Federal Forest Service to charge $1500.00 for permits to take a photo on Federal land

Anyone out there who doesn’t think that each and every one of our rights are not under attack? We have another two years of this clown in the White House. We know what the IRS has done. Now the Forest Service. You think totalitarian regimes are bad? We are headed that way. Comments to the Feds will be accepted until November 3, 2014

“The Forest Service needs to rethink any policy that subjects noncommercial photographs and recordings to a burdensome permitting process for something as simple as taking a picture with a cell phone,” U.S. Sen Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told the Oregonian. “Especially where reporters and bloggers are concerned, this policy raises troubling questions about inappropriate government limits on activity clearly protected by the First Amendment.”The U.S. Forest Service is finalizing plans to fine photographers who shoot on federal wild lands without a permit.

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.

“It’s pretty clearly unconstitutional,” said Gregg Leslie, legal defense director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Alexandria, Va. “They would have to show an important need to justify these limits, and they just can’t.”

Under the measure, still photography and commercial filming in Congress-designated wilderness areas would require a permit, and shoots would also have to be approved and meet certain criteria like not advertising any product or service and being educational.

Permits would cost up to $1,500, even if someone was taking photos or video with their phone, and fines for shooting without a permit could be as high as $1,000, according to the Oregonian. A spokesman for the Forest Service did not immediately return a request for comment.

A comment:

Government loves our money so dearly.

Just think, the GENERAL COUNCIL signed off on this, just like the GENERAL COUNCIL signed off on highway seizure of cash assets — CAUSE THE COP WANTS TO. Attorneys RULE.

Lady Justice is at the 19th hole where she was peeled, cored and discovered for all possible assets.

H/T:washington Post