WHAT is in the water in Wyoming these days?!

Anyone with a passing familiarity with our Constitution will recognize that the Wyoming law is unconstitutional. It runs afoul of the supremacy clause because it interferes with the purposes of federal environmental statutes by making it impossible for citizens to collect the information necessary to bring an enforcement lawsuit. The Wyoming law also violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech because it singles out speech about natural resources for burdensome regulation and makes it a crime to engage in a variety of expressive and artistic activities. And finally, it specifically criminalizes public engagement with federal and state agencies and therefore violates another right guaranteed by the First Amendment: the right to petition the government.
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How can this be allowed?
 
Wyoming is one of the most Republican states in the US. Idaho and Utah are the other big ones. If one looks to Texas, and the laws that the state has tried to pass or were under consideration, well, you get the gist......
 
Before passing judgment read the actual law. It sounds like an exaggeration by a guy with an axe to grind. The law doesn't sound like it has anything to do with photography. None of us know what provoked passing the law just speculation from one side of the argument. I tend to take this kind of article with a grain of salt.
 
kbg32 said:
Wyoming is one of the most Republican states in the US. Idaho and Utah are the other big ones. If one looks to Texas, and the laws that the state has tried to pass or were under consideration, well, you get the gist......
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Don't you love how people love how people point their finger at one party or another. Neither party is immune from passing stupid laws. I think they're pretty much the same.
 
Republicans seem to base their reasoning more on the bible. Just the other day a Texas lawmaker tried to bring up an anti-abotrion amendment in the state requiring women who have "dead" fetuses in their bodies to carry them to term, totally disregarding the health and welfare of the mother. Even fellow state Republicans were repulsed.

What kind of a person thinks this?

I agree - religion, politics, who do they benefit?
 
kbg32 said:
Republicans seem to base their reasoning more on the bible. Just the other day a Texas lawmaker tried to bring up an anti-abotrion amendment in the state requiring women who have "dead" fetuses in their bodies to carry them to term, totally disregarding the health and welfare of the mother. Even fellow state Republicans were repulsed.

What kind of a person thinks this?

I agree - religion, politics, who do they benefit?
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But he didn't think this 'because he was a Republican' ... he thought it because he was a dickhead. The Republicans just gave him a platform to espouse his bullsh!t!

Sheesh .... what a creep!
 
Might I humbly suggest that the real motive behind all this is not politics or religion but money. Big money with big ranches full of cattle. Some have claimed America is no longer a Republic but rather an Oligarchy controlled by a few very wealthy interests.

Just a thought. Joe
 
Here's a quote from another article. Note the key word is TRESPASS to collect data.

"Governor Matt Mead signed Senate file 12, a bill that makes it a felony to trespass to unlawfully collect data, and prohibits any data collected "unlawfully" from being used in and civil, criminal or administrative proceeding"

If the property is posted no trespassing it doesn't matter what your reason is, stay out.
 
x-ray said:
Before passing judgment read the actual law.
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Exactly.
Slate, and the author of this article, put me in mind of Mary McCarthy's assessment of Lillian Hellman, that every word she said was a lie, including the 'the's' and the 'but's'. Lawyer rhymes with liar, always has.
I'm writing from Teton county, one of the bluest counties in the country, and no one in Wyoming is forbidden from sharing anything with our federal overlords, not information or anything else.
You can't take a picture of the Madison? Seriously?
And, for what it is worth, ranchers, which I am not, in this state are not a protected group, "beleaguered" would be closer to the truth, and, if facts matter, there is no e.coli problem in rivers, lakes, or streams, though any agitator with an agenda can drive up to a stock pond and find some if he tries hard enough. As to photography, there's a reason people vacation out here to take photographs, and fish in, "clear mountain streams" instead of the Mississippi. (No offense to the Mississippi)
When it comes to throwing click bait to the clueless, Slate never disappoints.
Sorry, but the legislation in question does absolutely none of these things.
 
Larry thanks for weighing in on this. People are eager to pass judgment but never seem to gather the facts first.

By the way my wife and I love Wyoming.
 
Livesteamer said:
Might I humbly suggest that the real motive behind all this is not politics or religion but money. Big money with big ranches full of cattle. Some have claimed America is no longer a Republic but rather an Oligarchy controlled by a few very wealthy interests.

Just a thought. Joe
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With all due respect, and I can't speak for other areas of the country, but, in Wyoming there isn't big money in cattle ranching, no matter how big the ranch is, not for the backbreaking work involved. April-May is calving time and every year people who own cattle ranches here beat themselves to pieces working a 7 to 20 day succession of twenty hour days delivering calves. Cattle ranching isn't mechanized agribusiness run by faceless conglomerates.
The fact is that, generally, ranches in Wyoming, like almost everywhere, are run by families who have been ranching for generations, and none of them will get rich from it. It is hellaciously hard work done by people who just can't countenance sitting in an office all day. They do it because it's what they know. The myth that they somehow dictate to either the state or federal government is refuted by the fact that, unless something in the tax laws is changed, which isn't likely, these ranches are gradually being broken up as the patriarchs die because the land is now worth more if it would be broken up into faux ranchettes and sold to software engineers from Silicon Valley. The ranching families just want to keep on struggling with ranching, but the inheritance taxes are so outrageous that once the old man dies the kids can't take it over because ranching doesn't generate enough income to pay the inheritance tax and still stay on the land. They don't want the vastly greater money they could have by breaking up the ranches and selling it off, they just want to keep on ranching even if it means much less wealth, which it does. If there were any truth to the canard that there was big money in big ranches which dictated to the government........lol
I won't deny that America is controlled by a few wealthy interests, but those interests are in DC, not out here roping cattle.
 
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Thanks Larry, I stand corrected. What is happening to ranchers and farmers should concern us all. We are blessed to have these privately owned farms and ranches and I fear the day they are owned and run by corporate America. Joe
 
x-ray said:
Here's a quote from another article. Note the key word is TRESPASS to collect data.

"Governor Matt Mead signed Senate file 12, a bill that makes it a felony to trespass to unlawfully collect data, and prohibits any data collected "unlawfully" from being used in and civil, criminal or administrative proceeding"

If the property is posted no trespassing it doesn't matter what your reason is, stay out.
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Piss on that. You've just made investigative journalism impotent. It's not like a polluter is going to report himself to the relevant government agencies.
 
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