Rancher’s family takes grazing fight to sheriff

Ammon Bundy, son of rancher Cliven Bundy files a criminal complaint against the Bureau of Land Management at Metropolitan Police Department headquarters, Friday, May 2, 2014 in Las Vegas. Last month, federal agents launched a cattle roundup on the Bundy ranch after they refused a court order to remove their cattle from public land and pay a grazing fee. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Ken Ritter
The Associated Press
Nevada Appeal

LAS VEGAS — Family members and other supporters took a Nevada rancher’s grazing rights fight against the U.S. government to the sheriff in Las Vegas on Friday, filing reports alleging crimes by federal agents against people protesting a roundup of cattle from public land.

Rancher Cliven Bundy wasn’t among those who filed handwritten complaints with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department — the agency with jurisdiction over Bundy’s ranch in the Bunkerville area and much of Clark County.

Sheriff Douglas Gillespie said through a department spokesman that the complaints would be investigated and any appropriate criminal charges would be turned over to the Clark County district attorney.

In encampments around the Bundy ranch, self-described militia members from around the country continue to camp with handguns on their hips and heavier weaponry within reach in a show of support for Bundy.

But no weapons were seen Friday among those who responded to his call for supporters and witnesses of a tense April 12 standoff beneath an Interstate 15 overpass — and lesser confrontations in preceding days — to file complaints against U.S. Bureau of Land Management police.

Ammon Bundy of Phoenix headed a delegation of three Bundy sons, two sisters and perhaps 15 other supporters who filed reports accusing Bureau of Land Management agents of wielding high-powered weapons, using attack dogs and stun guns, closing public lands, blocking roads, harassing photographers and threatening people.

“We fervently hope and pray that these heavy-handed tactics will not be used on us or any other Americans ever again,” Ammon Bundy said as he read a three-page media statement at the door of police headquarters.

“Will our sheriff keep his oath this time and use his lawful forces to stop them?” Bundy asked. “Or will the people be left to their own protection?”

Ammon Bundy said Cliven Bundy didn’t join supporters Friday in Las Vegas because he previously filed a complaint asking Gillespie to investigate.

Gillespie didn’t immediately respond to questions about Ammon Bundy’s comments.

Bureau of Land Management officials have accused Cliven Bundy of failing to pay grazing fees for 20 years, racking up more than $1.1 million in fees and penalties, and failing to abide by court orders to remove his cattle from vast open range that is habitat for the endangered desert tortoise.

The agency responded to the filing of police reports with a wry statement.

“We welcome Mr. Bundy’s new interest in the American legal system,” spokesman Craig Leff wrote.

Openly carrying a pistol or rifle is legal in Nevada, and permit holders can carry concealed weapons.

Ammon Bundy credited armed guardians with coming to the aid of his family when the sheriff in Las Vegas would not. He also worried that armed federal agents who pulled out after the standoff nearly three weeks ago will return to Bunkerville.

“Will they come back with greater force and more cunning tactics than before?” he asked.

Hundreds of people and law enforcement officers were involved in the April 12 incident. Las Vegas police officers massed nearby but remained on the sidelines while department brass negotiated a truce between Cliven Bundy and the BLM.

Well-armed bureau police and a group of roundup contractors faced off against protesters backed by a picket line of militia members on the overpass displaying handguns, AR-15 and AK-47 and other military-style arms.

“It was the most frightening thing in my life, to have federal agents of my government pointing guns at me,” said John Lauricella, 44, a Las Vegas resident who backs Bundy and said he was in the potential crossfire.

“I was walking right in the front,” he said. “They said, ‘Keep walking and we’re going to shoot you.’”

Lauricella said he filed a police report Friday accusing federal agents of violating his civil rights.

In the end, the BLM released about 350 Bundy cattle that had been rounded up during the previous week then left the area near Mesquite, 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

“We believe that the BLM men who pointed guns at over 1,000 people ... committed a criminal act and that the Clark County sheriff’s office should be required to investigate,” Cliven Bundy and his wife, Carol, said in an overnight email asking supporters to file police reports.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford, who lives in Las Vegas and represents Bunkerville and Mesquite, has also called for federal authorities and Gillespie to investigate the gun-toting force that Horsford said was frightening for residents.

