Those "Do No Remove Under Penalty of Law" tags were first required by the New York Bedding Commission. Bedding manufacturers in New York State had to get permission from the Commission before any change in what they manufactured.

They'd just mail the paperwork in, a couple weeks later it would come back signed, and they could make the change. Then, about 10 years ago or so, the paperwork stopped coming back. Eventually it got to be a real problem. One of the companies sent someone to the Commission offices to see what was going on.

It turned out that the last Bedding Commissioner had died. For years, if not decades, the Commissioners had been coming into the office every two weeks to pick up a paycheck, sign all the paperwork without looking at it, and mail it back. As they had died off, they had kept quiet, presumably out of fear that the scam would be discovered. So no replacements were appointed.

The consumer is permitted to remove the tag. Only sellers are prohibited.
 

Is this for real???