by Rand Paul
There are few American companies so ingrained in our popular history and our national culture as Gibson Guitar Corporation. So many artists for so many years have done what Bruce Springsteen once sang—they picked up a guitar, and they learned how to make it talk. Talk to us. Talk for us. Talk about us. Talk about our lives, our dreams, our hopes, our fears.
The history of Gibson guitars is the history of America in the twentieth century. From jazz, to blues, to country, to rock and roll, Gibson has been a major part of what many have long considered America’s most popular export—music.
At the turn of the century, Gibson began by making mandolins, changing those instruments’ shape and tone and by the 1920s becoming known as the maker of the best bluegrass mandolins in the world, a musical genre with deep roots in my home state of Kentucky.
A few decades later, Gibson made some of the most popular acoustic guitars of the pre-and postwar eras. Musicians popularized the Gibson acoustic guitar in country music, and it is widely considered to be the most important guitar in country music history.
Gibson’s biggest claim to fame, and most lasting overall contribution to music, is the introduction of the Les Paul model electric guitar. Gibson did not invent the electric guitar, but it is credited with having one of the first commercially successful models.
The Les Paul is iconic, instantly recognizable by sight and sound to music fans across the globe. It is so thoroughly associated with Gibson that we asked the company to bring or send a Les Paul to our Senate hearing where Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz would testify back in 2011.
We ran into a snag, though. It seems that the frugal CEO was not planning on doing what most CEOs do when they travel. He was not flying on a private jet from Nashville to Washington. No, instead, the head of Gibson flew into Washington, D.C., on Southwest Airlines. This saved their company at least $5,000. Remember this the next time someone—an American president, for example—lumps “greedy” corporate CEOs all together, criticizing them for using “private jets.”
In any case, the guitar wouldn’t fit in the overhead bins of the airline, and I think we can all understand why Gibson was reluctant to have their CEO check a $4,000 electric guitar as baggage. Instead, Gibson shipped the Les Paul to my Senate office. It arrived the morning of the hearing, with strict instructions not to touch or play it, but to leave it at the hearing for Mr. Juszkiewicz to open and display.
Arriving at the hearing, my chief of staff Doug Stafford, who is a guitar player, noted to Mr. Juszkiewicz his admiration for this beautiful guitar. He explained how he had always wanted to own a Les Paul. Mr. Juszkiewicz just smiled and asked knowingly, “You played the guitar, didn’t you?” Of course, Doug had. No guitar player could have resisted, he told Mr. Juszkiewicz, who politely smiled and agreed.
Mr. Juszkiewicz’s testimony at the hearing that day was important for two primary reasons. First, his story desperately needed to be told, and I will tell it to you here. But second, it was important that a company with the financial and legal means to fight our government actually did so. Too often corporate and government interests are either in cahoots from the beginning, or, if pressed, the corporate interest will take the path of least resistance and make some kind of a deal. In corporations’ typical efforts to get any legal troubles behind them, the same bad laws and regulations that led to those troubles are also left in place.
Not Gibson. Their CEO was going to stand and fight for his company’s rights.
And here’s what happened to them.
The first problem arose in 2009. Gibson executives were holding a corporate meeting when Mr. Juszkiewicz received a phone call that the Department of Homeland Security was raiding his factory in Nashville. His first reaction was that this had to be some kind of a joke. “I make guitars,” he recalled thinking at the time. What kind of terrorist threat or homeland security issue could possibly involve guitars?
Then, as more information began coming in, the reports of the raid became more detailed. There were more than thirty armed agents in his factory. They had been sent as a SWAT team, with automatic weapons, bulletproof vests, and all the rest. The agents evacuated the entire factory, forcing out nearly three hundred employees, who at this point were very scared and confused. Workers remember being shocked and befuddled, wondering what could have possibly warranted such an intrusive display of firepower.
The feds seized hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of raw materials, including woods from Madagascar and India, these being the source of the “problem.” Mr. Juszkiewicz didn’t yet know this yet. There’s no way he could have known. When he arrived at the scene to ask just what in the heck the government thought it was doing, he was told that the information was “sealed.”
Sealed search warrants do exist. They are even occasionally necessary in putting together certain criminal cases against the largest crime organizations. But last I checked, Gibson was not a large crime organization. Still, try telling that to the federal government. The agents sent the workers home. They seized the raw materials. They essentially shut down factory production, costing the company millions of dollars. Worse, the government gave Gibson no answers and continued to stonewall. The government filed no charges. In fact, it was months before Gibson even knew why they had been raided or even knew it was the wood the government was looking for.
Desperate for a day in court to prove their innocence and recover their lost materials, Gibson sued the U.S. government. Ask yourself this: When was the last time someone under investigation for a major federal crime had to sue the government to get into court? If Gibson were actually guilty, it would seem the party urging a speedy prosecution would be the government. As of 2012, this case is still in court, because the government asked for a delay in the lawsuit.
At the time, what it appeared the government was (unsuccessfully) trying to prove was that Gibson had imported woods from Madagascar and India that were protected. This was patently false, and provably so.
