A nationally televised report has told the world of the travails of the Gloucester-based fishing industry at the hands of government regulators.
Featuring testimony from longtime port of Gloucester fishermen Bill Lee and Richard Burgess, the CBS News report broadcast Wednesday night marked the first extended network coverage of a struggle that was joined with the start of the Obama administration and has built in intensity for two years.
The report by CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian covered issues that readers of the Times have been immersed in — stultifying overregulation and vindictive, debilitating law enforcement, which together put small businessmen out of business — but CBS also added a new perspective.
The former national director of law enforcement and the head of litigation in National Marine Fisheries Service's Gloucester headquarters have been reassigned but not punished, according to NOAA officials. The agent in charge of the Gloucester bureau resigned last year while the agency was purportedly investigating whether he broke any rules by using his government-issued cell phone to conduct Internet auction business.
No one has been sanctioned, but NOAA has announced a variety of reforms of the system which allowed agents to target and levy steep fines without direct supervision or review. The assets taken from fishermen also were used without oversight.
Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.