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<blockquote data-quote="John Roberts" data-source="post: 39431" data-attributes="member: 126">Re: Bad day for US solar industryHe says it better than I ever could. Interesting that he uses the Lacey act (see recent Gibson thread) as his example for the spiders web of federal crimes we must negotiate. There was a recent opinion published by the DOJ saying that individuals wouldn&#039;t be pursued and prosecuted for Lacey act violations, but even they added the weasel word &quot;knowingly&quot; in italics, and the letter of the law is not so limited. I don&#039;t like relying upon the whims of prosecution for my personal freedom. For the subject solar cell executives they are mostly guilty of believing their own BS and embarrassing their political benefactors with their incompetence. The real transgression here (IMO) is government wonks thinking they are smarter than individuals about how to spend the public&#039;s money for the public&#039;s best interest.&nbsp; Of course opinions vary.JRPS: I think we should be helpful when questioned by police, they are predominantly the good guys trying to protect us, but we should also be thoughtful about putting ourselves at risk. Martha Stewart did hard time for lying to federal instigators, not for any criminal behavior she may have been lying about. The difficulty of course is knowing what laws we must be careful about, but never lie to the feds.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="John Roberts, post: 39431, member: 126"] Re: Bad day for US solar industry He says it better than I ever could. Interesting that he uses the Lacey act (see recent Gibson thread) as his example for the spiders web of federal crimes we must negotiate. There was a recent opinion published by the DOJ saying that individuals wouldn't be pursued and prosecuted for Lacey act violations, but even they added the weasel word "knowingly" in italics, and the letter of the law is not so limited. I don't like relying upon the whims of prosecution for my personal freedom. For the subject solar cell executives they are mostly guilty of believing their own BS and embarrassing their political benefactors with their incompetence. The real transgression here (IMO) is government wonks thinking they are smarter than individuals about how to spend the public's money for the public's best interest. Of course opinions vary. JR PS: I think we should be helpful when questioned by police, they are predominantly the good guys trying to protect us, but we should also be thoughtful about putting ourselves at risk. Martha Stewart did hard time for lying to federal instigators, not for any criminal behavior she may have been lying about. The difficulty of course is knowing what laws we must be careful about, but never lie to the feds. [/QUOTE]

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