This Custom of Customs

Customs may be a pain when you're traveling, but it's a necessary instrument the government uses to regulate trade. And it has a very fascinating history. Your passport please?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and then most of all,
there's Jerry over there, Jerome Jay stir. Yeah, and this

(00:24):
is stuff you should know. That's right, Jerry's all dirty
from shoveling coal from the steam Technology episode. She is.
And if you don't mind, I would like to point
out something very exciting. No, I do mine. Let's keep
going right now. This is the very first episode out
of eight hundred and seventy plus episodes where Josh is

(00:44):
wearing short pants. Why would you say that, I do mind?
I do mind. I take it back, because I've seen
you wear shorts like twice in my life. Well, hold on, Hunt,
get a load of this. Well, aside from every morning
when we tumble out of our bunk beds, of course
you're wearing your off tuxedo pants. Those are boxers. But yeah,

(01:07):
you never wear shorts as a rule, so I was
astounded that you wore them into the office. Well I
like astounding you. I like to just, you know, mix
things up. Once every eight years. I look forward to
what's going to happen in year Sixteo does some quick
math Chuck, Hey, I used to play darts. Oh you

(01:27):
know there's a dartboard here but no backboard. Yeah, it's
it's it's just like freewheeling. Who cares about the drywall
kind of situation very much. Sixteen is a big number
in darts, so you get used to adding and subtracting it,
is it? Yeah, what's the bulls eye worth a million? Well,

(01:47):
I mean it depends. There's historically two games that you'll
play in darts, either cricket or OH one three one
or five on one. I've never heard that second one. Well,
that's really the main game. Like if you watch professional
darts when they show it once a you're on ESPN,
which is great fun by the way. Uh, they're playing
OH one, which is where you start with three D
one or five one and you work your way down

(02:09):
to zero. Oh so you're getting rid of points. Yeah.
So you're throwing just for as high numbers as you
can the triple ring and um, like a ton of
eight is the most you can hit. That's three triple
twenties and they throw which is amazing. So, well, what's
the what's the bulls eye worth? Then the bulls I

(02:31):
and O one is worth uh fifty on the red
and on the green. And then you have to boy,
we should do a show on this. Well yeah, I
guess we are right now. And then you have to
go out on an like let's say you have thirty
two left. You have to go out on a double.
See if they'd a double sixteen to go out? Man,
this sounds tough, and everybody does this drunk. Yeah, that's

(02:54):
really impressive. Right, I didn't know you played darts. Yeah,
I played in Athens in the League and then Atlanta
and Eague. And you know Justin Is he's like chairman
or something of the dark League of at least he
makes everybody call him that, right, call me chairman. We
should do on the darts man. I used to love playing.
Don't do it much anymore. Okay, let's do it. So shorts,

(03:17):
darts and past Yeah, and on Wednesdays we wear pink.
Today's Tuesday, though, so I'm wearing shorts. I'm wondering how
many things I got wrong just in that little five minute.
The same thing. Anytime we explain something, we get something wrong.
Have you noticed and our job is to explain things,

(03:38):
which is sad. I know, so, Chuckers. You know how
when you go through the airport and you come back
into the country from out of the country. When we
were in the UK, did you notice it took longer
than usual to get through the airport to your stuff
and out. Yes, although Emily and I get pretty lucky. Um,

(04:01):
it was a pretty speedy experience. That's great, but it
can vary wildly. Yeah. And the thing that can vary
wildly is called customs passing through customs and actually it
used to be um, customs and immigration, which depending on
the port you're flying into, whether it be a seaport
and airport, spaceport, interdimensional port, heliport, heliport yeah, um, scuba port, sure,

(04:28):
submarine port yep, thin airport. I guess that's the same
as an airport. Huh Um. Those might have been two
different agencies, customs and immigration, not so in in two
thousand three. As a two thousand three in the United States,
they were mixed together and put under Department of Homeland Security,

(04:48):
and now they're called Customs and Border Protection and there
are there one agency now, yes, But the point is
when you come through there if you encountered back in
the day the Customs Agency, they would have said, hey,
you're a person. We don't care about you. We don't
care where you've been, we don't care where you're going,
we don't care where you were born. But we want

(05:10):
to know what's on you. Would you buy while you
were out of the country. Did you buy something? Tell
us and they might grab your shirt and shake you
a little bit. If they're tough guys. Uh, and you
start crying, for sure, they'd see to it. And then uh,
if you say, well, I got this thousand dollar watched,
they say, you know, the United States government some money, buddy.

(05:30):
That's right. It is a It is a way to
regulate importing and exporting. Yeah, and when trade right, trade exactly.
And trade is obviously a very old concept, right. Any
any time one group had a surplus that another group wanted.
I got lots of potatoes, Well I got lots of wheat. Right,
let's trade, let's trade right. Well, at some point people said, wait, wait,

(05:52):
this is going way too smoothly. We need to interject
a federal entity to um extract some sort of tribute
from this trade. That's what a duty is. That's what
a tariff is. It's a government coming in and saying, uh,
we want a piece of that action. And depending on
how you look at it, it can go one way.
Like you can say, well, the federal government is is

(06:15):
actually promoting domestic business, which is true in a way, right, Yeah,
it's good. I mean it's a good way to discourage
doing business overseas is by imposing heavier and heavier tariffs. Use,
if somebody's manufacturing potatoes overseas cheaper than they're manufactured here, um,
the American people are going to say, well, we want

(06:37):
these Irish potatoes, they're way cheaper, um, sure, And the U. S.
Government will say, well, we want you guys buying domestic
potatoes because it helps our economy. Have you ever been
to Idaho? Right, everybody loves Idaho. Why don't you want
to help out the Idahoans. And so they'll they'll place
a tariff for a duty or just basically an extra

(06:58):
tax on potatoes that are sourced from outside of the
country coming in so that they cost about the same,
so that any red blooded American will say, well, it's
about the same to buy Idaho potato as it is
to buy Irish potato. I'm gonna buy the Idaho potato
and the federal government goes yeah, yeah, they say, look
at it, it's stamped with a pesticide that has made