After the standoff, Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada branded Bundy supporters who pointed weapons at federal agents “domestic terrorists.” Nevada Republican U.S. Senator Dean Heller called them patriots.

'Bigger than Bundy': Land agency's battles go beyond rancher dispute

April 12, 2014: The Bundy family and their supporters fly the American flag as their cattle is released by the Bureau of Land Management. (AP)

By Barnini Chakraborty
FoxNews.com

It's the most powerful agency you've never heard of -- at least, until recently.

The Bureau of Land Management, the nation's biggest landlord, found itself in the spotlight after a high-profile brawl with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and another dispute with state officials over the Texas-Oklahoma borderlands.

But the seemingly obscure agency, which is in charge of millions of acres of public land, is no stranger to controversy. History shows the power struggle over property rights and land use is one that's been fought -- fiercely -- ever since the bureau was created.

In the nearly seven decades of its existence, the BLM has struggled to find its footing and exert its power, pitted against a vocal states' rights movement.

"The federal government already owns too much land," Texas Gov. Rick Perry, one of the champions of that modern-day movement, recently told Fox News. He called for the federal government, and by extension the BLM, to "divest itself of a huge amount of this landholdings that it has across the country."

The Bureau of Land Management was formed in 1946, consolidating two now-extinct agencies into one for the purpose of overseeing public land. In the beginning, the BLM mostly focused on livestock and mines. Its mission shifted, though, in the 1970s when it took on the role of mediator between commerce and conservation, and faced a second identity crisis in the 1980s. That's when the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion gained new momentum in its push to return control of federal lands to individual states.

That "rebellion" may be underway once again, as states renew concerns about the amount of land controlled by the BLM. Congress also recently weighed in, with House lawmakers passing a bill in February that would prevent the BLM from buying new land.

Currently, the agency, which falls under the purview of the U.S. Department of Interior, oversees 247.3 million acres -- or about one-eighth of the land in the country.

It also owns 700 million acres of on-shore federal mineral estates.

The BLM is responsible for managing a large spectrum of natural resources. The federal agency regulates logging, mining and fracking practices across the country. It also administers close to 18,000 permits and leases a year held by ranchers who graze their livestock on land managed by the federal government. The permits and leases they issue usually last a decade and can be renewed.

In 2009, regulation of public lands in Western states generated $6.2 billion.

By acreage, the agency's largest stake is in Alaska where it owns 72.4 million acres. Nevada ranks second, with 48 million acres under the BLM, and then Utah, with 22.9 million acres.

In Nevada, rancher Cliven Bundy's recent refusal to hand over his family's cattle to the feds re-ignited the national debate over the BLM's power.

On the heels of that controversy, more than 50 lawmakers from nine Western states came together to protest federal land expansion. The state leaders discussed ways to combine their joint goals of taking control of oil-, timber- and mineral-rich lands away from the federal government.

"It's so much bigger than Bundy. There are issues ... all across the West where the federal government is exerting control over things it was ever supposed to control," Utah state Rep. Ken Ivory told Fox News. "The federal government was supposed to be a trustee. They do own the land. They do hold title to the land in trust ... but they have a duty to dispose of the land with all states east of Colorado."

Ivory says he wants the federal government to keep a promise it made in the 1894 Enabling Act that made Utah a state. He argues that public lands, except for congressionally designated national parks and wilderness areas, should be transferred back to the states.

So far, state lawmakers in Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington are looking for ways to transfer land management back to the states.

Utah, though, has been the most successful. Lawmakers there passed a measure demanding the federal government extinguish title to federal lands, aside from national parks. Ivory was also the primary backer of the 2012 Transfer of Public Lands Act which established a model for the transfer of certain federal lands to the state in the coming years.

The Bundy case has been largely viewed as the first leadership test for new BLM Director Neil Kornze, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn into office in April. The local land-use dust-up fed into a growing apprehension over just how much authority the BLM has and how far it is willing to go to maintain control.

