Re: Eggs at Customs (fwd)

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 11:36 PM 1/15/96, Lindsay Haisley wrote:
>There has (fortunately!) been a big crackdown recently on the illegal pet
>bird import trade, something akin to the slave trade of the 19th century for
>those of us who like pet birds.  One of the methods people use to import
>birds is to wear special vests full of pockets for rare bird eggs.  If the
>person who wrote this was coming in from SE Asia, especially Australia, then
>this was very possibly the meaning of the question.

Yes, Cliff Stoll described how this plot was hatched in his book "The
Cuckoo's Egg."

(This was a yolk, folks. I stoll it.)

P.S. I am persuaded that the importation of rare tropical birds into the
U.S. is a GOOD THING, and that the attempts to ban such imports are
misguided eco-fundie efforts. Diversity will be enhanced by having the
birds in the U.S., and if left in their native jungles, most will die
anyway. Better a pampered tropical bird in a gilded cage than lunch for
some predator, or starvation as the jungles are cleared by slash-and-burn
farmers.

The same data transparency of borders, where truckloads of stuff come in
easily, means that truckloads of birds, eggs, embryos, babies, etc. can
also make it in. Most such shipments are only caught when surveillance
yields a shipping schedule...such surveillance is becoming more and more
difficult because of the technologies we push.

--Tim May

We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
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