(07:19):
new Let's say they stamped with the pestiscids, thinking how
that would work. Uh, should we talk a little bit
about the history of this, Yeah, because this is actually
this this technique of the US federal government. Certainly not
just the US that does this, but there's customs agencies.
It's just about any developed country around the world, and
I would say developing as well. Um, this this this

(07:43):
custom of customs, thank you. It's about as old as
the United States itself. Yeah. And like everything in the
United States, it starts with Alexander Hamilton's. It's true that
guy is so hot right now. Uh. I just bought
some Alexander Amilton futures the other day, so I'm sitting
pretty you just broke my brain. Uh So what happened was, um,

(08:09):
Hamilton's said, here's the deal, dudes, we don't have taxation
yet because we were fleeing that kind of junk. But
we're in trouble because we need some sort of revenue
going to support our growing government, but not only that
in our growing nations infrastructure, plus we have a lot
of debts from the Revolutionary War, loads of debts. Apparently,

(08:31):
the early Congress used to DeCamp from one city to
another because they were being chased by war veterans who
are owned money. They had nowhere to go. They had
no Washington, d c. Yet. No, but I mean they
were it was Congress and they were on the run
from revolutionary war vets who wanted their money. So while
Hamilton's did not himself start the US custom Service, the way,

(08:55):
where did you find this? The National US Customs Museum Foundation. Yes,
from the horse's mouth. They they counted him as the
intellectual father of customs, which I think is a great
way to put it, because he said, look, we can't
have a federal government unless the federal government can support itself.
And the only way the federal government can support itself
is if it imposes um levies on things that it

(09:17):
really has nothing to do with. Yeah, So President George Washington,
the number one guy, said you're onto something here, like
the cut of your jib, Hamilton's, but it's a little
weird with domestic taxation right now, Like, yeah, we can't
do that Yeah, people aren't keen on that just yet. Uh, Like,
we'll screw people far worse in the future, don't you worry. Yeah,

(09:40):
just wait, but right now people aren't hip to the idea. Yeah,
we tried to text corn and the whiskey rebellion happened. So, um,
why don't we do this, Why don't we impost tariffs
on imports and raise money that way, and let's create
the first Congress. Let's get together and create the U
s Custom Service four months after we ratify the Constitution

(10:01):
pretty quick, really quick, and it quickly grew to be
for many, many, many years. In fact, for most of
the history of the United States, the single largest government
agency in terms of size and revenue. Yeah. For the
first hundred and twenty two years of its existence, it
was the number one revenue generator. And then the I
r S came along and they said, they said, you

(10:22):
can collect revenue. Just watch this. Yeah, and they did.
In two thousand fifteen, Um, the Customs Agency collected I
think thirty five billion dollars. Yeah, the I r S
collected three point three trillion dollars. Oh my god, stomach

(10:43):
turns of the Yeah. Wow, that really threw me. I
didn't make you a libertarian in all right, So I
mentioned Washington, d C. When earlier like, we don't even
have a right right. Money from teriffs built Washington, d C.
Money from tariffs built the Transatlantic Transcontinental Railroad built all

(11:05):
those lighthouses that we talked about, the Louisiana purchase, the
purchase of Alaska Ka Seward's folly one point five million
square miles of land purchased using tariffs via the Customs Office.
Right if it hadn't have been for the Customs Agency, um,
the United States would have only been able to expand
its territory through broken treaties, the which we were find doing. Sure,

(11:30):
but apparently they wanted to legitimize it somewhat yea. So
um we said, well, we'll just pay for some of it, yea.
Napoleon pennies on the dollar give us that area, okay. Uh,
Like we said, they were the first and only federal
law enforcement agency, and for a long time they handled
kind of everything, um like they were they were doing

(11:53):
way many more things than they should be doing. Uh.
So out of the custom Service was born things like immigration,
like you said, Coast Guard, border patrol, the v a
public Health Service and the d e A all were
Formerly all that stuff was under the purview of the
Custom Service and the Census Bureau and the Standards and

(12:13):
Measures Agency, all those cats. Because apparently it used to
be a Congress would say, oh, we need this, we
need to start doing this, just have Customs do it,
and Customs would do it for decades and then finally
be like, dude, you got to just we have to
have this off as its own agency. Eventually they got smart. Yeah,
and now that's that's what makes UM. What happened in

(12:35):
two thousand three so curious. Uh, Customs itself got folded
in with other agencies and then put under the banner
of another larger agency, the exact opposite of what has
historically been the case. Yeah, I didn't think of it
that way. Uh. So the Customs Agency and services a
long tradition in its early years of UM what was

(12:55):
called the spoils system. Uh. And that's basically crony is
m political loyalties and and hooking your buddies up and
your donors up, but like fat cat jobs, not in
any kind of underhanded or shadier back back room deal way,
like overtly yes, like you raised a lot of political

(13:16):
funds for my campaign. So here's a cherry position in
the federal government's bureaucracy via the Custom Service. And there
have been some famous men over the years, Yes, some
of our best writers actually, yeah, weirdly, Um, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
he was a disc well I'm not too distant. He
was an ancestor of the Pilgrims, a descendant a descendant, right,

(13:40):
they were his ancestors backwards. Uh. And he's the great
grandson of the judge who uh sat at the Salem
witch trials. So he got a fat position with the
Boston Custom House as the wayer engager, Yeah, which apparently
was pretty important because you'd be like, let me, let

(14:02):
me gauge that steal to see how much money you
will you know. Yeah, And it allowed him to make
money enough because they were sitting on the side. Don't
you think it's a more less expensive gauge than what
you just got? And he would say, laid on me
string being and he say I'm gonna knock off at
noon today and go write some more stuff. Yeah. Like

