Wyoming just criminalized citizen science

[ellenrr]

...Photos are a type of data, and the new law makes it a crime to gather data about the condition of the environment across most of the state if you plan to share that data with the state or federal government. The reason? The state wants to conceal the fact that many of its streams are contaminated by E. coli bacteria, strains of which can cause serious health problems, even death.

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. Rather than engaging in an honest public debate about the cause or extent of the problem, Wyoming prefers to pretend the problem doesn’t exist. And under the new law, the state threatens anyone who would challenge that belief by producing information to the contrary with a term in jail.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/05/wyoming_law_against_data_collection_protecting_ranchers_by_ignoring_the.ht

[justiceischeap]

1. Um, sadly the yahoos in Wyoming

that passed this legislation need some of those pocket Constitutions sent to them.

[hobbit709]

2. They wouldn't care. A better solution would be to give them a glass of that water.

[RKP5637]

3. K&R! n/t

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. +1. Like that Monsanto CEO wouldn't drink his own poison after saying it was safe to drink. nt

[sulphurdunn]

32. Of course it wasn't safe for him to drink,

but it was safe for you to drink. He counts. You don't.

[olegramps]

13. Remember their greatest gift to the nation: Cheney

[struggle4progress]

4. Please fix the link

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/05/wyoming_law_against_data_collection_protecting_ranchers_by_ignoring_the.html

[Ford_Prefect]

5. It seems the legislation violates both state and federal constitutions.

Lawsuits should be forthcoming.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. +1

[treestar]

15. It does

That's the dumbest statute possible. Vague, too.

[Thor_MN]

6. Pretty hard to prove that one plans to share with the goverment if one just post it on the internet.

If the state or federal government just happens to find the data, that is no concern of the poster.

Ridiculous law.

[AlbertCat]

25. Pretty hard to prove that one plans to share with the goverment

Just put your niece, or nephew...or grandchildren.... or whomever in the foreground with the "data" in the background and say you just snapped it for your photo album.... but then you noticed behind them in the pic.....

[A Little Weird]

7. Wow

Just when I think right wingers can't get any stupider.

Hopefully they can get this overturned quickly!

[mountain grammy]

8. Now THIS is a real violation of freedom of speech..

Actually, this story should be spread far and wide so people will understand that when the state makes a law that can put someone in jail for speaking out against the state, that is real restriction of freedom of speech.

[NaturalHigh]

9. WTF? This will never stand up to a court challenge.

[Zambero]

17. Until the RATS come into play that is

Roberts
Alito
Thomas
Scalia

All they would need to so is persuade colleague Kennedy to come along, as they have managed to do so many times in the recent past. The 1st Amendment to the Constitution is worth as much as cheap toilet paper to this crowd, unless you're the right kind of "people": (lobbying corporations with deep pockets who prefer to remain anonymous while buying off the country).

[NaturalHigh]

19. I find it hard to believe that even those four would uphold this...

and Kennedy would never go along with it. If laws like this will stand up to court challenges, the First Amendment as we know it is dead.

[cstanleytech]

33. I could see Scalia saying they can ban it actually but thats because he

is not mentally competent and should step down.

[awoke_in_2003]

27. To get to the courts

Last edited Wed May 13, 2015, 06:20 PM - Edit history (1)

You have to be able to afford to do it.

On edit: changed "you" to "to" to make subject line makes sense

[sinkingfeeling]

10. 'Land of the free' and 'They hate us for our freedoms'.

[edhopper]

14. I am sure

the good folks of Wyoming will keep electing these idiots until their state is a wasteland.
And then wonder what happened.

[heaven05]

22. that is the truth

people DID elect them. Period. They got who they wanted, to lead them....

[Jackpine Radical]

24. Da Libberuls is rooning da state wif alla dere reggilayshuns.

Dem reggalayshuns is poysining da waddar.

[marble falls]

16. Please fix the link!

[kag]

18. Let's hear it for less government!!!

[frogmarch]

20. 404 page

Darn! The article sounds like a Must Read!

[tkmorris]

21. Fixed link

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/05/wyoming_law_against_data_collection_protecting_ranchers_by_ignoring_the.html

For some reason the "ml" was dropped from the link in the OP.

[Duppers]

29. Thank You.

[displacedtexan]

23. Somewhere, Ibsen is smirking. This is the plot of "An Enemy Of The People"

Ahem.

Dr. Thomas Stockmann, a public-minded doctor in a small town famous for its public baths, discovers that the water supply for the baths is contaminated and has probably been the cause of some illness among the tourists who are the town's economic lifeblood. In his effort to clean up the water supply, Dr. Stockmann runs into political cowards, sold-out journalists, shortsighted armchair economists, and a benighted citizenry. His own principled idealism exacerbates the conflict. The well-meaning doctor is publicly labeled an enemy of the people, and he and his family are all but driven out of the town he was trying to save.
Commentary

This is an early dramatization of something we know better a century later: the difficulty of translating medical scientific knowledge into political action. Ibsen's well-intentioned blustery doctor heroically fails. Partly this is because the local democratic processes are quite cynical (powerful people prevent him from getting his information to the citizens), and partly because Dr. Stockmann suffers from a professional blindness that keeps him from understanding how anyone could possibly disagree that his scientific “truth” (he uses the world frequently) requires rebuilding the town's waterworks. He is a classic case of virtue-based ethics sacrificing outcome for principle.

The genesis of the play suggests that Ibsen, angry himself at European drama critics' response to his play, Ghosts, was blind to his protagonist's blindness. One interesting medical approach to the play is to see Dr. Stockmann's town as a resistant patient.

The playwright Arthur Miller adapted this play in the 1950s for its strong minority rights message at a time when many U.S. artists with liberal politics were being viewed by those in power as enemies of the people. Miller keeps Dr. Stockmann's strong idealism and mistrust of the majority but shortens and softens his tirades in which pro-minority is hard to distinguish from arguments for genetic superiority.

Sorry about not providing a link. I'm still figuring out the damned ipad. I'll try to edit and include the link.

Edited to add: http://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/804

[misterhighwasted]

26. I expect Texas will think this law is pure genius & quckly follow..

It's a Cheney/Bush thing. Ya know it.

[CanonRay]

28. I've known since 1973 that you can't drink water directly from the streams anywhere in the West

because of bacteria from cattle.

[Liberal_in_LA]

30. what?!!

[secondvariety]

31. 48% of Wyoming

is owned by the Feds. This law will go nowhere.

[whereisjustice]

34. An incredible regression associated with out post-constitutional government.

[colsohlibgal]

35. Stunning

Who in the name of all that's sane votes for people like this?

Ridiculous.

[silvershadow]

36. You have reached a 404 page. nt

[turbinetree]

37. Use to

reside in the state, it is absolutely beautiful, but there politics is absolutely disgusting.
They always walked around like they had common sense, but underneath it was like being in Cliven Bundy and his concept the BLM was bad.
If you were a union member and voted Democrat-------you were looked on as being scum.

Now I guess when you visit the state and get sick while fishing / swimming in the waters and you file a complaint you can now be a criminal--------because technically you are taking a sample of the water ----------Welcome to the Equality State----------just don't drink the water, or file a suit about the water-----------because the Equality State wants to pretend-----------just like there politics.

[McCamy Taylor]

38. How can both this and Citizens United be free speech?

[yuiyoshida]

39. I wonder what would happen if thousands turned up

dead, there.. will they say... NOTHING to see here...Move along.. ???