So this happened: Governor Matt Mead (R-Wyo.) signed into law Senate File 0015 (that is, a state senate bill), called (stand by for this):
AN ACT relating to crimes and offenses; creating the crimes of trespassing to unlawfully collect resource data and unlawful collection of resource data; limiting use of unlawfully collected data; providing for expungement; providing definitions; and providing for an effective date.
Otherwise known around here as the "Data Trespass Bill," the act prohibits the use of any data collected if permission was not obtained by a property owner in writing or orally first. It also carries penalties for the collection of such data.
More below the orange barbed wire of free information held hostage.
The problem Governor Mead has is this: people are collecting water samples from public property to show that ranchers around here are not complying with health and safety laws (that is, ranging cattle too close to watersheds, thus polluting the water).
Pesky biologists are collecting information on threatened species; archaeologists are collecting information on ancient cultures, &c, and all are violating private property rights (and economic development).
Environmentalists can easily demonstrate this by collecting water from creeks, rivers, or lakes and testing it. They can then use those tests to require the state to clamp down on ranchers.
Now I have nothing against ranchers per se: I live in the first "livestock friendly county" designated in Nebraska. (On a side note, I never understood the designation "livestock friendly" when generally the rancher is raising cattle to kill 'em.)
Ranchers in my local area are scrupulous about maintaining distance from watersheds like the North Platte River. Apparently that is not so in Wyoming.
The problem with Wyoming is though a large portion of the state is in fact public land (and thus legal to collect under this act samples for a lawsuit against a rancher), most Wyoming rural roads were put through private land without the state first obtaining easements.
That means though a county road is built and maintained by the state, it could well be privately owned by a property owner, and thus you are in violation of the act if you do not obtain permission from every property owner that owns a piece of the road you used to get to your sample site.
Also, if your sampling station is on private land and you did not obtain permission from the farmer or rancher, you are in violation of the act.
Note the act puts the penalties first, then defines what is illegal. Here is the definition of collecting "resource data":
(i) "Collect" means to take a sample of material, acquire, gather, photograph or otherwise preserve information in any form from open land which is submitted or intended to be submitted to any agency of the state or federal government;
So a citizen collecting any evidence of a crime is guilty of a crime.
(ii) "Open land" means land outside the exterior boundaries of any incorporated city, town, subdivision.
So thanks, Governor Mead. Pollute the North Platte, screw up my water downstream, and punish anyone that tries to prove a crime is being committed.
The law specifically requires state agencies to expunge any data submitted. That data is for just about anything:
(iv) "Resource data" means data relating to land or land use , including but not limited to data regarding agriculture, minerals, geology, history, cultural artifacts, archeology, air, water, soil, conservation, habitat, vegetation or animal species.
Note the "not limited to" meaning
anything the state desires to block. I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on
Daily Kos, but I suspect that by its nature that statement would be considered overbroad. And they ain't just trying to stop ecologists here: forget palaeontologists, historians, archaeologists, geologists, biologists, &c &c &c.
This is not only an ag-gag bill: it is one monumental piece of anti-science and anti-intellectual -ah- political ground fertiliser.
We get to the penalty for violating this thoughtful piece of legislation:
(c) Trespassing to unlawfully collect resource data and unlawfully collecting resource data are punishable as follows:
(i) By imprisonment for not more than one (1) year, a fine of not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000.00), or both;
(ii) By imprisonment for not less than ten (10) days nor more than one (1) year, a fine of not more than five thousand dollars ($5,000.00), or both, if the person has previously been convicted of trespassing to unlawfully collect resource data or unlawfully collecting resource data.
Think about that: collecting evidence of criminal activity is punished by up to a year in prison and up to a $5,000 fine.
Nice open criminal justice system for whistleblowers you have there, Wyoming. It would be a shame if something happened to it.
Oh, something did: Matt Mead, Governor of Wyoming, and the State Legislature.
I see conservative Wyoming is all about smaller government, going after people who might be interested in archaeology, botany, or other scientific fields for the advancement of knowledge, or volunteers directly obtaining evidence of criminal activity.
Those are the real criminals, not ranchers polluting water, builders destroying ancient sites, &c.