Gibson had supplied the government with eighty thousand pages of material in response to the investigation. The company had even provided—at government request—the sales receipt of every guitar sold during that period. That’s right—even those who purchased guitars from Gibson might not be safe. Still, no charges were filed. No resolution was reached. Gibson simply sat in limbo for two years, unable to prove their case or recover their materials.
But the government was not done with them. The raid in 2009 was in one location and limited to raw materials. Then came a second raid—on three different facilities.
Another armed federal SWAT team descended upon Gibson’s Nashville and Memphis offices and production facilities. Agents brandishing automatic weapons ordered Gibson’s luthiers to put down their tools, move away from their computers, lay aside the wood and strings, and let the government in—to harass them.
What heinous crime had brought the wrath of Big Brother down upon this quiet Nashville guitar factory a second time? Was it a drug bust? Had Gibson been smuggling drugs in the hollow-body guitars? Or was it a murder or a kidnapping?
A closer inspection of the federal badges by the workers and management of Gibson revealed the letters “FW.” FW? What federal law enforcement agency was this? Fish and Wildlife. I’m not joking. Agents with bad attitudes and automatic weapons had barraged into Gibson from… the Fish and Wildlife Service. I wish I were making this up.
The craftsmen and workers watched in disbelief as the agents stated their reason for the armed assault. Gibson had been accused of violating the Lacey Act. Though you, the reader, now know what the Lacey Act is, Gibson employees could certainly be forgiven if their reaction had been “we violated what, exactly?”
I know this sounds like a bad joke or outlandish made-for-TV movie. I assure you, this is no laughing matter. The Lacey Act—far beyond its original intention—now demands massive fines and even jail time. This case involved countless lawyers, endless defense, and years in court.
Under the Lac
ey Act, guitar players everywhere could find themselves in hot water with the feds too. You see, for the government to succeed in prosecuting Gibson, it will have to prove that the guitars made and sold in this country were made illegally. This would make Gibson guitar owners nationwide open to prosecution as well.
I’m still not kidding.
As Gibson’s CEO explained, the government was accusing his company of breaking a law that says that Indian wood products must be “improved” before being exported. “Improved” means they must be manufactured in India.
Our Justice Department was bullying an American company for importing wood and then hiring American citizens to work with it. The Justice Department even put this all in writing, maintaining that if Gibson would just ship the “improving” wood jobs overseas, then everything would be okay. Let me be clear—our government was saying that if the skilled workers at Gibson were to simply surrender that work instead to Indian woodworkers, then the Lacey Act complaint would go away.
Mr. Juszkiewicz wants to make sure he is very clear on this matter. He is a lifelong conservationist. His company complies with laws regarding conservation, even though, as mentioned, Gibson consumes a very small amount of raw materials.
In fact, the wood seized in the second raid was controlled by the Forest Stewardship Council. According to Juszkiewicz, “Gibson has a long history of supporting sustainable and responsible sources of wood, and has worked diligently with entities such as the Rainforest Alliance and Greenpeace to secure Forest Stewardship Council–certified supplies. The wood seized on August 24 satisfied FSC standards.” Gibson has never been tried for anything. The first raid, ostensibly about the raw materials violations, has never been prosecuted.
Interestingly, the U.S. government is claiming to be enforcing the laws of Madagascar and India. But if that is true, they should tell the governments of Madagascar and India.
Both countries have said in writing that Gibson has not broken any of their laws. In every shipment, Gibson had clearance from both foreign and U.S. customs, following all the rules and paying all the necessary tariffs. These foreign governments certify all of this. Our U.S. Customs confirms this to be true. But the U.S. government doesn’t recognize any of this and still proceeds with its vendetta against Gibson.
Why?
Could it be that the main competitor of Gibson, Fender Musical Instrument Corporation, is a huge Democratic Party donor? When Henry Juszkiewicz is asked that question, he demurs, shrugs, and says, “Could be.” Obviously, this would be hard to prove. In a strange way, it would almost be comforting if this vendetta against Gibson were nothing more than just basic corruption and petty partisan politics. At least at some detestable level, it would have a sort of logic to it.
The alternative is worse—that our government really is just this stupid.
10
Trapping Lobster Fishermen
“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”
—THOMAS PAINE
At this point it should not surprise readers of this book that your federal government has a definite, firm, and nonnegotiable position on the subject of… lobster tails. They have mandatory sizes. They have regulations on whether they were young or old, egg-bearing or not. They even care about whether those lobsters were packaged in plastic bags or cardboard boxes.
Actually, to be fair to our government, these are not U.S. regulations. They are regulations thought up by the government of Honduras. Let’s discuss two important facts about this matter up front:
First, the government of Honduras actually cares about the size, delivery, and packaging of lobster tails. I suppose it should make us feel somewhat better that inane regulations are not the sole prerogative of the U.S. government—but only a little better. You would think such overregulation would reflect “first-world problems.” In other words, America is free (the examples of government abuse in this book notwithstanding), prosperous, and successful. We feed and clothe ourselves, have shelter, provide education, and generally are able to take care of ourselves, so therefore we can afford to worry about the size of lobster tails.
