KETTERING@SPIKE.llnl.gov (Brett 'Volleyball is my game' Kettering) (05/07/90)
From the article <7390@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> (David Kassover) >In article <9E10893F111F400A5B@icdc.llnl.gov> KETTERING@SPIKE.llnl.gov (Brett 'Volleyball is my game' Kettering) writes: >|About this mess of buying software and such at outrageously inflated prices >|overseas. Have the prospective foreign buyers thought of getting ahold of >|someone they know and trust in the U.S., having them buy it cheaply here and >|ship it to them? If they are trusted friends it seems that some sort of >|payment method, acceptable to both, could be worked out here. >There's a word for that kind of activity. "Smuggling" comes to >mind. This is not to say that it doesn't happen, or should or >shouldn't happen. To the best of my knowledge it is not illegal, nor is it "smuggling" to have someone in another country send you legally obtained, noncontraband items and send them to you via the postal system. When I lived in Argentina, friends sent me things all the time. They simply declared the contents of the package on an invoice, paid the postage, and sent them. I did the same from Argentina back to the U.S. If this is, for some unknown reason, illegal then why did the postal officials in both of these countries allow it to occur? If it were not legal then the officials were either ignorant of the law or just not paying attention to the declaration of contents accompanying the packages. I doubt that the officials were ignorant of the law. Does the mere fact that the foreign party will reimburse the purchaser make this act illegal? I would think not. >There are also classes of goods for which the US shipper accepts >responsibility for non-transferance to prohibited countries. If the item listed on the contents invoice is prohibited to the destined country then it is the responsibility of the postal officials to make this known to the sender and not allow it to be sent. In the case of the original article the item was sold in the foreign country, so it must not be a prohibited country for the product. There is no intent to hide the contents of the package, only to provide it at a reasonable cost. Brett Kettering
kassover@jupiter.crd.ge.com (David Kassover) (05/09/90)
In article <9B05573732FF4013B5@icdc.llnl.gov> KETTERING@SPIKE.llnl.gov (Brett 'Volleyball is my game' Kettering) writes: >From the article <7390@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> (David Kassover) > >>In article <9E10893F111F400A5B@icdc.llnl.gov> KETTERING@SPIKE.llnl.gov (Brett 'Volleyball is my game' Kettering) writes: >>|About this mess of buying software and such at outrageously inflated prices >>|overseas. Have the prospective foreign buyers thought of getting ahold of >>|someone they know and trust in the U.S., having them buy it cheaply here and >>|ship it to them? If they are trusted friends it seems that some sort of >>|payment method, acceptable to both, could be worked out here. > >>There's a word for that kind of activity. "Smuggling" comes to >>mind. This is not to say that it doesn't happen, or should or >>shouldn't happen. .... >>There are also classes of goods for which the US shipper accepts >>responsibility for non-transferance to prohibited countries. > >If the item listed on the contents invoice is prohibited to the destined >country then it is the responsibility of the postal officials to make this >known to the sender and not allow it to be sent. First of all, postal clerks, in the US, in general, are not intimately familiar with the entire "contraband list" (disclaimer: neither am I) Just because something is commonly done doesn't make it legal (or illegal) (or a good idea or a bad idea) Secondly, if I ship something from USA to country X, that it is perfectly legal to ship to X, and then the recipient in X ships it to some other place Y, which may be perfectly legal to ship to from X, but not from USA to Y, the shipper from USA to X *may* have some liability. Intent has little to do with it. Sanity Check: Someone said "why not do blotz?" I provided a (possibly too casually stated) reason why not. THIS IS ALL SPECULATION, not demand for performance. Do with it what you will. In my E-mail to the poster of the complainant about 100% markup + VAT, I discussed my views on this and possible courses of action. Has little to do with Ada programming or Software Engineering. -- David Kassover "Proper technique helps protect you against kassover@ra.crd.ge.com sharp weapons and dull judges." kassover@crd.ge.com F. Collins