Federal Agents raid Gibson Guitars

cvilleira · **Posted:** Thu Nov 19, 2009 1:45 pm

BigJay wrote:

nikininja wrote:

YZFJOE wrote:

BigJayfoot lives!!! :shock:

In Minesota, and offers great financial advice. :shock:

They must like the near arctic winters. Obviously the hair is a great natural insulation, saving money on heating costs.

Well I never would have guessed. There must be whole tribes of these megafauna cryptids up in the cold woodlands. Sat on huge piles of gold, offering sound business advice to other woodland creatures and waxing philosophical on the benefits of poking hornets nests. Of course rainforrest depletion matters a lot to them.

Jay you know I in no way would seek to hurt you in anyway. If any of that joke offends say the word and I'll get it gone. Hey atleast we all know what to get you for Christmas. :wink:

Well you guys might like me better after my weekly "manscape". :lol:

Dont worry, friend. Im not insulted. You should hear the teasing my wife throws my way. But you should see HER BACK!!!! :lol:

In Niki's post the word WAXING comes to mind n other ways! Oh God never minds just the thought of the tears and the screams of pain. :shock:

Randy1 · **Posted:** Thu Nov 19, 2009 3:04 pm

nikininja wrote:

YZFJOE wrote:

BigJayfoot lives!!! :shock:

In Minesota, and offers great financial advice. :shock:

They must like the near arctic winters. Obviously the hair is a great natural insulation, saving money on heating costs.

Well I never would have guessed. There must be whole tribes of these megafauna cryptids up in the cold woodlands. Sat on huge piles of gold, offering sound business advice to other woodland creatures and waxing philosophical on the benefits of poking hornets nests. Of course rainforrest depletion matters a lot to them.

Jay you know I in no way would seek to hurt you in anyway. If any of that joke offends say the word and I'll get it gone. Hey atleast we all know what to get you for Christmas. :wink:

A gas powered lawn tool called a Weedeater? :lol:

Just kidding BigJay

YZFJOE · **Posted:** Thu Nov 19, 2009 4:19 pm

I was wondering what they might be saying over there...

http://forums.gibson.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=24526

nikininja · **Posted:** Thu Nov 19, 2009 6:20 pm

YZFJOE wrote:

I was wondering what they might be saying over there...

http://forums.gibson.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=24526

Well that certainly throws some light on the situation :lol:

If I were gibsons IT fella, I'd close that site down. Its a bad advert for them.

On a aside I think CV has a valid point. Unwitting but legal possesion of a non harmful contraband material can't incuur punishment. Just think of the 5 PRS dragon II owners fighting off the feds because of the mammoth ivory in their fretboards. My mum has a mantlepiece full of ivory trinkets too. If the rozzers go round there trying to get their hands on her ornaments their in for a fight.

Ceri · **Posted:** Fri Nov 20, 2009 6:26 am

BigJay wrote:

In law, the term "reasonable" is a very important word...

That's the long and short of it.

It's slightly astonishing how this thread is running round and round on this, because it is pretty simple really.

America, like most other countries, has laws that absolutely prohibit the buying, selling and owning of various materials. Rhino horn and ivory are obvious examples.

I notice that the US, like almost everyone else, is a member of C.I.T.E.S.:

http://www.cites.org/eng/disc/parties/alphabet.shtml

That website explains everything we need to know on this subject.

So. If we buy, sell or own listed materials we are behaving illegally and are open to prosecution.

However. There ain't the slightest chance an end purchaser of a Gibson guitar containing a prohibited timber is going to get into any trouble. No court is going to waste a second trying to prosecute such an individual, because they will very easily argue a reasonable expectation that the manufacturer should supply a legally constructed instrument. Unlike ivory products we can not possibly be expected to tell legally felled ebony or rosewood from the illegally sourced stuff. Assuredly the same will go for the shop the guitar was bought from.

Also, neither shops nor customers transported an illegal material across a national boundary, which is the main issue here.

And unless the guitars containing illegal timber were made and sold in very small numbers it is most unlikely that anyone will come looking to confiscate said instruments either. It would indeed be possible to track down at least many of the purchasers - but it would be far too much effort to be worth it.

If Gibson have behaved illegally they are the ones authorities will concentrate on making an example of. We can sit back comfortably and see how it turns out.

Cheers - C

Ceri · **Posted:** Fri Nov 20, 2009 7:18 am

BigJay wrote:

...However, those individuals may still have broken another law. In the US, its a Federal offense to transport illegal materials across State lines...

Ah, on that one of course I'm way out of my depth. People outside the US seldom are aware of the distinctions between State and Federal laws, and that State frontier thing. I spent a couple of years studying American history - and I'm pretty foggy on it!

Additionally, I expect you like we have laws against merely possessing these materials, regardless of the national frontier aspect.

