Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/401545
h i s ' N T h a t By The Editors T S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 3 A Forest Service Fiasco It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. – Ansel Adams Ansel Adams. William H. Jackson. John Muir. George Bird Grinnell. Pictures and reports from them and others were the driving forces behind the creation of our national parks, forests, and wilderness areas. And now government bureaucrats want to deny you the same rights. Though it sounds absurd, the forest service wishes to require citizens to apply for the right to photograph the national forests they own. An Alaska outfitter reportedly spent 20 hours on the phone with federal land managers seeking permission for two clients to film their hunt, fearing they'd capture images of federally owned mountains in the background. A journalist was threatened with a $5,000 fine and six months in jail when one of his images of a hunter on a horse appeared in a magazine. An Idaho Public Television crew was denied entrance to a wilderness area to videotape a volunteer crew of young people repairing trails. The concern is not over impacts The photographer who captured this image was fully legal and in compliance with all government rules and regulations when he clicked the shutter, but now that it is published he could be fined. If this isn't a heavy-handed infringement of First Amendment rights, we don't know what is.