In Texas, Attorney General Greg Abbott sent a letter to Kornze looking into allegations the BLM was eyeing a massive land grab in northern Texas. "Decisions of this magnitude must not be made inside a bureaucratic black box," wrote Abbott, a GOP gubernatorial candidate.

The agency indicated that the land in question was determined to be public property. "The BLM is categorically not expanding Federal holdings along the Red River," a BLM spokeswoman said in a written statement.

Attention on the Bundy-BLM battle has lately turned to racially insensitive remarks that Bundy made in several media interviews and appearances.

Conservative and libertarian lawmakers like Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, initially came to Bundy's defense, calling his situation the latest example of big government overreach. Both, though, have since scaled back their comments in light of Bundy's remarks.

"Senator Paul spoke out against federal over-regulation and BLM handling of a situation," Paul spokesman Doug Stafford said in a written statement. "He has never spoken to or met Mr. Bundy and is not responsible for the vile comments that come out of his mouth."

Others say Bundy was at fault, failing to pay $1.1 million in fees for letting his cattle graze on government grass for more than two decades.

"I wish Mr. Bundy would mind his law requirements and not try to play to the television cameras about confronting the evil federal government," former BLM director Patrick Shea told KSL TV. Shea has been on both sides of the land-use debate. He represented activist Tim DeChristopher who took on the BLM over the 2008 sale of controversial oil and gas leases in Utah.

The BLM has run into trouble elsewhere.

In March, BLM officials rounded up a horse herd in Wyoming after area ranchers and farmers complained that the herd grazed down pastures and damaged cattle rangeland. The horses were turned over to Wyoming officials. The state then quickly sold all 41 horses to a Canadian slaughterhouse. Animal rights groups protested the sale and slaughter.

A year earlier, BLM agents in Nevada announced they would be removing 50 wild horses from a herd that had grown too large to be sustained.

But the complaints go beyond horses. In 2011, several Utah counties filed a lawsuit against the agency over exceeding its authority by establishing wilderness protections without the consent of Congress.

Back in the nation's capital, House lawmakers passed a package in February that includes a collection of public land access and restoration provisions. They also adopted two amendments that extend the length of grazing permits on federal lands to 20 years from 10 years and also allow expired or transferred permits to remain effective until new ones can be issued.

Calls to the BLM for comment were not returned.

Congressman wants to cut funding for federal ‘paramilitary units’ after BLM dispute

Protesters arrive at the Bureau of Land Management's base camp on April 11, 2014 where cattle seized by the BLM were being held. (Reuters)

FoxNews.com

A Republican congressman wants to crack down on the proliferation of armed law enforcement units within the federal government, on the heels of the standoff last month between supporters of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and a federal land agency.

Both sides of that standoff -- agents with the Bureau of Land Management, and states' rights protesters who streamed into Nevada -- were armed, leading the BLM to back down for fear of violence.

But Utah GOP Rep. Chris Stewart told The Salt Lake Tribune that the BLM doesn't need an armed unit in the first place. He's reportedly looking at ways to cut funding for what he calls "paramilitary units" and require them to rely on local law enforcement instead.

"There are lots of people who are really concerned when the BLM shows up with its own SWAT team," he told the newspaper. "They're regulatory agencies; they're not paramilitary units, and I think that concerns a lot of us."

The bill could apply to a host of federal agencies, including the BLM, IRS and others.

FoxNews.com previously reported, followed controversy over a separate armed raid by the EPA last year in Alaska, that 40 federal agencies have armed divisions. This includes nearly a dozen typically not associated with law enforcement.

The agencies employ about 120,000 full-time officers authorized to carry guns and make arrests, according to a June 2012 Justice Department report.

Though most would expect agents within the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Prisons to carry guns, agencies such as the Library of Congress and Federal Reserve Board also employ armed officers.

Among those with the largest armed units are the Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and Park Service.

A BLM spokeswoman told the Tribune that the BLM and Park Service had law enforcement on the scene in Nevada to ensure safety -- and that, with just 300 officers covering millions of acres of public land, they already coordinate with local law enforcement.

