I for one feel a lot safer that our wonderful federal overseers have seen to rid the county (my the county) of the scourge of fake cosmetics at local flea markets.
I’ve been having a hard time sleeping because of all the hope and change, but now I will sleep like a baby knowing our federal friends are on the case. Obviously preventing petty fraud is well beyond the capabilities of state government, surely requiring strict federal intervention.
To be sure, I think the government has a role in preventing fraud. My main beef here is priorities, and which particular sovereign is doing this. I’m going to bet not expending federal monies sending guns to Mexican drug cartels is probably a better life saving proposition than raiding flea markets in Solebury Township, PA.
I guess I should just be happy they didn’t send in the SWAT team with helicopters.
Well of course jars of cold cream can’t shoot back so the feds were probably feeling more brave then usual.
Depends on what is in the fake cosmetics. Some of the compounds that the FDA has forced to phase out are highly toxic. Since these folks have probably skirted FDA testing, who knows what’s in them.
You could quibble about priorities, but the seized material was at least actually traveling in interstate (probably international) commerce. That does make out A federal case. Article doesn’t say if any vendors were arrested, and implies they weren’t.
This is actually within the constitutional ambit of the federal government, unlike so much else they do. Plus, copyright and trademark law is federal law, and counterfeit products are also violating copyright and trademark.
This is one of the few actual roles of the federal government. They *should* be doing this sort of thing and *not* telling people how many gallons their toilet can flush.
Um, yeah, if I owned a valuable copyright or patent, I’d want someone empowered to protect it for me. That’s a valid function of a federal government. My light bulbs? Not so much; I’m paying for the electricity; it’s mine.
This wasn’t patent enforcement, it was an FDA action. That this is a federal action is entirely dependent on the herpes theory of the commerce clause.
To be sure, the importer here would be liable, as well as the person responsible for transporting across state lines, even in a pretty narrow reading of commerce powers. But enforcement for trademark and fraud, or even impure cosmetics should generally be a state action. I don’t think the federal government should have jurisdiction over goods at a flea market unless the individual who is selling them is the one selling them across state lines, or importing them.
I guess I should just be happy they didn’t send in the SWAT team with helicopters.
I wouldn’t discount that they were on standby.
tweaker
Trademark is rooted in copyright, and copyright is federal. I will have more on the FDA and commerce clause stuff when I have access to a bigger keyboard