(14:22):
the museum website makes this case like not just for Hawthorne,
but later on from Melville too, that both of them
were able to pursue their writing careers because of the
stability that the um working at Customs gave them. They
credit the Customs Agency for bringing Herman Melville out of

(14:42):
an alcoholic depression following his failed attempt at a career
in writing. Yeah, and I didn't even I mean, this
is a side note, but I didn't even realize that
Melville was not popular until after his death. Moby Dick
didn't blow up till what like twenty four years later
something like that. Yeah, everybody's like this book, thinks I

(15:03):
still haven't read it, have you? No, have you ever
read Bartleby the Scrivener though I made it through that. No,
it's one of his good, better short stories. It's just weird. Now.
I don't think I read an email bill. That's a
good one. I've got. I've got Billy Budd and I've
read maybe a third of it. It's just so tough
to read that guy's writing. I think probably even back

(15:26):
then it was tough. But you know, to be a
century in a quarter or century and a half removed
from that type of you know, thought and that type
of language in writing, it's it's even harder it stense. Yeah.
For a while there, I was kind of of the
mind of like, can I die without having read Moby Dick?

(15:47):
And I kind of struggle with that, and then I
could be like just about everybody was totally I'm fine. Yeah,
so you're not gonna do it? Huh No, I'd rather see,
you know, a movie I haven't seen. It's only takes
a couple hours of you can see the waning years
that I have in front of me. Thirty movies The
Castle Blankets. Still never seen that, and I need to.

(16:08):
I should not die without seeing Yeah, and you should
see Train Spotting? Why not the two classics? Right? Uh?
I guess we need to talk about Prohibition a little
bit too, with customs and their history, because um, we
had a great episode on Prohibition. Sure, what do they
call it? The noble Experiment? Yeah? I never called it

(16:29):
that the dumb experiment. But this article points out that
never in the history of customs has been more dangerous
to work for Customs than during Prohibition, like straight up
gangster stuff who were much more well funded than Customs was,
and we're they would whack you, oh yeah forgetting in

(16:50):
their way. Yep. It was also like a high time
for bribery too. Customs agents were bribed like mad. Oh,
I'm sure. And actually there was like, uh, there was
a I don't know if it was a general accounting
office or somebody did an investigation of UM customs and
said they were We haven't found any like systematic bribery

(17:12):
going on or systemic bribery, but just the very presence
of drugs in the United States, like in the massive
quantities that's in indicates that somebody's getting bribed somewhere. It's
just impossible not to. Uh. We should do a show
on rum runners too, because just this little piece tickled

(17:33):
my fancy. UM. They would they had much better boats
and much faster boats than Customs did, so they would
bring this mother ship they called it, parked a few
miles offshore where it was legal to be there international
loaded with rum, and then the speedboats would um or
you know for the time speed boats, uh would just

(17:55):
make runs out to this boat as fast as they could,
and the customs people like, we need speedy boats to
do right. Well, that's where speedboats came from. His prohibition. Yeah, yeah,
and we I think we already talked about the NASCAR
thing with the fast cars came from prohibition. So a
lot of speed came out of prohibition, and not the
druggy kind that came out of the Nazis in World

(18:16):
War Two. I really that's the rumor. I don't know. Well, uh,
let's take a break and then we'll come back and
talk a bit more about what customs means today. Chuck. Yes,

(18:51):
so we're back. We're talking customs, um. And when when
you talk customs like you're talking again about a the
line of defense between unfettered trade across borders and um,
not just with not just among uh major companies like

(19:15):
importers and exporters and um, you know, manufacturers and consumers
and all that, but also in an individual level, which
is why it takes so long to come into the
States or another country, um, because you have to go
through customs, right. Their their their aim is to regulate trade,
no matter how large or how small. Yeah. And I

(19:37):
kind of was surprised that they generated the kind of
revenue they did because I was only thinking about schmos
like US, but big businesses, and I mean it was
a dummy. I wasn't even thinking that they play Obviously
the biggest part in revenue because they pay those big
tiraffs on millions and billions of dollars worth of goods

(19:57):
that they import. And um, it's stuff to regular that
kind of stuff. You can't inspect every shipping container, although
very random there is. There is something called the Safe
Ports Act that was passing two thousand and six, and
it's it called for one of containers that enter US

(20:18):
ports of any type to be scanned either with X
rays or like cat scans or something like that, but
to be noninvasively scanned. And um, it was supposed to
be add up to a percent by two thousand twelve.
Didn't happen. They gave it to your extension, didn't happen,
given another two year extension. Yeah, still hasn't happened. And um,

(20:43):
but they're ramping up though. Here's the thing. There's a
big debate like a lot like the National Retail Federation
I think is the big mouthpiece for manufacturers in this.
In this um argument, they're saying, dude, this is you
can't do it, Like if you do this, it will
cease trade, it will wreck trade in the United States.
And other people are saying like, well, you guys need

(21:03):
to figure that out because we've got to have our
ports safe. We need to know everything that's coming in.
Why would it wreck trade? But because it will just hold,
the delays will will Like um, I remember like when
this first got proposed and they were trying to implement it.
I think it was like an MPR piece about the
port at Long Beach and there was just like all

(21:24):
this fruit just sitting there rotting offshore because there was
a line to get to get the stuff inspected. And
so they're staying still they're pushing for this percent mandate
and and other like the the people involved in the
importing and exporting and manufacturing and stuff for saying like
you can't do it, you just can't do it. Yeah,
there's gotta be other ways. And some of the other

(21:46):
ways they're talking about here like um uh having like
e seals where like a container is verified to have
you know, X amount of weight or whatever, and then
it's sealed digitally and then um, when it enters support,
it goes through like an r F I D scanner
and the e CeAl is verified intact somehow and then

(22:08):
you know or you have a pretty great idea that
the the container has not been messed with since its
point of origin is an awesome idea, it is, but
at the same time you have to rely on the
people at the point of origin and not to be like, yeah, sure,
there's the same amount of cocaine that we put in
there at the at the port where we send it from.
So yeah, it weighs the same, but it's still cocaine

(22:29):
that you don't want in the in the country, you
know what I mean, depending on who you are. Well,
then maybe the country of export their regulations need to
be st and and well. And there's an international proposal
called the Safety of Life at See I think where

(22:52):
it's mandating a of all containers worldwide need to be
weighed and verified before setting sale. Interesting, So I guess
if you put those together you could have a pretty
pretty legitimate international trade network. We should do one on
shipping containers sometimes because apparently that changed the world. Well,

(23:13):
this sounds like it could be a big part of
our platform for our run for the presidency in So
are we in favor of the percent mandate or do
we think it's insane? Well, I'll say we figured that out, okay,
But either way, that's going to be a big like
your r F I D thing. Okay, it's not mine,
per se. I've just said what somebody else came up.