But Stewart says they should be able to rely on the local sheriff in these types of incidents.

Other lawmakers, though, are focusing more on the armed militia members who showed up to protest agents taking Bundy's cattle over a grazing fee dispute.

KLAS-TV in Las Vegas reported that Sgt. Tom Jenkins, of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said officers were concerned for their lives.

"We didn't show any fear that day, but I can tell you, we all thought in the back of our minds, we all thought it was going to be our last day on earth, if it went bad," he reportedly said.

Long History of BLM's Agressive Cattle Seizures

Bureau of Land Management law enforcement officers block the Overton Beach Road at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Overton, Nev. Thursday, April 10, 2014, as protestor's shadows are seen in the foreground. (John Locher/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

by KERRY PICKET
Breitbart.com

Every month, Raymond Yowell, the 84-year-old former chief of the Shoshone Indian Tribe in northeastern Nevada, has almost $200 garnished from his $1,150 Social Security check, and it all dates back to a 5:00am phone call on a Friday morning in 2002.

That morning, a government official from the Bureau of Land Management told him to come down to a seizure site where the 132 cattle he owned were about to be impounded.

When he arrived, men brandishing handguns told him he couldn't get any closer than 250 yards from his cattle. He watched from a distance as the government loaded the livestock onto stock trailers.

Within a week, the cattle had been sold at a private auction – for what Yowell estimated to be a quarter of their market price. The proceeds belonged to BLM, officials told him, paying a portion of the grazing fees he suddenly owed. It wasn't enough to cover the full debt, and BLM sent Yowell a bill for $180,000.

Yowell has been fighting the BLM in court ever since, but while the case moves its way through the system, his Social Security check takes a hit every month.

The story, ranchers in Nevada say, is far from unique. Beginning in the late 1980s, BLM adopted aggressive tactics in the West, leading to large-scale cattle seizures and a disruption of life for ranchers that had utilized public lands for decades prior.

While the press has showered attention on Cliven Bundy, a polarizing man who prompted a tense standoff between Bundy's well-armed militia supporters and federal police, the struggle between ranchers and the BLM is much broader.

In 1994, Clinton Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt rushed through a total overhaul of cattle and sheep grazing regulations on over 260 million acres of land that was managed by the BLM and Agriculture Department's U.S. Forest Service, The Washington Post reported.

The 1994 “Rangeland Reform” regulations included doubling the current fees charged to ranchers for public forage and further environmental rules to prevent “overgrazing.” Opponents noted that in the runup to the new regulations, the National Academy of Scientists – a preeminent scientific authority on which federal agencies rely for expert analysis – had issued a report concluding so little was known about the condition of U.S. range lands that the new standards were essentially a shot in the dark. But Babbit forged ahead anyway.

At the time, former-Sen. Pete Domenici ripped the plan, a version of which he had defeated in Congress when it was a legislative proposal the year before. "The last thing we should do is hurry decisions that have far-reaching effects on western states," he said.

Underlying the move to raise fees was BLM's view that the fees on public lands were too low – much lower than fees to graze on private land, for example.

But as Heather Smith Thomas, an Idaho rancher, noted in a 1994 article in Rangelands, a peer-reviewed academic journal, the private grazing fees were artificially high because the government owns so much land in the West.

“What many people do not understand is that the ‘low’ fee is just one small portion of the rancher's many costs in using public land. The total costs amount to much more than renting private pasture, yet the rancher is locked into this situation, totally dependent on the public range. He can't just walk away if the fee gets too high, and rent pasture elsewhere; there is not sufficient private pasture available,” Thomas wrote.

The new fees imposed upon ranchers in the 90’s were skewed, according to Thomas, because the fee was based on private land lease rates, but private lease rates were high due to the scarce availability of private land and the lack of regulations on private land compared to federally owned land.

Thomas noted the“BLM states that "land treatment solely oriented toward meeting livestock forage requirements will be discontinued". Additionally the reforms have less emphasis on grazing, “yet the BLM wants to charge the rancher more for something that is being made much more difficult to use.”

