Racketeering or Certification 6: Defamation Is The Only Product BAN Sells

The 2019 Certification or Racketeering series of blogs began about Total Reclaim of Seattle.  Craig Lorch and Jeff Zirkle were sentenced last week on their fraud case.  I offered to fly in to testify, and sent them a letter for the judge, to make the case (as in the blog) that the executives at Total Reclaim had been told by BAN that 80% of recyclers were shipping 80% of goods overseas, where 100% percent were smashed by hands in primitive conditions. As I testified at Brundage's sentencing hearing in Chicago, those were false claims.

• BAN begins by defaming the Tech Sector overseas, with wild hallucinatory descriptions of thousands of orphans in rice paddies beating electronics with hammers. 
• BAN creates a lie about the Basel Convention having been "amended" to criminalize legal exports (reuse, repair and recycling are ALL legal under the actual Basel Convention, not just "tested working")
• BAN then defames those who (like yours truly) question or rebut the initial defamation, or correct information they give about the Basel treaty.
• BAN defames the companies who don't pay tribute through E-Stewards certification, and defames the alternative certifications.
• If the companies like Intercon or Total Reclaim threaten to withdraw from BAN, or defend themselves (Total Reclaim exported far less than 10% of the material they received), BAN's enforcement is to defame them.

Essentially, defamation and slander are BAN's only product. And at its root, the initial domino of defamation - of people in faraway geographies beating LCDs and CRTs with hammers - is a fake statistic. BAN is the most ruthless in attacking anyone who questions their credentials.

What percentage of what Total Reclaim exported became "waste"? Was that the source of the corporate profits? Or were those profits, and the repeated purchse of flat screens from Asians, evidence that the exports were likely NOT WASTED?  How does the Department of Justice conflate fraud, profit, and mercury to poison our minds with racist assumptions about Asia's Tech Sector when there is no evidence that the goods were dumped?  The crime Total Reclaim execs pled guilty to was lying about the export, not knowing the goods were dumped or that the buyers were poisoned.

It's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Intercon Sentencing, Defamation, and Charity vs Charity Grudge Match

Chicago's Hall of Mirror Balls

Several people heard a "whoosh" sound while reading the April Fools Day Blog.  The BAN vs ERA of Canada - two recognized tax charities - defamation lawsuit was dropped about the same time.  But ERA's leader Bojan Paduh (a refugee of Bosnia during the 1990s civil war) is someone I got to know as a result of the lawsuit.  His anger at BAN is absolutely seething in a way I have not heard since Brian Brundage sued the NGO 6 years ago. (For April Fool reference, see email from BAN at bottom).

I told Bojan that I had indeed, more than once, considered a defamation lawsuit against BAN. Brian Brundage (like Bojan) had asked if I was interested in joining class action (shared legal cost) approach.  I spoke to an attorney about it in 2012, when Basel Action Network told a Chicago Newspaper that I was "lying through my teeth" and that the "state of the art" reuse and recycling facilities I had visited and eyewitnessed in Asia were a "myth". According to the reporter, BAN warned him against even listening to me, stating I was mentally ill and that everyone in the recycling community knew it.

"Most libel cases are filed by private citizens. There are reasons for that. Private citizens have a much lower bar to hurdle. They have to prove that the statement was factually wrong, that it was published, that it referred to them and damaged their reputation—and that somebody is responsible for it. That the person who made the statements was negligent." - Guy Bergstrom, "To Sue or Not to Sue: Libel"

Now BAN has learned a thing or two from their experience paying attorneys to defend them in defamation and liable lawsuits.  The 2012 attack on me was certainly explicit and personal, not against a company and not a vague "opinion".  They explicitly warned a reporter not to talk to me, and gave reasons why I was not credible.  Because BAN had to take the unusual step of apologizing and retracting their statements, I get contacted a lot for advice from others wanting to sue BAN. But they have learned to be a little more cautious in some cases (like using the term "likely illegal" against ERA, instead of "illegal", as they claimed in 2012).

Instead of suing, I accepted BAN's apology, which was run in the same Chicago Patch newspaper. I was not really satisfied with the apology, because it did not remove the insult or racial profiling I originally objected to. I was not the person being defamed, it was the Tech Sector overseas, the poor people who make a lot more money repairing rich peoples stuff than they can make repairing poor peoples stuff.

Cease and Desist Campaign. Yes. We are "behind it".

