[macaw]

This one completely blows my mind.

http://www.slate.com...noring_the.html

In a nutshell, the Wyoming government has just criminalized collecting evidence of environmental harm and showing it to the government. This takes ignorance is bliss to a whole new level.

Wow. Breathtaking.

[mike777]

At the very least misleading headline.

I read the statue, it is all about trespassing but I doubt most who visit this internet site outside of bbo members will bother to read the statue in full.

[hrothgar]

mike777, on 2015-May-12, 09:53, said:

At the very least misleading headline.

I read the statue, it is all about trespassing but I doubt most who visit this internet site outside of bbo members will bother to read the statue in full.

You may have read the statute. It's clear that you weren't able to understand it.

Changing the definition of trespassing is how otherwise non offending activities are being criminalized.

[Trinidad]

If I understood the statute correctly, I might already be getting in trouble if I, say, witnessed a kidnapping in Yellowstone National Park and submit my testimony in writing to the nearest sheriff's office. This is particularly true if I saw something odd happen and decided to "access Yellowstone National Park" to check out what was going on. After all, then I accessed Yellowstone National Park with the intent to collect data.

Rik

[mike777]

Trinidad, on 2015-May-12, 14:12, said:

If I understood the statute correctly, I might already be getting in trouble if I, say, witnessed a kidnapping in Yellowstone National Park and submit my testimony in writing to the nearest sheriff's office. This is particularly true if I saw something odd happen and decided to "access Yellowstone National Park" to check out what was going on. After all, then I accessed Yellowstone National Park with the intent to collect data.

Rik

the statue is really more about private ranch lands, not public parks. Trespassing on private ranch land.


A better example is you believe a rancher is polluting water on his land and you go get some samples without his permission or a court order.

You trespass with the intent to collect this data.

Another example would be say you use a pesticide in your backyard and someone comes into your backyard to collect data without permission or a court order.

[hrothgar]

mike777, on 2015-May-12, 15:24, said:

the statue is really more about private ranch lands, not public parks. Trespassing on private ranch land.

A better example is you believe a rancher is polluting water on his land and you go get some samples without his permission or a court order.

You trespass with the intent to collect this data.

Actually, this bill is yet another "Ag Gag" bill, designed to stop activists from reporting on animal welfare issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag-gag

[Trinidad]

mike777, on 2015-May-12, 15:24, said:

the statue is really more about private ranch lands, not public parks. Trespassing on private ranch land.

The first paragraph of the statute:

Quote

(a) A person is guilty of trespassing to unlawfully collect resource data if he:
(i) Enters onto open land for the purpose of collecting resource data; and
(ii) Does not have:
(A) An ownership interest in the real property or, statutory, contractual or other legal authorization to enter or access the land to collect resource data; or
(B) Written or verbal permission of the owner, lessee or agent of the owner to enter or access the land to collect the specified resource data.

And "open land" is nicely defined:

Quote

(ii) "Open land" means land outside the exterior boundaries of any incorporated city, town, subdivision approved pursuant to W.S. 18-5-308 or development approved pursuant to W.S. 18-5-403;

So, unless Yellowstone National Park is an incorporated city, town, approved subdivision or approved development, it is "open land". Entering Yellowstone National Park to "collect resource data" without permission of the owner is now defined as a new crime: "trespassing to collect resource data".

mike777, on 2015-May-12, 15:24, said:

Another example would be say you use a pesticide in your backyard and someone comes into your backyard to collect data without permission or a court order.

No, since I live in a city. Well, I don't live in Wyoming, anyway. But "backyards" are typically found in residential areas: incorporated cities, towns, subdivisions. So, this law doesn't forbid anybody from taking samples from somebody's backyard. (Perhaps another law does, I don't know.)

Rik

[kenberg]

If I get it right, they don't give a damn if you are on this land or not on this land, they care only if you are on the land to collect data.

That seems to make the intent clear. The law is to prevent the collection of data.

[Siegmund]

As hrothgar said, an ag gag law.

The one we have here in Idaho is less extreme -- it only prohibits collecting information about what others do on their own private property ( = how feed lots treat their livestock) -- but it claims, questionably, to have the right to restrict what you can observe while standing on adjacent public property. It's promoted as "protecting private landowner's rights" but that isn't really how it is used.
The new Wyoming law goes a step farther, and tries to do the same kind of thing to protect ranchers who are (mis?)using public land for grazing, not just ones who own their own land.

Despite the examples in the article, the test cases will not come from the national parks, where things go directly to a federal magistrate, but from state land.

I will be surprised if it is upheld, when it faces the inevitable court challenge. I am not at all surprised that they passed it. Welcome to what politics is like in the wild west.

[mike777]

guys I go back to my very first post.

this is not about citizen science...nonsense.
this is about activists who want to come on your land to stop your evil as they perceive it.


this is all about trespassing.