(23:34):
As far as I'm concerned, it's yours things. Uh So
all right, we were talking about business of course just then,
but before you teased with the single individual, which is
what most of us, unless you're an import or exporter,
have had more uh experience with. So what happens is
you come into the United States or any country but

(23:57):
for US citizens. So we'll come back home, okay from abroad,
which we just did after our wonderful trip to Ireland
in the United Kingdom, and they count on you, um,
just as the as though they can't inspect every shipping container,
they can't investigate each of our individual shipping containers, which
is our body in our suitcases. So they count on

(24:20):
you too, honestly declare, say, I declare that I bought
I'm not gonna pay a lot for this monthly that
I bought uh uh In in France, I bought my
daughter a little backpack. I think it's ugly, but she
likes it. And uh I bought my mother a tea
towel at ke Gardens, which I just think it's gross

(24:41):
and that's it. That's all we bought. It was all
forty five American dollars. And I'm going to write this
down a piece of paper and hand it to you
and take my word for it. Yes, and we should
talk about this, Chuck. Um. I found a great explainer
from mental Flaws that really breaks down the the procedure
and what the expectations of when you, the individual traveler

(25:03):
entering the United States, are expected to say to customs, Right,
so forty five dollars. Surely you can just be like,
who cares about a t towel and a backpack that
my daughter is using. That's just luggage now, So anyway, um,
you would think, obviously you don't have to say anything
about this, right, Well, if you're dummy, yes, supposedly not

(25:27):
only are you supposed to declare this and write down
the value of what you think it is, um or
what you think the value is or the actual value
based on the receipt um you If Chuck, you you
take your daughter's backpack now that you've bought it and
already brought it into the country, if you take it
back out and like one of the straps comes off

(25:48):
and you get it fixed abroad. You have to write
down that you got your daughter's backpack fixed abroad and
how much that costs you. Yeah, Or if like a
boy have been loading up on pay streets in Paris,
I need to have my pants let out an inch,
Supposedly you have to cover that and claim your new

(26:08):
larger pants. Anything you buy inherit or have repaired abroad
or altered, Yep, you have to pay. You have to
declare you don't necessarily have to pay a duty on
it though. And that's that's um where the exemption come in. Yeah,
and uh, it varies from country to country. In the
United States, what is it eight hundred dollars? It depends

(26:29):
on where you are. Eight hundred bucks is typical, but
it can go up to sixteen hundred bucks. If you're
in an insular possession like Guam, American Samoa or the
US Virgin Islands, you can buy sixteen hundred dollars with
the stuff and get bring it in duty free. Or
if you're married, you can declare as a family and
each individual gets that allotment. Correct, right, So if you

(26:51):
have something that's like twelve dollars and Emily's bringing in
something that's like four hundred dollars. You can combine the
two and both jointly. Uh, come jointly declare him for
you can combine your exemptions. But let me say that
on vacation, what you've never bought anything for a thousand
dollars except food and wine, And that's accumulative amount. But

(27:17):
that's a whole other bag. Yeah, but you know there
was a good rate going on those for bush meat,
Like it's almost cheaper to buy it than not buy it,
oh abroad by one here get ripped off? Uh? I
remember I might have said this one before. My friend
Andrew one time, his old grandmother was talking about how

(27:39):
it's cheaper to go on a cruise than to just
stay in New York. So she cruised all the time.
Is that right? She was like, Oh, it's cheaper to
go on the cruise. I don't know if that's true,
but for her it was, or at least she said
it was. I thought it was very quaint and funny
at least. Yeah, you mean I went on a cruise
and there was a legendary woman on there who had
been on We went and like may she lived, the

(28:00):
woman who'd been on since December. She just kept like
signing up for the next Creuse state on the boat
the whole time. It was just having the time of
her life. Crazy. We never saw her though. I think
they just used that to be like, yeah, if you
want to sign up for the next one, and then
when you say no, they don't speak to you for
the rest of the cruise. That'd be great. Actually, don't

(28:22):
bother me, Yeah, let me alone. Uh where else? Um,
there are different growth programs in in certain countries like
the Caribbean and uh sub Saharans Africa where you can
bring back more duty free items. So I guess just
trying to encourage more trade with those places, which makes sense. Yeah,
So you have an exemption up the eight hundred bucks

(28:44):
and after that, after the eight hundred bucks, Um, you
have to start paying duty on stuff, right and obviously
if you go over by a hundred dollars, you're gonna
be You're gonna get hit hard. What No, not the case. Okay,
I thought you were being serious. No, No, duty's still
not that much. It's nothing. So if you if you

(29:08):
I think that the first thousand dollars after your exemption,
so you would have to you would have to spend
on stuff that you're bringing back in right, Um, it's
still just three. So if you're trying to like, so
what is the thirty bucks on a thousand dollars worth
of of stuff? Yeah, if you if you bought things
for a couple hundred dollars and you're trying to sneak

(29:29):
it in there to avoid duty, you're just being foolish.
You're you're dummy. Yeah, it's like a few dollars on
that level. And the mental fALS article actually makes it
the point that, um, you won't even necessarily be charged
that extra additional duty because that requires paperwork that the
customs officer has to fill out to collect you know,
five or ten bucks from you. They're probably is gonna

