Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, antiquities from this part of the world that are sold on the black market have higher stakes. The DOJ makes it clear Hobby Lobby acted very suspiciously/maliciously. If you're at a yard sale where you're asked to meet the seller at the back to see the "real goods" and pay in unusual ways, you're exposing yourself. Let's not forget, the president of Hobby Lobby isn't naive when it comes to the law... he navigated…
The DOJ makes it clear that they broke laws. I'm not disputing that. Clearly they did something wrong, and are paying a pretty penny for it (pocket change for the CEO, but almost twice what they paid overall). And as I said, I'd like to think I'd have acted better. People are making good points in this thread. I'm not blindly trying to defend a company I know very little about; just trying to poke some holes in the g…
From a 2015 article in the Guardian:
"Patty Gerstenblith, a professor of law at DePaul University who is an expert in cultural heritage, confirmed to the Guardian that she was asked by the Green family to explain to them how import controls for ancient antiquities worked in 2010 – a year before the tablets arrived in Memphis. Gerstenblith said that she went to some lengths to set out for them the potential pitfalls.
“I read them the riot act,” she told the Guardian. “I explained to them how the system worked in the interest of trying to discourage them from doing anything illegal. I knew they were building a collection, so I was concerned they might be doing something they shouldn’t, even out of ignorance of the law.”[1]
The "moustache twirling narrative" goes something like this:
"The reason that he thinks the Green family might have broken international law or avoided ethical standards in the antiquities trade is to promote their overtly Christian beliefs — beliefs they fought for and won at the Supreme Court last year in their landmark case on the religious freedom of employers with regards to government mandates on healthcare.
“In their hearts, [I think] they think they’re doing the right thing,” Al-Azm said. “They look at this cultural heritage and they have a close affinity to it. They feel that this is something that touches their deep core beliefs, and they see it in an area or a place that is dangerous or unstable. So they can justify this sort of activity by saying I’m doing something good for posterity.”[2]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/28/hobby-lobby-...
[2] https://thinkprogress.org/experts-believe-hobby-lobby-stole-...