But from the sound of it what they are going after Gibson for is the sourcing and international transportation bit of the thing. Because that is the biggest part of the deal (I love the word egregious

) and likely the easiest to demonstrate in court - if it's true.

This stuff is such a minefield though, even for the well intentioned. In addition to my own observations in lumber yards I recall that a friend's husband also runs a large timber selling business. I remember a conversation with him several years ago when he talked with sweat breaking out on his brow about how hard it was to be certain he was complying with the rules on this stuff - and he is a very honest and well motivated individual.

I wonder what the folks round here who work daily with wood have to say on that? We have several carpenters/joiners/cabinet makers amongst us...

Cheers - C

Ceri · **Posted:** Fri Nov 20, 2009 7:38 am

BigJay wrote:

Yes....I need to learn how to spell or at least how to use a spell checker. :oops:

Gosh, please don't interpret anything I've written as a spelling correction! I am absolutely not a man in a position to dish out that kind of thing! I just noticed your use of the word and relished it.

Russianracehorse sometimes throws in a few of those kindsa things too, for those as care to notice 'em...

Cheers - C

Troublecall · **Posted:** Fri Nov 20, 2009 9:19 am

BigJay wrote:

Troublecall wrote:

BigJay wrote:

nikininja wrote:

Theres a very easy out. Just tell em you had the fretboard changed. Let them prove that the piece of rosewood on the guitar is still the same piece it originaly came with. Before you even let them see your guitar ask to see reasonable evidence that your guitar was one of the ones built using the illegal wood.

If you got 50,000 les paul owners saying that then its highly unlikely that the goverment would pay to send out a load of timber experts to analyze the wood on a load of gibbo's.

If I were in that possition I'd make life incredibly hard for any official. It could easily pass the point of reasonable cost to investigate. The whole of the uk traffic laws are failing primarily for that reason. As soon as you ask for photographic evidence, documentation of training to run equiptment, police vehicle check certificates and such like. The authorities give up and let you off with a warning 9/10. The £60 speeding fine just isnt going to pay the man hours in providing you with their evidence, which your entitiled to see.

Well, in our country, we pay $900 for a toilet seat and $90 for a galvanized bolt washer.

As a former member of the government procurement bureaucracy, I have to repond to this - very sick and tired of the whole "$600 toilet seat" misrepresentation. While the system has numerous flaws and inefficiencies built into this - this was a different situation and the entire flap was ignorance.

The P-3C Orion antisubmarine aircraft went into service in 1962. Twenty-five years later it was determined that the toilet shroud, the cover that fits over the toilet needed replacement. Since the airplane was out of production this would require new tooling to produce. These on-board toilets required a uniquely shaped, molded fiberglass shroud that had to satisfy specifications for the vibration resistance, weight, and durability. The molds had to be specially made as it had been decades since their original production. The price reflected the design work and the cost of the equipment to manufacture them. Lockheed Corp. charged $34,560 for 54 toilet covers or $640 each.[1]

President Reagan held a televised news conference in 1987, where he held up one of these shrouds and stated: "We didn't buy any $600 toilet seat. We bought a $600 molded plastic cover for the entire toilet system." A Pentagon spokesman, Glenn Flood stated, "The original price we were charged was $640, not just for a toilet seat, but for the large molded plastic assembly covering the entire seat, tank and full toilet assembly. The seat itself cost $9 and some cents.… The supplier charged too much, and we had the amount corrected."[2] The president of Lockheed at the time, Lawrence Kitchen, adjusted to the price to $100 each and returned $29,165. "This action is intended to put to rest an artificial issue," Kitchen stated.[1]

Anybody buy any molded fiberglas lately??

Really?..........

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 04437.html

I suppose you could argue that the audit caught the wasteful spending. Gotta wonder how much didnt get caught. Interestingly, this was just the other day. Not during the Reagan era. Clearly the trend continues.

Want to discuss Operational Conflict of Interest (OCI) trends at the DOD?

I deal with Federal procurements all the time. Ever see a Federal Contract Officer get hired by a major integrator and RFP award recipient shortly after the award???? I have....too many times to count.

Im not suggesting that everybody is dirty, just that everybody needs a bath.

Jay,
If you re-read my post, you will notice that I never said the sytem did not have its faults. Boy, does it ever - and thieves, and incompetents, and bribery - I could tell some stories that would curl my own hair.

I was just saying that I am sick and tired of the $600 toilet seat stories - that particular case is one that is way off base. No sense in throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.

cvilleira · **Posted:** Fri Nov 20, 2009 10:04 am

Those stories do go around Jay. At the University there was a group of government auditors who were there full time and did noting but audits. There was one that even just walked around the labs on a 475 acre campus plus off campus buildings and would stop employees ask to open your time cards and see that things are up to date with proper contract codes for hours.

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