"leading Ansel Adams away in handcuffs"

[cps]

I thought the interesting point of the article really had to do with the first amendment/censorship issues possibly raised by the way the NFS/NPS are inconsistently implementing their commercial permitting policies. Since those policies appear to hinge on pretty subjective criteria (e.g. whether the content will be "news" or not), it is not surprising that there is inconsistent handling. To me, it is not surprising that some local officials might decide to interpret those rules as excluding commercial activities that would lead to messages the service doesn't like. Or that the rules could be used to make it harder for such projects to take place even if it isn't explicit policy.

That would seem to be a genuine problem.

If the permitting process is about protecting the wilderness, then I would think the only content that should matter from an official perspective is the timing, extent, and type of intrusion expected, not the message.

[Drew Wiley]

I just detected the same ole whine whine whine of people trying to get paid for a scoop thinking they have special rights. Then of all things they have the never of combining this with a picture of Sawtooth Lake, right in the middle of a popular Rec area known for having people problems and repetitive serious forest fires. So go
figure - cranky seige-mentality rangers come with the territory. ... So right at the corner of our own business here, right next to an entire lot of stacked framing lumber, right under a major freeway overpass, some homeless encampment starts a giant fire. It spreads onto the freeway. The fire dept is going nuts trying to get
thru all that black smoke and cut thru the fence and get some poor scatterbrained dud out alive - the same guy that started it. More fire trucks are coming along with medics. Then guess who shows up? The TV crews. Then rubberneckers. So then the police have to be called in for crowd control, and even have to keep yelling at the damn media crew to get themselves and their big van out of the way and respect a safe perimeter. Does their 1st amendment right give let them do just anything, even if it violates common sense and public safety? Just an example. But petty feuds between different public agencies and even different administration
styles are routine amidst public roles. A smart documentarian should learn to bend with the punches and not inflame their chances by irritating authorities in the first
place. I don't have a perfect track record, but a pretty good one. If someone approaches me with a suspicious look at my gear I strike up a plebian conversation about the local hunting or fishing holes and defuse the suspicion from the start, or maybe compliment their horse if appropriate. An in-your-face journalist might have legal rights, but I don't know how one can be effective they're anticipated to make you look bad in the first place. Sure there are abuses that here public awareness, but there are a helluva lot of manufactured scoops that administrators have a right to be wary of too. Lawyers can wrangle about the fine points. I'd rather just take the picture and let others cipher the implications. Believe me, there's PLENTY of infighting among the numerous NP, State Park, Coastal Commission,
and other agencies around here, and always some food fight going on with the press. I prefer to ignore it and enjoy life.

[Drew Wiley]

Sorry to answer that obliquely. If you want a straight answer I could ask one of my nephews. He's probably the most prominent land access constitutional lawyer in the country right now, and last year was keynote speaker at the US convention of State Supreme Court Justices. First he'd probably spend about six month to draft a 200 page synopsis of key nuances to the various potential arguments, then his firm would cut open an owl and carefully examine its entrails to weigh the odds of any specific court venue ruling one way or the other. Not exactly a roll of the dice, but what the probability might be, one way or another, given the makeup of a PARTICULAR appellate court, or even the US Supreme Court itself. There would be no definite answer. Never. Judges and juries all have differing opinions too. Just
odds and whether or not its worth the effort.