Madagascar law bars the export of certain unfinished wood products, according to both Gibson and the government. Gibson says the ebony had been cut into pieces and that local officials approved the export as a legal sale of finished goods.
U.S. officials described the wood as "sawn timber" and said Madagascar officials were "defrauded" by a local exporter about the nature of the product.
Did you get that? Gibson imported wood from Madagascar as approved by that country’s government, but the US thinks Madagascar is too lax in enforcing its own statute. And Justice means business:
Federal agents first raided Gibson factories in November 2009 and were back again Aug. 24, seizing guitars, wood and electronic records. Gene Nix, a wood product engineer at Gibson, was questioned by agents after the first raid and told he could face five years in jail.
"Can you imagine a federal agent saying, 'You're going to jail for five years' and what you do is sort wood in the factory?" said Mr. Juszkiewicz, recounting the incident. "I think that's way over the top." Gibson employees, he said, are being "treated like drug criminals."
Unfortunately, we don't have to imagine federal agents going all the way with the businessman-equals-drug-criminal formulation. In Heritage’s One Nation Under Arrest, the authors detail the case of seafood importers charged under the Lacey Act (United States v. McNab) for importing lobster packed in clear plastic bags rather than the paper boxes supposedly required by a Honduran regulation. The fact that the Honduran government entered the dispute on the side of the defendants—the Honduran authorizing statute having been repealed years before the supposed infraction—did nothing to deter US prosecutors.
Since the import was illegal under the Lacey Act, the importers were also smuggling, according to the feds. Pretty clever concealing smuggled lobster in clear plastic bags, don’t you think? And since smuggling profits are illegal, then depositing or spending the ill-gotten gains is money laundering. And so four proprietors of a small seafood company become illegal importers, smugglers and money launderers for failing to comply with a non-existent Honduran regulation, as interpreted by the environmentalists at the National Marine Fishery Service.
McNab served eight years in federal prison.
Be extra careful with your response the next time the checkout clerk asks, "Paper or plastic?"
I can’t wait to hear the president’s plan for bringing high paying manufacturing jobs back to our shores and reigniting US job creation more generally.
(H/T Mark Levin)
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Comments :
Aug '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
Wow, my Les Pauls are really getting around these days. ;)
Dec '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
You are welcome to manufacture guitars, using the same woods, from the same places, if you donate to democrats.
May '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
Have we really gotten to the point where every government agency has an enforcement arm? Even the Department of Education has a SWAT team at the ready, and that department shouldn't even exist.
Killing two birds with one stone, I'm going to toss these guys in with aid to Palestinians and Pakistan, under the heading Easy Budget Cuts.
Feb '11
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
Any chance we can get Eddie Vedder to protest against this?
Aug '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
So, the Feds have plenty of resources to stop the flow of illegal wood into the country, but not to stop the flow of illegal aliens. Yeah - okay. I'm sure that makes sense. Somewhere. Maybe on another planet.
Edited on Sep 1, 2011 at 9:06amJul '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
When do we stop reading stories like this and shaking our heads and actually start doing something about ending the abuse of power by unelected federal bureaucracies?
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
Ed, sorry to miss the fact that I was using your image from Pajamas Media. Google features the picture, sans your credit, when searching "guitar behind bars." So I expect it will begin popping up everywhere as we enter the next phase of the Age of Obama.
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
Mark Levin mentioned this fact, confirmed by the CEO in his subsequent on-air interview. At least some of Gibson's unmolested competitors are also union shops, while Gibson is non-union.
May '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
Exactly!! Does it just go on forever? Or are there actually consequences when politicians abuse their power and destroy people's lives? There needs to be a hammer somewhere. And now.
May '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
Oh. My. Goodnes!
Dec '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
Their basic operating assumption is that everyone is a bad actor, and as such, any infraction is made with malice aforethought.
That mindset allows them to treat everyone as though they just raped and murdered their mother, regardless of what they actually did. It's a form of voluntary institutional brainwashing, and it has spread to every corner of the bureaucracy.
This way of thinking allows even the most lowly records inspector to envisage himself as a caped crime fighter bringing down the fang toothed monster before he eats another baby, when in reality he is fighting tooth and nail to send a man who misspelled a customer's name to prison for a decade.
Reality has become so distorted in these people's minds that they are truly beyond the reach of logic or reason.
I will say it again. We are so completely and utterly screwed.
Edited on Sep 1, 2011 at 1:00pmJul '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
Do we know the name of the judge? Is he still in office?
Jul '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
The fools! Everyone knows better than to create jobs in Obamastan!!!!
Jul '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
Eight years in jail. Federal Family. Ye gods. I may have to lay off Ricochet for a bit until my blood pressure drops and my minds clears.
BTW, Where's Mr. Pat S. been lately? We need some of his unique humor to soothe our troubled souls.
May '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
There really is nothing our government can't do so long as it does it to only a handful of people at a time.
The Tea Party movement isn't about saving America. It's about taking America back.
Sep '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
Lucille is contraband?
Dec '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
In Obama's America, Guitar Play YOU!
Edited on Sep 1, 2011 at 5:31pmMay '10
Re: Build a Guitar, Go to Jail
My custom electric has abalone inlays on the fretboard. If, one day, the folks at PETA take it upon themselves to "Save the sea snails!" and regulate abalone, my "axe" might at last fulfill that destiny.
A friend of mine periodically works as a bodyguard (which is no surprise when you look at him). He was once tasked with guarding Lucille.
Of course, being a Swede who has no familiarity with American blues, he had no idea what Lucille looks like. All night he followed a guitar around, only to discover in the end that he was guarding the wrong guitar.