(29:52):
be like, just keep it go. Yeah, you don't have
any bags of cocaine in pellets in your stomach, dude,
you know, come on look at me, and they all right,
we'll go through. And and what's funny is you're allowed
one leader of booze, two d cigarettes and a hundred

(30:14):
cigars is a lot. Yeah, that's what I thought. Um,
unless you're an infant or a baby, you can have
the eight hundred dollar exemption as a baby. But it
doesn't apply to tobacco or alcohol. But so you're just
allowed one leader per person through customs duty free. And
what's funny is everybody stops right there. Oh well, I
can't have more than one leader. You can buy more

(30:36):
than one leader, and if it's like twenty five bucks,
you're gonna spend seventy five extra cents on the duty
it doesn't matter. Yeah, And I just, uh, I want
to go on record as saying I hate duty free
shops why because they are awful. It's just like it's
like one giant and especially in an international airport, you're

(30:58):
forced to walk through this giant cosmetics assault of cosmetics
and and perfume me since and you know me, and
my smells like I started sneezing walking through there, and
it's and it's all just I mean duty I was
looking up I was like, how much of a deal
is this? And it really depends on what you're getting. Well,

(31:20):
with with alcohol and tobacco especially, it's usually a much
better deal. Well it's it depends on where you are
and what you're buying. Like I looked up um this
one site that compared a lot of airports and boozes
and like this one booze I don't even know was
it was. It was something some Italian booze in like Germany.
It was cheaper, so very good deal. But then I

(31:44):
looked up Jack Daniels and they listed fourteen airports around
the world and it was no more than like three
dollars cheaper at any of them, or three euros. I
think it's more like the thrill of buying some booze
and think it's a big That's what I think it is.
It's just a big scam. Duty free everybody. Well, what's
funny is if you if you buy a thousand dollars

(32:06):
worth of booze um, you will get that first leader exempted.
But then after that you'll have to pay a duty
on it, even if you bought it at the duty
free airport, because duty free when it's a duty free store,
like they're saying, we don't have to pay duty on it.
We're gonna pass the savings on to you. But if
you past your exemption when you go into your home country,

(32:29):
you have to pay duty because the duty free refers
to the owners of the store. Yeah, they should be
called duty free for me, right and maybe for you,
depending on where you're at with your exemption, which is
a clunky thing to call an area airport. Instead they
just call it things remembered well. And I didn't know
this because I haven't been on a transatlantic flight in

(32:51):
so many years. But they sell that junk on the plane.
Oh yeah. They were walking up and down the aisle
talking watches that I that doesn't bother me as much
as the credit card pushing the credit cards. But they
have like a seven minute announcement about how they have
this great credit card deal and get it now and
don't you want this? And then they send the people

(33:13):
up the aisle like credit card credit card? Who wants
a credit card? I just want to fly in peace,
you know. Just all I want to do is just
fly on Delta and listen to stuff you should know.
And wants your Internet round up? Uh hey, shout out
to Virgin Atlantic, though I had a good experience flying
with him. They're a partner of Delta's. I wouldn't expect

(33:34):
anything less. Yeah, it was very nice. They don't Nickel
and dime you And I said that on the web
on Facebook the other day and someone from the UK said,
what does Nicol and Dime you mean Hill and I
guess Pence and Farthings maybe, Um no, I said, it's
I guess it's a strictly American term for like just

(33:55):
charging you little bits for every little thing, like you know,
the pillows, this buch of the movies as much that
your phones. Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure, Like you know
all the movies were free to give you headphones, which
I've already had my own, and giving an eyemask and
a toothbrush, and it's all just very nice and civil
like it used to be to put you in a
sleeper hold until you fall asleep if you ask him to. Yeah,

(34:16):
this lovely English gentleman put me in a sleeper was hilarious,
said ninety night. You're sleep now, mate, all right, And
we covered duty and its fullness. No, but we should
probably take a break, all right, and well more duty
after this. Alright, Chuck, we're back and we're talking about duty.

(34:55):
I hate duty, do you, No? I just hate the
I already w off on duty free. Yeah, I've got it.
Feels like just this that gross consumers. I'm like black Friday.
Oh yeah, like duty free. Let me buy booze and perfume.
The thing is a smart traveler tip for you here.

(35:17):
If you ever have a lay over at an airport,
make your way, and especially if it's early morning or
yet an overnight flight or whatever, make your way to
the duty free section. Go to that cosmetics section and
look for stuff like toner or under eyebomb or something
like that. And brother, it is refreshingly. Yeah, they've got
all the samples there and it's like just stuff that

(35:37):
will like make you feel human again. It's a little brufe,
just enough to get you where you're going, all right,
back to duty. Um. Well, here's a few things I
thought Mental Plots is always so great about. I want
to I want to point out Chuck. Every single time
one of us that says it said duty Jerry's like
snickers um because she thinks it spelled d o d

(36:00):
y um. Mental floss is always so great about adding
fun little lists to their articles. Yeah, well this isn't
quite a listical, but they gave a few examples of
some weird regulations and they have one on absinthe. You
can bring absinthe back, but it has to be that

(36:21):
cannot have the ingredient. How do you pronounced that? T
h u j O n e n yes, sure, cone
to hany. I don't know what the country origin is.
I didn't even know that was in there. I thought
wormwood was the active ingredients. Well this it may not
be the active ingredient. I don't know. But uh. And

(36:42):
then custom says the term absinthe cannot be the brand name,
and it cannot stand alone on the label the actual
word absinthe, and this one's hysterical. The artwork cannot project
images of hallucinogenic, psychotropic, or mind altering effects like it
can have on the like a guy going, whoa, it
can't be wowie zowie brand absent Yeah, which, of course, yeah,

(37:05):
that would be psychedelic. Sure, um, everybody knows how ze means.
I thought you're gonna say, wey be gravy. That's what
I was thinking that one that would work too. Uh
what else? Um? Oh, oh you can't as of two thousand,
the year two thousand, you can't bring in anything made
of dog or cat for awesome. Yeah, I can't believe that.