But what about Honduras? Honduras is the second poorest country in Central America, and the third poorest in all of Latin America. Honduras has real poverty, not “why won’t the government pay for the data plan on my cell phone” kind of poverty. Honduran poverty is tragic—malnutrition, starvation, and oppression. Hondurans live on an average income of $1,800 per year. That much per month would qualify as poor in the United States.
Honduras is not exactly politically stable. Their last coup was in 2009, in which President Manuel Zelaya was overthrown, due mostly to public frustration over his administration’s inability to address widespread poverty.
With this awful national backdrop, the Honduran government, with all of these problems, busied itself making rules about lobster tail size—and the U.S. government, at great expense, was hell-bent on enforcing them.
Four businessmen were involved in the Honduran fishermen case. All four of them, three Americans and one Honduran citizen, were sent to prison for alleged violations of the Lacey Act, in an attempt by our government to enforce foreign laws. Similar to the Gibson case, the foreign country under consideration really didn’t want the United States to prosecute, and in fact had asked our federal government not to do so in a U.S. court.
With Gibson, the Indian and Madagascar governments argued that the company had unquestionably complied with the law. The Honduran fishermen case wasn’t quite as clear. The Honduran government, including the attorney general for their country, insisted that the law under which the United States is prosecuting is invalid because it never was properly executed or signed into Honduran law.
But before we get to the conclusion, let’s tell the story.
In 1999, the National Marine Fisheries Service received an anonymous tip about undersized lobster tails being shipped from Honduras to Alabama by Honduran businessman David McNab.
I’m sorry, it may be wrong, but I can’t type that sentence without laughing out loud. Go ahead, read it again, and see if you can without shaking your head in bewilderment. It’s comical. I even wondered if the National Marine Fisheries Service in this story was somehow part of the Fish and Wildlife Service that Gibson had to tangle with.
But they aren’t the same agency. They aren’t even under the same agency. They’re not even in the same cabinet department. One is in the Department of the Interior, one is in the Department of Commerce (both of which I proposed we eliminate in my Fiscal Year 2012 Budget, I’m proud to say).
Why are there two similar departments? What do both of them do? After investigating, I must tell you, I still have no idea. Here is the official government description. See if you can figure it out:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The agency enforces Federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts.
And:
The National Marine Fisheries Service is the principal steward of the nation’s living marine resources, protecting marine and anadromous species under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Back to the story. Though I’m still curious, I am going to ignore any exploration of why this anonymous tip might have occurred. Yet once it did, agents from the NMFS detained the ship from Honduras as it arrived in Alabama. Characteristic of these agencies, the owners were not given an explanation of what the problems were. Weeks went by, but still no word as the NMFS continued to hold the ship and its seventy thousand pounds of lobster.
This wasn’t guitar wood here. We’re talking about freshly caught seafood
. The very act of holding it for weeks with no explanation likely destroyed it. But no matter—the government was just getting started.
The lobster was soon offloaded and sent to a government freezer in Florida. Now, I ask you, why does our government have a freezer, waiting and ready, capable of holding seventy thousand pounds of lobster?
For months, the lobster stayed in Florida. The fishermen/businessmen sat in their offices wondering what the government was doing. As it turned out, the government had been spending this time desperately trying to find Honduran laws under which to prosecute the fishermen.
After numerous phone calls, letters, and trips to Honduras, the NMFS focused on three provisions. The first details the processing and packaging of fish harvested in Honduran waters. This 1993 regulation, promulgated pursuant to a 1973 statute, included the mention of packaging in cardboard boxes. The second regulation prohibits harvesting any lobsters with tails shorter than 5.5 inches. This must have surprised the NMFS agents, since the market price lists published by NMFS include prices for two-and three-ounce Caribbean spiny lobsters from Honduras. A government expert acknowledged at trial that these little lobsters would all have tails shorter than 5.5 inches. The third Honduran provision prohibits destroying or harvesting “eggs, or the offspring of fish, chelonians or other aquatic species for profit.”
Six months after sending them to the cooler, NMFS agents finally began to inspect the locked-up lobster tails. Only about 3 percent of the lobster tails turned out to be less than 5.5 inches long. Just 7 percent showed any evidence of having been egg-bearing lobsters. These small amounts belie the suggestion that David McNab or his employees were intentionally harvesting young or egg-bearing lobsters. Nevertheless, prosecutors included these regulations as predicates for alleged violations of the Lacey Act.
Charges based on the size and egg-harvesting regulations would only allow NMFS to seize the small portions of lobster tails that were under 5.5 inches or showed evidence of bearing eggs. This apparently was not enough. Because all the lobsters were in clear plastic bags instead of cardboard boxes, the government declared the entire shipment illegal and formally seized all seventy thousand pounds of lobster tails.