Before the Babbit rule, fees were based on a formula that reflected annual changes in the costs of production.

“All the legislative history involving FS and BLM fees show that grazing fees were intended to be based on the rancher's ability to pay, not on some arbitrary value of forage or budget needs of the administrative bureau,” Thomas said of the 1978 legislation.

Ranchers found themselves in court for years fighting the BLM immediately following 1994 regulations.

Idaho Republican Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage and her husband Wayne Hage, lost their grazing permit on their Nevada ranch property for federal lands in 1991, when the federal government refused to renew it. This incident started a 20-year battle with the BLM. The government also denied access to the Hage family’s water rights, which pre-dated the implementation of the 1934 Taylor Act’s grazing permit requirement, by not allowing access to streams and wells. Eventually, the agency built fences around any water source, so the cattle could not drink. The BLM seized Hage’s cattle and filed a civil trespass action against Hage.

A little over twenty years later, however, seven years after Hage and his wife died, Hage’s children, Wayne Jr. and Ramona Morrison Hage won a victory for the family in court.

Last May, U.S. District Court Judge Robert C. Jones ruled that “the government and the agents of the government in that locale, sometime in the ’70s and ’80s, entered into a conspiracy, a literal, intentional conspiracy, to deprive the Hages of not only their permit grazing rights, for whatever reason, but also to deprive them of their vested property rights under the takings clause, and I find that that’s a sufficient basis to hold that there is irreparable harm if I don’t … restrain the government from continuing in that conduct.”

Judge Jones found the government’s demand for trespass fines and damages from innocent ranchers to be “abhorrent to the Court and I express on the record my offense of my own conscience in that conduct. That’s not just simply following the law and pursuing your management right, it evidences an actual intent to destroy their water rights, to get them off the public lands.”

Jones went further and accused federal government personnel of racketeering under the federal RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corruption Organizations) statute, and accused them of extortion, mail fraud, and fraud, in an attempt “to kill the business of Mr. Hage.”

Morrison Hage, a member of the Nevada Agriculture Board, told Breitbart News that “In the west our governors almost conduct themselves as if they’re a colonial governor and as if they’re only governor over the private land, adding “They take their hands off the steering wheel even though all state power emerge from the state. They take their hands off the steering whenever there’s anything to do with federal land management.”

Harvey Frank Robbins became a Wyoming dude ranch owner in 1994, after buying a piece of land in the state, but Robbins troubles began soon after his purchase. He told Live Stock Weekly, "The government — the Forest Service, the BLM and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department — were trying to buy the ranch," he explains. "They had these plans of grandeur of having this sanctuary of elk and trout fishing and all the things they could do. Then this guy from Alabama comes in at the last minute, not knowing any of this, and buys this ranch."

Robbins accused BLM employees of trying to force him to renew an easement to the point of almost putting him out of business. When Robbins refused to do so, according to his lawyer, Karen Budd Falen, BLM employees broke into his house and demanded to be allowed on to his property without a court order, among other things. While Robbins won victories in lower courts, a RICO case against the BLM employees eventually went before the Supreme Court in 2006, where the majority ruled the BLM agents were not liable for the alleged actions against Robbins.

Justice David Souter wrote opinion for the majority, stating, “Souter wrote that "we think [that] any damages remedy for actions by Government employees who push too hard for the Government's benefit may come better, if at all, through legislation."

Legislative changes could very well happen in the near future. New legislation to reform how much land the government does own could be headed to Capitol Hill. The meeting of western lawmakers in Utah last week signaled such a plan. Additionally, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced the Lone State’s plan to defend its own land from BLM seizures.

Wilderness preservation bill narrowly defeated

Washington Post
March 12, 2009

Washington -- A bill to designate 2 million acres in nine states as protected wilderness was narrowly defeated in the House on Wednesday when it failed to garner the necessary two-thirds vote.

The measure -- which has passed the Senate -- received 282 yes and 144 no votes, leaving it two votes short. It came to a vote under special rules requiring the super-majority.

Conservation groups and many lawmakers said the package, which combined more than 170 separate bills, would preserve some of the nation's remaining pristine landscapes, but several Republicans argued that it would cost too much and would stand in the way of energy development.