(37:29):
This is a law that had to be passed well
in other countries said do different things with dogs and cats,
you know, so you can't you if you have a
dog skin cap. You better prepare to have that thing
confiscated at the border and spanked by me. You just
hang out, auto, let's bring him over here. Uh, this

(37:49):
one is interesting, um Haitian animal hide drums from animal skin.
You can't take it back because of anthrax and remember
our own stuff. He No TV show had a subplot
in an episode about a disease from a drum brought
back by fake Jerry played by Lucy Wayne. Right, Yes,

(38:11):
she brought back a drum that had was it anthrax fasciitis?
Is that what that one was? Yeah, it had some
disease on the drumhead. But apparently and we wrote those episodes,
so I guess we got it from the fact that
it's a real thing. I just don't remember. I don't either.
I don't even recall our TV show. I don't either.

(38:31):
I drank to forget, so um chuck. Yes, we haven't
really talked about the big thing that that UM Customs
is known for, not just regulating trade and shipping containers
and all that, but thwarting smugglers. Right, yes, because there's Uh,
you talked a little bit about rum runners and that

(38:53):
kind of thing still goes on there's speed boat chases. Yeah, um,
they can search you in an airport, sure, yeah, that's
that's the thing about customs is they do not have
to have a warrant to search you. They don't even
have to have probable cause. Yeah I don't like what
your hair looks like. I think you look like a
drug smuggler. And come into this room and take your

(39:14):
clothes off, and there's like a storied, um history I
guess of of customs agents like just looking at somebody
and being like, that guy's drug mule, and the person
turns out to be a major drug mule, and they tried.
I read this article in Los Angeles Times. I can't
remember what it's called, but um, it was about how

(39:38):
the Customs Agency is trying to quantify that or turn
it into like a seminar, like take these decades of
experience and intuition and figure out how to, yeah, how
to sniff somebody off the case? Right, Um, And apparently
they've turned to behavioral science and really, like, are there
there's courses that they teach Customs and Border patrol um

(40:02):
or border protection how to suss out lying or deception,
how to racially profile probably, um, but I think it's
in this particular, so it's a different course. This one is. Um,
they say, well, if somebody you know has a hat
or a newspaper or something like that, they might put
it between you and them because they're putting up a

(40:24):
barrier because they're deceiving micro expressions body language, um uh,
speech patterns. Uh. Like I guess if you if you
have a very pat streamlined answer of where you were abroad,
that's going to raise a flag if you are, you know,
kind of back. Yeah, if you're too smooth, that's way,

(40:46):
way more unusual than somebody being like, well, also, you know,
I mean I went to Canada, and I wasn't going
to go to Canada, but one of my friends said,
let's go to Canada, so we went. But you know,
we were just gonna hang out in in in in
in New York. That's so that's how I'm here. Yeah,
that's a step over here. No, that's going through Oh
it is. You're you're such an obvious city, you couldn't

(41:08):
possibly be trusted with the I thought there was a
middle ground. If you're like, I just went to Montreal,
why do you ask? Right? Then they would say you
clearly have a suitcase full of Faberge eggs. What are
you having those shorts? Uh? But you were talking about drugs,
which is which is the big thing? Um? And again

(41:29):
I think you said that the d e A finds
its origins and customs right, That's right, and they everyone
works in concert. Today. The Custom Service will work with
the d e A and the Coastguard and immigration and
naturalization because they all want to keep the drugs out.
So like, the Custom Service will have a plane, one
of those radar planes that flies very high above looking

(41:51):
at boats, and then they'll see a boat that looks
shady and they'll call down to let's like the coastguard
or maybe their own office who calls the coastguard as
you go out, and let's see what's going on in
that boat? And the what I think the description of
this is hilarious. They basically just chase him in a
boat until the guys decided to stop. What else you
gonna do? And then they board the boat and say

(42:13):
put up your your hand, yeah, and they do. If
they have a plane, they will get a couple of
things going on them. A jet plane to track from
way behind, and then a black hawk helicopter to follow
right behind the plane. Then they don't see him, Yeah,
behind and beneath yeah uh and apparently yeah, you can't see.
And I was thinking about them, like, yeah, there's no

(42:35):
side view mirrors on a plane. It's just hysterical to
think about a drug plane just flying along like this
is great black Hawk helicopter right below them, just like,
all right, suckers, just go ahead and land and then
we'll we'll introduce ourselves. And that's what they do. And
some people just say, I'll take my chances walking through

(42:55):
an airport with cocaine taped to my body. These are
the people that make for the best. Um, crazy stuff
smuggled through. Uh, customs are crazy ways to smuggle drugs.
But I wonder how many like you hear about it
on the news when someone gets caught. People get away
with it a lot of it, right, because that's what
they're doing. They're playing the odds that you're just not

(43:16):
gonna get sniffed out, right exactly. Um, And I think
it's it's probably exceedingly difficult these days to make it through,
especially if you don't actually have it physically deposited inside
your body because of the not just the drug dogs,
but they have UM, they have devices that can smell air.