To those of you forwarding the emails announcing that importers are "pushing back" on the finger-pointing watchdogs, the answer is yes.  Though the words "behind it" have many meanings.

We stand behind the importers.   The geeks of color in Africa, South America, and Asia who have been labelled "mostly primitive" in their importation of an ill-defined word "e-waste".   The technicians who know more about capacitors than we do, who are asked for "proof" and "evidence" that they are not burning the computers they carefully spec'd out, flew to the EU, Canada and USA, and paid good money for.

"Refurbishing of EEE and the sales of used EEE is an important economic sector (e.g. Alaba market in Lagos). It is a well-organized and  a dynamic  sector that holds the potential for further industrial development. Indirectly, the sector has another important economic role, as it supplies low and middle income households with affordable ICT equipment and other EEE. In the view of the sector’s positive socio-economic performance, all policy measures aiming to improve e-waste management in Nigeria should refrain from undifferentiated banning of  second-hand imports and refurbishing activities and strive for a co-operative approach by including the market and sector associations."  - UNEP Study 2012

"I am very satisfied with the quality of the UNEP studies. I know well the authors and have worked with them and discussed findings with them."  - Jim Puckett, Executive Director, BAN.org  

We have focused on the source of the presumption of guilt, that dirty little secret circulated by Basel Action Network.    Repeated by SVTC and ETBC and Greenpeace.   No doubt believed by many who trust their eyes when Jim Puckett shows them photographs, rather than their heads.

Caught black-handed

With the admission last month that the UNEP studied the containers BAN accused, and found them to be predominantly the reuse equipment the importers claimed it is, BAN has backed away from the Interpol "Project Eden" campaign.  But BAN is completely behind the false information provided to Emile Lundemiller in the Interpol "Organized Crime" E-waste report.

When a city like Lagos has six million households with televisions, it has many environmental problems.  Disposing of its own "ewaste" is one of those problems.   Fair Trade Recycling is an attempt to finance solutions by empowering the technicians who import used equipment with the tools to take back tomorrow's junk, and the methods to recycle it responsibly.

Sign a letter, or sign a petition.   Tell BAN, ETBC, and Greenpeace to "Cease and Desist".

Eerie Quiet on the Interpol E-Waste Report

Is it just me?


Interpol, the International Police Agency, issued a press release on a sweeping number of arrests of African used electronics traders.   As one of the first bloggers to react to the report, I expected another round of back-slapping by the anti-e-waste juggernauts.

I posted the Interpol press advisory without much commentary, in their own words, two weeks ago.

It seems quiet.

Oblique Notes: South Park Intercon Basel Action Network Reference

PS, I did not link the video to the South Park - Russell Crowe episode, in part because video slows readers in some of the blog's subscription markets.  Also I'm not sure of SP "fair use" policy, they offer streaming of complete episodes online but not on youtube.

But some people don't know the episode, so below the fold there's a link to the episode and a link to the Russell Crowe song "Fighting Round the World".  Also, some people aren't aware of the Intercon CEO's video, which partly inspired the South Park reference (and any reference to "defamation lawsuit", South Park Studios, and a Hollywood star, gets points in my Ingenthron scorebook).

Read the weekend blog, the defense of Intercon. It's important.  BAN is the one "fighting 'round the world", picking on people in exotic locales.  Brundage is the guy who finally says "might as well be me".

Clip, episode link, lyrics, and Intercon CEO kung fu videos below.

Friend Of The Court: BAN Defamation of Intercon

Below is why I think the case of defamation against Basel Action Network is long overdue.

The defamation case I'd suggest is as follows.  Whether or not Intercon exported hazardous waste, BAN did not know what exactly Intercon supposedly shipped at the time they notified China's EPA.  BAN also knows that China considers used tested working laptops to be hazardous waste.  BAN also knows, that when they broadcast the Chinese determination, that most people will assume the "crime" to be shipping raw unsorted junk, 80% waste, to a yard where children will burn it.  BAN knows about "profiling" the export market - because BAN invented the profile, and makes all their cash from it.

