Senator says he wants to prevent government from seizing guitars at border
Anthony Martin
Conservative Examiner
May 20, 2012
examiner.com
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., stated after a meeting Friday with music industry and wood import officials that he wants to prevent the government from seizing guitars made with banned wood when musicians travel to other countries to perform.
Artists are currently leaving their best guitars at home when they travel, unless they take paperwork with them that proves their instruments were not made with banned wood -- a provision of an amendment to the century-old Lacey Act which prevents the sale of feathers from rare birds.
Alexander, along with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., cosponsored an amendment in 2008 to the Lacey Act that would add the wood from certain forests around the world to the list of banned items.
But the manner in which the Obama Administration is interpreting the amended law is raising eyebrows and creating havoc for one guitar maker, Gibson Guitars of Nashville, Tenn.
In August of 2011 federal agents raided Gibson factories in Nashville and Memphis, seizing multithousands of dollars' worth of guitars, wood samples, and computer files. Gibson was forced to shut down its operations for a day.
This was not the first time the Obama Administration had targeted Gibson. In 2009 the company's Nashville factory was raided during which armed federal agents seized guitars and a large amount of ebony fingerboard blanks from Madagascar.
Although it has been three years since the initial raid, the Administration has not filed any criminal charges against Gibson, and the company's property is still being held by the federal government.
When Alexander and Wyden first proposed the banned wood amendment to the Lacey Act, they stated that the government had assured them that the law would not be used to seize musical instruments made with the wood. But in less than a year federal agents were doing exactly that, and Gibson found itself the target of armed federal agents.
However, although the Administration targeted Gibson, apparently it did not equally apply its interpretation of the law to other guitar manufacturers, such as C.F. Martin.
Martin guitars are made with the same wood as Gibson instruments. Yet Martin has not been the subject of federal raids or the confiscation of its guitars.
The Martin company is widely known in Tennessee for being supporters of the Democratic Party and Barack Obama.
Musicians say that in enforcing the law the government is requiring them to carry paperwork proving that any instrument made before 2008, the year the banned wood amendment was passed, was not manufactured with material that came from protected forests.
The paperwork would not normally be required unless the musician traveled through customs en route to concerts in other countries, such as Canada. And this is the point being made by Sen. Alexander. The Senator states that the amendment which he proposed and got approved in 2008 was never meant to be applied to musical instruments, and he wants to make sure that musicians are not targeted by the Obama Administration when they go through customs.
For example, with the manner in which the Administration is currently interpreting the law, a musician who travels through customs without paperwork certifying that their instrument was not made with banned wood would be subjected to having that instrument seized.
Although the Obama Administration, Alexander, and Wyden appear to play up the environmental angle of the 2008 amendment, critics say that the real issue is not forest conservation at all. The issue is making sure the United States is placed under the laws of other nations.
In short, if a manufacturer uses wood from India to make its guitars, then that company must comply with the laws of India. Conservatives say that this is a clear violation of American sovereignty.
Human Events, the oldest conservative publication in America, stated the following concerning the assumption that U.S. companies must obey all of the laws of foreign countries if they use material from those countries:
...it’s all about the Lacey Act, which the Memphis Daily News tells us “does not directly address conservation issues, but is about obeying all laws of the countries from which wood products are procured.” In other words, if you’re going to buy wood from India, you have to be in full compliance with Indian law.
Which Indian law did Gibson allegedly violate? Gibson Guitar CEO Henry Juszkiewicz told the Memphis Daily News the government refuses to explain the charges to him:
But Gibson’s CEO says his company has not been told what it did wrong and that he assumes the allegation is that some of the wood being used to manufacture the company’s guitars is illegal.
“Everything is sealed. They won’t tell us anything,” Juszkiewicz said, never raising his voice but pulling no punches in his defense of the storied guitar maker.
Further, a Reuters report indicates that the entire issue can be traced to a "weird" interpretation of the law by the Justice Department:
However, a Reuters report includes some speculation that it might be a weird Justice Department interpretation of a law the Indian government has not asked the American government to enforce:
"(The government) 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," Juszkiewicz said.
If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal, he said.
In an affidavit, agent John Rayfield of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said U.S. Customs agents in June detained a shipment of sawn ebony logs from India.
The paperwork accompanying the shipment identified it fraudulently as Indian ebony fingerboards for guitars and it did not say it was going to Gibson, the affidavit said.
In July, agents observed Indian ebony and rosewood delivered to a storage facility for Gibson, according to the affidavit, which asked permission to seize Gibson's business computers.
As far as Sen. Alexander is concerned, unless the Administration is clear that the law is not meant to be used to prevent guitar manufacturers from using wood that is essential to the look and sound of their finest instruments, then the Lacey Act should be changed to reflect that stipulation. |