(43:37):
Essentially it's a it's a sniffing device UM and it
figures out what molecules are floating around the air. And
if it's like, oh, well this is cocaine, Uh, there's
probably cocaine in that person's suitcase or whatever. An electro
vacuum is what that's called. Difficult to get around that
difficult to get around a dog. Plus also you're also

(43:59):
being scrutinized by the customs agent himself or herself. So
I would imagine it's very tough to get it through
unless you've ingested it, and some people have. There's a
dude who got caught in I think Miami or Fort
Lauderdale in two fifteen. He'd swallowed a hundred and I
think forty eight pellets of coke, three pounds he had

(44:23):
in his stomach. That's so dangerous. And another woman got
busted with three pounds in her breasts that was breast implants. Crazy.
So you'll still get busted. But I think you make
a good point. I really wonder what the estimate is
for how many people who actually do make it through unmolested. Yeah, Uh,

(44:44):
here was our deal coming back in this time. It
was way easier and quicker than I thought. Like we
filled out the little customs card on the plane, they
didn't even ask for that. Yeah. I walked up and
they asked for a couple of questions, like what did
you bring in? And we said, you know, a few gifts.
How much was it worth, you know, eighty dollars And

(45:05):
they said, all right, welcome back. And I said, is that.
It walked through to the luggage and I thought there
would be a more heavily scrutinized process after that or something,
and there wasn't. There were a couple of beagles, very
cute drug sniffing beagles, and uh, they were walking around
and that was it. And then we got our stuff

(45:27):
and left. Well your bags had already I'm sure been
X ray and crazy like exposed to some other stuff. Yeah. Um.
And and it's not just like at the airport. At
at ports like the border between Mexico and the United States,
they have like truck size X rays. You they X

(45:48):
ray um um. And that's part of that hundred percent initiative.
They want to be able to do that to a
percent of everything all containers coming in the United States,
like I said, or they have X ray rooms like
in Total Call, where you just walk everyone through this
room and they look for weird bulges um or hollow
empty spots that shouldn't be there. You still haven't seen

(46:10):
spinal tap, have you? I have? Oh? You did, Yeah,
but I don't remember a lot of it. When the
bass player Derek Small is played by Harry Shearer, he's
going through and he has metal on them and they
have the uh the metal wand and it's going off
every time they pass over his his crotch, his growing area,
and he's like you, I don't know what's going on.

(46:31):
I don't know what's going on. And finally he takes
a he had a a cucumber wrapped in tinfoil stuffed
down his pants. Why would it be wrapped in tinfoil? Well,
that's just part of the greatness of that joke. I
think that is a good joke. You know, it was
very funny. Um. Uh what else one of the things

(46:53):
that got me which is pretty smart. So um, they
might take a dog on a plane like after c
D board it, Yeah, and have the dogs sniff around
because they may miss it as you're walking past. But
if you've been sitting on a plane for eight hours,
that drug smells are going to get into the seat.
And if the farting cocaine smells into that seat, and
if that dog sniffs that, they'll say, well who was

(47:15):
in And they'll say, oh, well, Josh Clark was You're
in the duty free shop thinking like I just got
I'm putting some moisturizing around my face, thinking about all
the money I'm gonna have to buy moisturizer with, and
uh yeah yeah. Next thing I know, there's a beagle
sitting down next to me, looking up, and I go, uh,

(47:39):
you know what you do though? You just spray some
rose water in the beagles face and run and make
a cap out of its fur. Oh why do you
have to go there? Another thing that they're looking for
is cash money. Um oh yeah, laundering money and getting
it out of the country is is a big deal. Yeah.
The custom seats something like fifty three million dollars in

(48:01):
bulk currency. In cash. I think, what is it ten
grand that you have to declare coming back into the US,
and you do, They're not gonna you can take as
much in and out as you want. But you have
to declare it because they want to keep track of
that kind of stuff because I don't know if we
said um. In addition to goods being imported and exported,

(48:23):
a country, especially like a centralized UM, federal government wants
to know where it's arms are going. They want to
keep it tight tight control of that and where it's
money is going, because you can destabilize a country with
both of those things. And so they try to keep

(48:44):
a pretty good eye on where it's going and where
it's coming from, not not just in the that it
could destabilize the government, but they want a piece of it.
They want to attacks that stuff, you know. So um, Yeah,
one of the easiest ways to under money is to
just smuggle it from one country or another, smuggle it
out of the US to a country that's not really

(49:05):
paying nearly as much attention. Bam, you get some legitimate funds. Yep.
And we did an episode of money laundering, correct, Yes
we did. And we did one on police dogs. Yeah,
I just think is all over this thing. Uh. And
then finally, one of the things that UM is a
big deal. If you've ever traveled in and out of California,

(49:26):
let's say is one example. UM. They actually have a
produce UM stop Yeah, where you're stopped in your car
and they say, do you have any uh produce on you?
Any vegetables, any plants? Just a cucumber with tinfoil right
FRONTA uh. These are actually legal goods, but they are
prohibited in certain areas because of infestations of various pests,

(49:51):
and notably in California in the nineteen eighties, a couple
of things happened. The nineteen eighties was a bad decade
for the med flow in California. UM. Early on in
the early eighties, it was a bad infestation, and then
Governor Jerry Brown had a series of missteps on whether
or not to spray um the state with this gross

(50:14):
stuff that would kill the flies but also have bad
effects in the environment. And he was an environmentalist, and
it was I think I can't remember. I think he
eventually did spray, but waited too long and costs state
a lot of money, but he also angered the environmentalist
until will be off, it was like probably, I mean
there was. It may have been a No one situation, UM.

(50:35):
And I'm sure some Californians will have a better memory
of this than me. Um, but supposedly in the late
eighties there was one piece of bad fruit that caused
a big med fly outbreak. And then I looked up
in nine there was a an intentional, supposedly eco terrorist attack.
We're a group called the Breeders unleashed med flies in

(50:57):
response in retaliation against all this spraying, which doesn't make
any sense because that would only mean they'd have to
spray more. You know, No, that's not They didn't really
think it through, but I think that they eventually said,
I don't think this is real. I think this was
a hoax letter. But we also can't explain the concentration

(51:18):
of some of these outbreaks, and it perhaps it may
have been intentional, who knows. Wow, yeah, eco terrorism. Yeah,
that's pretty surprising. But the idea that the first one though,
was just completely accidental. It was one bad piece of
fruit that one traveler, but supposedly I couldn't find like, uh,
mango zero that started it. And then I looked around

