STOP the movement to eliminate Treasure Hunting in Oregon.

Oregon is trying to pass a bill that would ban metal detecting on private property, as well as artifact collecting without a permit. The only way to get the permit is if your have a masters in archeology. Please take a few seconds to sign the petition, and possibly post this elsewhere that you think might help. I know a lot of you do not live in Oregon (myself included), but think of it this way........"Who's next?" Here is the post........

Say NO to State of Oregon Senate Bill 64

In summary... it would stop all Artifact Collecting, metal detecting and relic hunting in the Oregon State, not just on public land but on private land. It makes it illegal for even a landowner to pick up artifacts on his own property. Anything of cultural patrimony cannot be removed without a permit. To get the permit requires a Masters Degree in Archaeology or a related field. Even with the permit everything has to go either to the appropriate Indian tribe or to the State Anthropological Museum. There?s much more?. But suffice to say it would be the death knell for collecting in Oregon and a bitter blow to private museums that rely on these folks to give them artifacts. It would also put an extremely heavy load on the State Historic Preservation Office which is already shorthanded.

Say "NO" to State Of Oregon - Senate Bill 64

The bill may be viewed at:
http://www.leg.state.or.us/05reg/measures/sb0001.dir/sb0064.a.html or http://www.leg.state.or.us/05reg/measures/sb0001.dir/sb0064.intro.html

Please take 30 Seconds of your time to "Say No" and show your support. http://www.petitiononline.com/ORBill64/petition.html
If you support collectors rights, please forward this email to other artifact collectors to spread the word.
If you have a website: Provide a Link to the Petition... Show Your Support... Please!

Private property rights: In Florida, a win. In San Diego, a loss.

....Enter the San Diego City Council.  On April 27th the city council voted to take Mesdaq’s land away from him and hand it over the GRH [a private developer]. The council decided that a nice 334-room Marriott on that property is more to their liking than a cigar and coffee shop because the hotel will generate more in property taxes. Mesdaq will be paid a “fair” amount for his property. “Fair,” as determined by the city council, not the free marketplace. Mesdaq will essentially be out of business. Read the Whole Story

Town Hall

Small-time prospectors may face restrictions

There's gold in them thar hills, but local prospectors may soon find it harder to hunt for the shiny flecks and tiny nuggets in the Coronado National Forest.   By next summer, the U.S. Forest Service plans to release new rules for so-called placer mining in the mountains east of Green Valley and northwest of Nogales.   Mining with dynamite, gaping open pits and dump trucks the size of houses aren't at stake. It's old-school, small-scale prospecting with shovels, sifters and sluice boxes - something that's done today for fun rather than fortune.   The Forest Service can't prohibit prospecting because the activity is still governed by the General Mining Law of 1872. The act, which sought to encourage mineral exploration and settlement of the West, has since become the bane of environmentalists, who say it subsidizes damage to public lands. Read the Whole Story Daily Star If "We the People" do not start limiting the environmentalist-dominated government bureaucrat's power to restrict our rights, "We the People" will have no rights.

RURAL CLEANSING:
Feds seek to oust gold miner
Forest Service says 40-year resident of historic town trespassing

Posted 17 Dec 2003

It may be a close call, but help is on the way for a beleaguered, small-scale gold miner that the U.S. Forest Service wants to oust from an abandoned mining town that's been his home nearly 40 years.

Gerald "Jerry" Fennell, 61, is the last of the independent gold miners in the Jicarilla Mountains in south-central New Mexico, and one of the few remaining in the state. Read the Whole Story

World News Daily

Posted 05/02/2002

Under the most severe restrictions ever imposed, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler on Friday closed prime fishing grounds off New England and severely restricted the number of days fishermen may go to sea. 

"Today could be the official death of the Gulf of Maine family-owned inshore fishing fleet," Ellen Goethel, a fisherman's wife from Hampton, N.H., wrote to the New Bedford, Mass., Standard Times. "This is the day that the Honorable Judge Kessler's new rules for fishing in the Gulf of Maine take effect." 

The order was in response to a lawsuit filed by environmentalists against the National Marine Fisheries Service for not fully preventing overfishing. Read the Whole Story

Newsmax.com

Good Neighbor Act Seeks to End 'Land Grabs'

New legislation in the U.S. House would discourage what property rights advocates call federal "land grabs." But one prominent environmental group calls the bill "silly and unnecessary."

The Good Neighbor Act would affect counties where more than 50 percent of the land is already owned by the National Park Service, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management or Fish and Wildlife Service. To buy more land, the federal government would have to sell a piece of land worth at least 97 percent of the fair market value of the land to be acquired. Read The Whole Story

Newsmax.com