Since the WSJ first reported on the famed instrument-maker’s battle with the feds over rare wood used in its guitars last week, people across the country have rallied to Gibson’s side. The company’s CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz has publicized his legal plight –and the heavy-handed, botched enforcement tactics of a Justice Department bent on mis-applying foreign laws to American workers.

Federal agents first raided Gibson factories in November 2009 and were back again Aug. 24, seizing guitars, wood and electronic records. Gene Nix, a wood product engineer at Gibson, was questioned by agents after the first raid and told he could face five years in jail.

“Can you imagine a federal agent saying, ‘You’re going to jail for five years’ and what you do is sort wood in the factory?” said Mr. Juszkiewicz, recounting the incident. “I think that’s way over the top.” Gibson employees, he said, are being “treated like drug criminals.”

Mr. Nix hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

…The government has focused on a March 2009 shipment of ebony from Madagascar intended for guitar fingerboards. Madagascar law bars the export of certain unfinished wood products, according to both Gibson and the government. Gibson says the ebony had been cut into pieces and that local officials approved the export as a legal sale of finished goods.

U.S. officials described the wood as “sawn timber” and said Madagascar officials were “defrauded” by a local exporter about the nature of the product.

Gibson says the government is trying to “second guess” the Madagascar government. “The U.S. government’s startling position smacks of something from an Orwell novel,” Gibson said in a July 15 court filing in federal district court in Nashville.

Ben Howe at RedState spotlights Juszkiewicz’s recent KMJ interview in which the CEO revealed that the feds asserted in a court pleading that Gibson would be better off shipping their manufacturing labor overseas to Madagascar (be sure to click on the link to listen to the interview). Howe adds:

So the government attacked them in the first place by citing obscure regulations that probably weren’t violated about importation of wood. Now they are suggesting that all these problems would go away if they simply exported their labor.

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