(51:41):
a bunch, but I couldn't find like verification on that.
Interesting though, Um but yeah, Hawaii he's really big on
that too. And then, um, I don't know if you remember,
but last year I think in May of two dozen fifteen,
Johnny Depp caused a huge stink he and Amber heard
opening his mouth or remember heard where? Um like they
were in Australia for I think a premiere of one

(52:04):
of those pirates of the Caribbean things. And um like
they just brought their dogs with them on a private
show about sending them to quarantine. A huge stink and
rightfully so like just the arrogance and Amber heard is
Amber heard? You know? Like I think both of them
are just like, we don't have to do it. We'll
just bring the dogs. Who cares? Who cares about the

(52:25):
stupid quarantine law. This continent is just an island. Do
remember that? It's uh what do they call that? Privilege? Yes, entitlement? Um,
we just shamed them. Well, good man, Johnny Depp doesn't
listen to this. Ah, I think you're right. Uh finally

(52:51):
already said finally. Uh, cultural artifacts are regulated, although fine
art supposedly is not subject to tariffs, Is that right?
Duty No, they're big into cultural artifacts because um, so
much of it is looted. I said, I should say
illegitimately looted. All those things are looted. Um, but ice

(53:13):
apparently immigrations and Customs enforcement is big in cultural artifacts repatriation,
And there's a difference between ICE and customs and border
patrol or border protection. Apparently, Customs and Border protection UM
staffs the borders. They protect the borders, and then ICE,

(53:35):
Immigrations and Customs enforcement carries out law enforcement that has
to do with customs and immigration within the United States.
So once you make it through, once you make it
past customs and Border protection, you still have to deal
with ICE coming and finding, like kicking down your door
and being like, give us back that Mesopotamian tablet and

(53:59):
they say who are you and they say, we're Ice. Yeah. Yeah,
it's played by the rock I imagine the guy from
The Shield, the bald dude. Yeah, I never saw that.
I heard it was good though, great show. Yeah, yeah,
it was definitely UM overshadowed by The Wire because they
both came out at about the same time. It's not

(54:21):
a fair comparison. They're just two different shows. But it
was nuts man like. There were several episodes that were
like episode for the first season of True Detective, just
insane from beginning to end. You know, Yeah, I think
I realized after our talk when I said, I didn't
watch um was it NYPD Blue? I think Law and Order.

(54:43):
I have a diversion to coop shows. Oh yeah, I
think so. Like I watched The Wire and I watched
Hill Street Blues in the eighties. I never watched that.
Oh I love that show. Uh, which is funny because
it wasn't like a kit chow for twelve year old kids. Uh.
And I don't think I've watched a whole lot of
Like I watched Dexter some but that wasn't exactly It's

(55:05):
more of a serial killer show than a cop show,
and it got really forensic show man off the rails
is yeah, but yeah, I don't watch a lot of
cops shows. Huh. I did watch True Detective season one.
That kind of counts off the rails too. What for
season two? For season one, like the last couple of episode, Yeah,
it was kind of a let down. Yeah, whatever, it

(55:29):
went on the rails. How about that? It's TV. It's
not important and we can say that because we had
a TV show. Yeah, it really didn't change our lives
in any way. You got anything else? Nope. So that's customs.
If you want to know more about it, there's plenty
more to know. You can tape that word into the

(55:49):
search bar how stuff works dot com. And since I
said search part, it's time for listener, ma'am. I'm gonna
say this is something to open all of our eyes. Hey, guys,
as a Canadian, I was happy to spend one long
walk recently listening to the mysterious feet washing up on
the shores of BC. British Columbia. You said that they

(56:09):
have a shockingly large number of missing persons cases. And
while that's true, you guys express surprise and throughout a
few humorous suggestions on why. But there's one concrete factor
that really contributes to the high rate of missing individuals.
It doesn't get a lot of airtime internationally, but only
recently became newsworthy within Canada even uh disappearance and murder

(56:31):
of Native and Indigenous women who live in the province.
Have you heard of this? Yeah, A couple of people
emailed them right after that came out. Yeah, very sad,
she said. No one likes to talk about it. It
seems one our last Prime minister even straight up said
an interview that missing and murdered Native women were not
a priority for the government. Uh. I don't know. As

(56:51):
far as I can see, the why is pretty clear.
It's happening, and it's allowed to happen because of sexism
and more importantly racism. You two are really great at
making sure you challenge sexism whenever you can, and I
commend you for that. I thought it was a missed
opportunity though, to discuss racism uh and open it up
to a similar discourse UM. And I emailed her back
and I was like, well, I didn't know about this

(57:12):
to we totally would have. Thank you so much for
continuing to do the show. When people ask why I
love it so much, I simply tell them that your
camaraderie and ease makes me feel like I know you both.
It's always fun to listen to things explained by your friends,
and that is Emily Owens in Kuala Lampur, but of Montreal,

(57:32):
of Montreal, Canadia, and she h. By the way, there's
follow up on this, an article from Media smarts UM
called media portrayals. Well this is the r oh at
least just google um, Media smarts and missing and Murdered
Aboriginal Women. And then she said there's also a great

(57:53):
documentary called Highway of tears, but heads up will make
you feel crappy for days. Let's just do one on that. Yeah,
we should. She didn't say crappy either, she said cretty. Yeah,
she'sai cretty yeah. Yeah, that's it. Okay, Well, thanks a lot, Emily.
We appreciate that, and keep an ear out for an

(58:14):
episode on that sometime down the road. Touch Uh. If
you want to get in touch with us, you can
tweet to us at s y s K podcast. Um.
You can hang out with me too on Twitter at
josh um Clark. You can hang out with us on
Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. Yeah, and
I got my own little personal public figure page now

(58:36):
Charles V. Chuck Bryant's a lot of fun, nice like
the the original Stuff you Should Know. Fans are hanging
out there. Oh yeah, that's the place to be. Uh.
You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
how Stuffworks dot com and it's always joined us at
our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know. Com.

(59:01):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how Stuff Works dot com. M