The saucy boardinghouse owners of the 1800s were such aggressive marketers that Congress passed a law to stop them from jumping on board harbor-bound ships and luring away sailors with booze and prostitutes. The 1872 law, which bans unauthorized boarding of ships about to arrive in port, never got much of a workout. It was used twice -- the last time in 1890 -- then disappeared from courtrooms for more than a century.
But now, after a 113-year respite, the law is back in action in an unusual case that pits the Bush administration against one of its peskiest foes: the environmental group Greenpeace. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami filed criminal charges against Greenpeace and a federal grand jury returned an indictment in July, more than a year after two of the group's supporters scrambled onto a ship bound for the Port of Miami-Dade that they suspected of illegally importing 70 tons of Brazilian mahogany.
Greenpeace, which argued Friday for a dismissal of the charges in a Miami federal courtroom, accuses prosecutors of attempting to suppress the age-old American practice of civil protest. Although it is common to levy criminal charges against individual protesters, Greenpeace says a criminal indictment of an advocacy group is unprecedented and politically motivated.
Details here from The Washington Post.