You can spin in any way you want but you miss the point. I assume you miss the point because you want to. trespassing

they don't want you to come on their ranch land without permission or a court order.

Of course of course they are coming on your land to collect data and sue the heck out of you for all your evil.

the entire article is silly. If you commit evil we have the right to collect data on your property.

call it a gag law, call it crony capitalism..do you really want people to come on your property without your permission or a court order...the answer seems to be yes.
Of course these ranches are trying to stop from being sued...so what else is new.


As for the public land issues...call it what it is ...crony cap.. the government protecting the few chosen.

"I will be surprised if it is upheld, when it faces the inevitable court challenge. I am not at all surprised that they passed it. Welcome to what politics is like in the wild west."


this says it well but this is true all over the world not just in the wild west...cronyism.

[blackshoe]

IANAL, but neither am I at all sure that any state has any jurisdiction at all over Federal land or the reasons people "enter onto" it.

[Winstonm]

Siegmund, on 2015-May-12, 20:31, said:

As hrothgar said, an ag gag law.

The one we have here in Idaho is less extreme -- it only prohibits collecting information about what others do on their own private property ( = how feed lots treat their livestock) -- but it claims, questionably, to have the right to restrict what you can observe while standing on adjacent public property. It's promoted as "protecting private landowner's rights" but that isn't really how it is used.
The new Wyoming law goes a step farther, and tries to do the same kind of thing to protect ranchers who are (mis?)using public land for grazing, not just ones who own their own land.

Despite the examples in the article, the test cases will not come from the national parks, where things go directly to a federal magistrate, but from state land.

I will be surprised if it is upheld, when it faces the inevitable court challenge. I am not at all surprised that they passed it. Welcome to what politics is like in the wild west.

Good thing it isn't Utah. In Utah, it seems, a citizen can use deadly force to prevent a crime, so I guess there they would prevent you from observing them by simply legally shooting you.

Welcome to the Wild, Wild West.

[Winstonm]

mike777, on 2015-May-12, 09:53, said:

At the very least misleading headline.

I read the statue, it is all about trespassing but I doubt most who visit this internet site outside of bbo members will bother to read the statue in full.

Actually, when read it is explicitly not about trespassing but about creating new crimes of

Quote

"....trespassing to unlawfully collect resource data and unlawful collection of resource data...."

This has nothing to do with property rights but a lot to do with money, power, and politics.

[GreenMan]

blackshoe, on 2015-May-12, 21:55, said:

IANAL, but neither am I at all sure that any state has any jurisdiction at all over Federal land or the reasons people "enter onto" it.

It depends on the nature of the federal ownership. In many cases local authorities are the ones engaging in law enforcement and the feds are essentially landowners in the state. There are complexities, of course, but in practice the state authorities may decide to enforce state laws till they're told to stop.

[barmar]

mike777, on 2015-May-12, 21:32, said:

call it a gag law, call it crony capitalism..do you really want people to come on your property without your permission or a court order...the answer seems to be yes.

Isn't that already prohibited by traditional tresspassing laws? What does this new law have to do with it?

[kenberg]

I have an honest question. I'm a city boy but I always understood that the protection of streams is of sufficient importance to at least partly trump individual property rights. Am I wrong here, or is this somehow not applicable? The logic would be that a stream florws into your property and then out of your property to someone else's property and thus your rights are restricted for the common good. If you want to pour garbage into your swimming pool then perhaps that is your own business depending on how you drain it, but you cannot pour the same garbage into a stream.

If this general philosophy is accepted then it does not seem to be a great leap to allow public documentation of harmful practices for streams.

Along these lines, I was recently in Taos NM. My wife's sister lives there and they share the responsibility for the acequia system with others in the community. From the Wik

Quote

In recent years, acequias in New Mexico and Colorado have successfully developed and implemented changes in state water laws to accommodate the unique norms, customs, and practices of the acequia systems. The customary law of the acequia is older than and at variance with the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation, and the statutes promulgating acequia water law represent a rare instance of water pluralism in the context of Western water law in the United States (see Hicks and Peña 2003). For example, the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation is based on the principle of "first in use, first in right," while acequia norms incorporate not just priority but principles of equity and fairness. This is evident in the fact that Prior Appropriation considers water to be a commodity owned by private individuals while acequia systems treat water as a community resource that irrigators have a shared right to use, manage, and protect. While Prior doctrines allow for water to be sold away from the basin of origin, the acequia system prohibits the transference of water from the watershed in which it is situated and thus considers water as an "asset-in-place".

The law will go as it goes, I make no prediction, but the acequia approach above sounds to me like the right philosophy, in NM and in WY.

[GreenMan]

barmar, on 2015-May-13, 11:30, said:

Isn't that already prohibited by traditional tresspassing laws? What does this new law have to do with it?

It looks to me as if this increases the penalty (by adding an additional offense) if you're trying to do some particular good work.