Oh Wyoming, What Have You Done?

[Commodore]

Wait what? The government forbids giving information to itself? I get that politicians do not like to get confused with facts, but making that illegal? How is that even supposed to make sense?

Meanwhile, the NSA does everything they can to make not sharing with the government very difficult. So you probably should avoid looking at a thermometer while in Wyoming.

To be more accurate, this law is aimed to prevent people from tattling on one level of government to another higher level of government that is able to give the former a big pee-pee slap.

 

[Phrossack]

Clearly Americans can't be trusted to govern themselves.

You may have your choice of which Scandinavian country you wish to be ruled by.

Finnish has a fearsome amount of umlauts. Let's go with them.

 

[peter grimes]

I can't seem to find any federal research on the matter, just information from the Western Watershed Project, which the article cites as the source of the information that there is E. coli in most of Wyoming's water sources.

EDIT: As an aside: Laws like this are a big reason why I laugh in the face of anyone who advocates for "states' rights" because they feel the state governments would somehow be less corrupt than the federal government.

I'm not biologist but I'd bet that there's E. coli in just about every waterway on earth. What matters, i think is the strain and the concentration (or prevalence).

Until I hear more about that, I'm not going to assume Wyoming's waterways are 100% dangerous to drink from.

That said, the law shouldn't pass judicial review. For that matter, I'd love to see a USA where people who sponsor bills that get overturned as unconstitutional automatically lose their job.

Imagine if I, a woodworker, claim that a bench is safe to sit on. Someone sits on it, and the thing collapses. I wouldn't see work from that client again, most likely. Why do these guys get to keep their jobs??

 

[uppi]

To be more accurate, this law is aimed to prevent people from tattling on one level of government to another higher level of government that is able to give the former a big pee-pee slap.

Ah, so it is essentially like a corrupt police chief forbidding you to talk to the feds. Makes sense for the police chief, but no legal system should let that stand.

 

[Drewcifer]

The 1st amendment protects photography provided that the photograph is taken on public land and the subject is clearly visible, or on private property taken with permission. The only exception to this is around certain military instillations where national security is involved and public photography has been explicitly prohibited by the base commander (such as public roads next to runways). This law in Wyoming is clearly unconstitutional and will be struck down the first time it is used to prohibit photography, it won't make it anywhere near the Supreme Court.


Beyond the issue of photography, the broader part of the law is probably unconstitutional for similar reasons. Communicating with the federal government is speech.

 

[Berzerker]

EDIT: As an aside: Laws like this are a big reason why I laugh in the face of anyone who advocates for "states' rights" because they feel the state governments would somehow be less corrupt than the federal government.

it aint about being less corrupt, just closer to the voters...the people living in a "clean" state shouldn't have it corrupted by people in other states because Dems and Repubs decided the interstate commerce clause lets them ignore federalism

 

[Commodore]

I'm not biologist but I'd bet that there's E. coli in just about every waterway on earth. What matters, i think is the strain and the concentration (or prevalence).

Until I hear more about that, I'm not going to assume Wyoming's waterways are 100% dangerous to drink from.

That said, the law shouldn't pass judicial review. For that matter, I'd love to see a USA where people who sponsor bills that get overturned as unconstitutional automatically lose their job.

Imagine if I, a woodworker, claim that a bench is safe to sit on. Someone sits on it, and the thing collapses. I wouldn't see work from that client again, most likely. Why do these guys get to keep their jobs??

You're right and I should have been more specific in my wording. The article does state the Western Watersheds Project found E. coli bacteria in many of Wyoming's water sources in high enough concentrations so as to be in violation of the federal Clean Water Act.

From the article:

A small organization called Western Watersheds Project (which I represent pro bono in an unrelated lawsuit) has found the bacteria in a number of streams crossing federal land in concentrations that violate water quality standards under the federal Clean Water Act.

Now the article does not provide any hard data, nor could I find said data on the Western Watersheds Project's website, so their claim at this point is unverified. However, that does not change the fact that this law is in violation of numerous federal statutes and laws as well as being in violation of the Constitution itself. This law would also prevent any kind of research that would attempt to verify or discredit the Western Watersheds Project's findings.

 

[peter grimes]

Thanks for the clarification, I didn't actually read your article