Surveillance kit slinger accused of slapping 'Made in America' on Chinese gear, selling it to the US government Staff were cuffed in a police raid on Thursday at the offices of US surveillance equipment vendor Aventura Technologies. The workers are now facing criminal charges for allegedly passing off Chinese-made gear as stuff built in America, and selling it to Uncle Sam and its military. Aventura has also been charged (PDF) as a …
I am pretty sure that the sticker saying 'made in the USA' added a lot of value! By common sense, if most value is generated by the manufacturing process in the USA (i.e., putting on the sticker) it should be called a US product! :)
But apparently, the FTC disagrees: if any significant part of the product was assembled elsewhere, you can't use the label. Well, there is common sense and then there is common sense. Tough luck.
"Is anything electric made in the UK?"
Test equipment: Wayne Kerr and Megger
V high quality sound consoles: Cadac
I think Siemens also manufacture stuff in the UK
Possibly also Thorn Lighting and CCT Lighting
AF Switchgear
And others which I cannae remember as it's wine o'clock.
Have a good weekend.
"With today’s arrests, the defendants’ brazen deceptions and fraud schemes have been exposed, and they will face serious consequences ... "
Somehow I always find these announcements from US prosecutor offices, carefully detailing the names and identities of the accused, the charges against them, and the maximum sentences they are facing a bit bizzare. Aren't these people innocent until proven guilty? Isn't it possible some or all of them have done nothing wrong (that's why trials, juries, and judges still exist after all)? Don't these announcement jeopardize their right to a fair trial by biasing their peers - the potential jurors? Even if they are found guilty, they'll eventually serve their sentence and rejoin the community - so shouldn't we make it a bit easier by allowing them some privacy where possible?
So many questions, and so few anwers ...
Agree with the first part of your post but:
"Even if they are found guilty, they'll eventually serve their sentence and rejoin the community - so shouldn't we make it a bit easier by allowing them some privacy where possible?"
If they are found guilty then they deserve the publicity and no privacy - after being found guilty. Not only are they punished but the publicity acts as a deterrent.
Not only are they punished but the publicity acts as a deterrent.
Right, it also means anyone convicted of anything, however minor, is haunted for the rest of their life after release with it. Which means they can't get any jobs because they have a criminal record, not even cleaning tables in a diner. Which means they either have to live off other family members who can support them or, in the most likely cases where the family can't afford to support such a person, their only option is to return to crime as that's the only job they can find. Thus perpetuating the cycle.
The reason ex-cons are more likely to re-offend, thus are automatic suspects ("the usual suspects") in proximate criminal activity, is that they have no other options, they are unemployable because of the way the US treats ex-cons, so their only viable option is to earn a living the only way they can, "work" that is criminal.
They just aren't usually caught. A small vendor like this doing it on all their products is an easy target. One of the big companies that takes a shortcut of using Chinese equipment to fulfill a contract for CCTV or whatever while having factories to build custom hardware like tanks or laser guided bombs would get away with it 100% of the time. Even if they are found out it would be handled quietly, to avoid creating a stink and jeopardizing the delivery of those big ticket weapons.
Most likely they were not a prime contractor, but a subcontractor to a prime that needed them to fulfill their obligation to throw a percentage of the contract to a "woman or minority owned business". I wonder who they were actually supplying the equipment to.
I think the cousins got it wrong, there's this UK tech company run by a US genius friend of a current UK PM, a rented po box and an line in California, this has just been declared a viable, legit UK business, what's the problem with slapping made in USA on Chinese gear then?
I can recall a lot of talk about diluting food labelling until it was useless, so that consumers couldn't swerve GM food. (Watch out UK, it'll be headed your way when you sign up with Uncle Sam).
So for it to bite the government on the ass like this ... you reap what you sow, my friends.
Not for me. I'm fortunate enough to be able to pay EU premiums.
Only the poor that voted for Brexit will be subject to US high fructose corn syrup dreck. Which is fine because as long as there are no foreigners getting in, they will all be better off...
...until new trade deals are struck and we have free trade agreements with even more countries with cheap labour to offshore to.
It's hard to imagine how, after Nike had it's 'Nike Moment', (and Apple similar) such important contracts don't warrant a trip to the factory, and given it was supposedly in Long Island, it would hardly have been an onerous task to go visit. Even if they were sourcing products that were declared to have been manufactured in China, the end user should still visit the factory to make sure it's not staffed by minors etc. There's no excuse for this really.
Ah, but child labor laws are enforced by a different department, the Department of Labor, so they would /never/ have been allowed to report on the Made in China labelling on the products even if they had performed a workplace visit to confirm that everyone was old enough to work there.
All what we got here's American made
It's a little bit cheesey
But it's nicely displayed
Well we don't get excited when it
Crumbles 'n' breaks
We just get on the phone
And call up some Flakes
They rush on over
'N' wreck it some more
'N' we are so dumb
They're linin' up at our door
F Zappa...
... in the great state of Social Credit.
That's yet another thing Chinese have stolen from us! (And no, the Albertan/Canadian version wasn't particularly nice either.)
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