Numerous Heritage research papers and postings on The Foundry in the past year have reported on the plight of Gibson Guitar, which has been accused by the Obama Administration of running afoul of the Lacey Act—one of the oldest U.S. environmental regulations. Gibson’s violations were deemed so severe that armed …
As part of an ongoing series, the Heritage Center for Legal and Judicial Studies periodically identifies a “Bill of the Week” that relates to the problem of overcriminalization in America. Our Bill of the Week segment usually highlights a piece of legislation that, due to its underlying policies, exacerbate the …
Imagine the police knocking on your door because you mistakenly forgot to fill out an obscure form required by foreign law before opening up a small business. Imagine your 80-year-old mother being arrested for failing to place the appropriate sticker on an otherwise properly shipped package. Imagine your cancer-stricken neighbor …
“Hallelujah” overstates the point, but we are pleased that the Senate on Thursday accepted the revisions to the STOCK Act made by the House of Representatives. As Heritage explained in two earlier Issue Briefs on this subject, the additional public corruption provisions that the Senate initially wanted to include in …
As part of an ongoing series, Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies identifies a “Bill of the Week” which impacts overcriminalization in America. Not every Bill of the Week represents an unwise policy judgment. This week we celebrate a bill entitled “The Freedom from Over-Criminalization and Unjust Seizures Act …
One of the three aspects of overcriminalization that we highlight in our weekly e-mail alerts is “Federalizing crime that properly belongs under state and local jurisdiction.” This edition, the first in a series entitled “Overcriminalization Bill of the Week,” contains a textbook example of such a policy mistake. The State …
Armed federal agents raided Gibson Guitar’s Nashville headquarters in August, creating a national outcry over the high-profile persecution. But today, six months after the raid, the Department of Justice has yet to file any charges against the company. Why did the government go after Gibson? A new video from Reason.tv …
