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Forest Service Wants To Require Permits For Photography
An anonymous reader points out this story about new regulations for media who wish to take pictures or video in federally designated wilderness areas. "The U.S. Forest Service has tightened restrictions on media coverage in vast swaths of the country's wild lands, requiring reporters to pay for a permit and get permission before shooting a photo or video in federally designated wilderness areas. Under rules being finalized in November, a reporter who met a biologist, wildlife advocate or whistleblower alleging neglect in 36 million acres of wilderness would first need special approval to shoot photos or videos even on an iPhone. Permits cost up to $1,500, says Forest Service spokesman Larry Chambers, and reporters who don't get a permit could face fines up to $1,000. First Amendment advocates say the rules ignore press freedoms and are so vague they'd allow the Forest Service to grant permits only to favored reporters shooting videos for positive stories.
Anyone who has worked with them knows why they are called "The Forest Circus".
If they are trying to make even MORE enemies among the public, this is a great idea.
doesn't the public already own public land?
I guess the problem is writing the law in a way that disallows shooting commercials or movies
I don't think that's what they're targeting.
Wouldn't be surprised if the real target are environmentalists who complain about aggressive logging.
I mean seriously, why does this guy still have a job as an editor? Story after story, with distorted, inflammatory headlines or summaries, that end up being picked apart as "zomg nanny-state" baiting for the right-wing faction of the slashdot community.
These postings from samzenpus are not news for nerds, or stuff that matters. They're disingenuous advertising click-bait for a once-proud website that has let itself be co-opted by randroids.
You haven't been around much those last 13 or so years, have you?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because you simply do NOT want to take Italy as your role model when it comes to bureaucracy.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There's been a lot of supreme and federal court action on the right to take photographs in public.
It's just another federal bureaucracy that doesn't give a shit about the law and shakes down citizens at gun point.
So, basically, the forest service is tasked with monetizing the National Forests of the United States, not "preserve the untamed character of the country's wilderness",
Yes, exactly like the Bureau of Land Management, the greatest land grab perpetrated against the people of the United States. IN WHICH rather than homesteading, the land was declared the property of the federal government, and they monetize it by selling land-raping permits (oil, coal, fracking, timber, and cattle grazing — the latter of which is not precisely land-raping, but simply -suppressing, since a portion of that land was cleared from forest specifically for the purpose of cattle ranching, back in the late 1800s and early 1900s.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"