This may be Little Big Horn.  BAN may have finally bitten off more than they can chew.  The Intercon Case looks to me like STRIKE THREE vs. the Basel Action Network

It is Criminal in China to import "second hand" material.  The Chinese Communist Party owns factories which make new goods, and is not shy about enforcing its plans for obsolescence.  If BAN were a local activist group, they could be forgiven for making the assumption that an unknown - working laptop, repairable monitor, or bale of Christmas Tree lights, might be hazardous.  But they play it both ways, as the foremost most knowledgeable, certifying authority, and the well-meaning activist "just asking questions".

BAN shifts nimbly from legal expert, to paid representative, to a hyping watchdog.  In this particular case, of the Chicago Heights recycler, BAN knows that the container may have contained A) working equipment, B) scrap sent to an honorable professional recycler, or C) perhaps hazardous waste for children to burn... but BAN did not know which one when they made their announcement... because the Chinese source (whom they notified to inspect) makes NO distinction between these "second hand" goods.

In this particular case, when BAN informed the Chinese that Intercon had shipped the containerload, the determination by the Chinese official to call the second-hand goods (working, repairable, recyclable, or waste) a "hazardous waste" was a virtual certainty.

At a conference in Washington DC, EPA, Interpol officials met for a special session on "e-Waste" exports.  Jim Puckett was in attendance, and was a speaker.  On the same day, a speaker from the Sino EPA in Hong Kong spoke to the group in English.   He spoke about "green wastes", a listing China was going to propose to improve imports.  He also spoke about China's intention to stop "trans-boundary" movement of containers which change ships in Hong Kong's port.

[The latter was quite disturbing to me... China may be the competent authority for what is defined as "waste" and "hazardous" within China (though it may not, the courts in Hong Kong would allow a suit to bring Department of Commerce in to challenge a "non-commodity" or "non-property" ruling).  But for China to say it can declare a commodity to be "waste" when it is shipped from Party A to Party B, and enters the port of China (Party C) in transit, is an alarming precedent to announce.]

I raised my hand from the audience and was called on to ask a question.  It was a question I had asked Chinese EPA officials in Hong Kong a few years earlier.  I had been told that China identifies ANYTHING "second hand" to be waste.  I asked whether, if I brought a one-week old fully functional tested working laptop with me to China, and decided to give it as a gift to a Chinese host, whether my prior use of the laptop rendered it "waste" and "hazardous waste".  The Chinese Official (I can find his name) said I was right, it's an environmental crime.  That the laptop was second hand, and contained circuit boards, and therefore it would be an illegal transboundary movement in China.

Second-hand is defined as "waste" in China.  So a Chinese "discovery" of second hand equipment may sound  a lot worse than it is.  You just don't know until you get the contents of the container.

BAN's leader Jim Puckett was at this meeting, and he and I have had this discussion in person, and he knows full well that China would identify any tested working equipment as "hazardous waste".  According to his website, he's been an expert in these laws for over a decade.  By contrast, Basel Convention (Annex IX B1110) considers even non-working second-hand equipment to be potentially commodity and not waste (if sent for repair), and the USA considers the intent of the buyer and shipper in the determination.   BAN has its own definition involving removal of parts prior to repair (no one in the world does this, to my knowledge).  The point is that the "determination" is used by BAN in its press release to confuse journalists, just as they confused CBS, PBS, and Terry Gross about the "80%" of the world which generates half of all e-waste on their own.


BAN is an expert on these issues of determination and trade barriers, and yet claims they relied on the inspection of a Chinese authority in making a public announcement about Intercon.  BAN cannot claim not to know that the definition of the Chinese authority included non-hazardous and even working items.  (In fact there is a WTO lawsuit over China's use of environmental labels as a non-tariff trade barrier).   By telling China that Intercon had shipped a container, and that Intercon was a trader in second-hand electronics, BAN had basically set in motion a test which Intercon would fail no matter what the contents of Intercon's containers. If BAN didn't know the contents to start with, it was a reckless act to sick the Chinese enforcer on the container in the first place.  And the signs are that BAN couldn't wait to announce what they were going to announce... they launched at Intercon the same way as they launched at Asian and African businesspeople in the past.

China's interpretation of second-hand makes it a watchdog that bites everybody, criminals, children, and mailmen.  I know that, and BAN knows that.  But the American public is going to believe that there was a criminal involved, based on BAN's "information" that 80% of all USA second hand goods are wastes burned in primitive conditions.

Did BAN defame Intercon?  We know for a fact that BAN is in the defamation business.  It's what they do. They defame people every day... this was Strike 3.   Perhaps this time they defamed the wrong guy.