Despite the defeat, Mike Matz, executive director of the advocacy group Campaign for America's Wilderness, said the proposal had significant support and would move forward. "It's a question of timing; that's the big issue," Matz said.

The bipartisan bill would apply to areas including Oregon's Mt. Hood and part of Virginia's Jefferson National Forest. Other affected states are California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Utah and West Virginia.

Collect a rock, lose your car

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK

Ominous forfeiture provisions in new bill restrict use of federal land

WorldNetDaily

This souvenir could land you in hot water under the provisions of pending legislation. (DanielCD)

WASHINGTON – A land management bill that swept through the U.S. Senate last month and is headed for a House vote this week punishes rock collectors and paleontologists with arrest and expropriation of their cars and other equipment for even unknowingly disturbing fossils on public land, say critics.

In the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, a "forfeiture" provision would let the government confiscate "all vehicles and equipment of any person" who digs up or removes a rock or a bone from federal land that meets the bill's broad definition of "paleontological resource," says a report by Jon Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

"The seizures could take place even before a person and even if the person didn't know they were taking or digging up a 'paleontological resource," writes Berlau. "And the bill specifically allows the 'transfer of seized resources' to 'federal or non-federal' institutions, giving the government and some private actors great incentive to egg on the takings."

Tracie Bennitt, president of the Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences, is protesting the bill's vague language and severe penalties.

"We can visualize now a group of students unknowingly crossing over an invisible line and ending up handcuffed and prosecuted," she wrote to members of Congress.

Subtitle D of the bill called the "Paleontological Resources Preservation Act" would make it illegal to "excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface or attempt to excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface any paleontological resources located on Federal land" without special permission from the government.

"Paleontological resource" is defined in the bill as "any fossilized remains, traces, or imprints of organisms, preserved in or on the earth's crust, that are of paleontological interest and that provide information about the history of life on earth." Penalties for violations include up to five years in jail.

Berlau believes picking up rocks could be interpreted as a violation of the law since most would fit the broad definition under the law.

The forfeiture provision is effective before a trial and conviction, making the defendant guilty until proven innocent, Berlau suggests.

Berlau believes the House will take up a vote on the bill this week. He is urging Americans to contact representatives before the bill, known both as S. 22 and the "Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009" is approved, as expected, and heads to the White House for President Obama's signature.

Touch a rock and get mugged by the feds

by J.D. Tuccille
Examiner.com

A few years ago, I was backpacking in an Arizona canyon where the sun didn't reach our camp until well after we'd rolled out of our sleeping bags. Desperate to get warm, a friend and I decided to scale the canyon wall to find a patch of warm sunlight and see the view. We soon discovered that the rocks were speckled with fossils -- mementos of long-gone life. Somewhere, I have a souvenir from that climb -- a keepsake that, under new legislation, could could get my truck and camping gear confiscated even without a trial, and my friend and I imprisoned for five years with one.

The new legislation is the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act, passed in the Senate as Subtitle D of S.22, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, and pending in the House. Under the new law, "A person may not excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface or attempt to excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface any paleontological resources located on Federal land" without jumping through hoops created by the federal government. Do so, and you could face up to five years in federal prison.

Strictly speaking, that souvenir of mine might not be illegal under the new bill. The act does allow for "the collecting of a reasonable amount of common invertebrate and plant paleontological resources for non-commercial personal use." But that reasonable amount "shall be determined by the Secretary." Just hope the current officeholder's hemorrhoids aren't acting up the day he or she decides what you can tuck in your pocket during the course of a hike without facing the wrath of the federal government.

"Our government does not need to put scientists in jail and confiscate University vans. We can visualize now a group of students unknowingly crossing over an invisible line and ending up handcuffed and prosecuted."

And do hope for leniency. Because that five years in prison may not be the worst of it. At least a criminal conviction requires a trial before a jury that's occasionally unimpressed by arbitrary and intrusive federal laws. If the feds don't want to bother proving their case in court, they can just steal your car, truck, camping eqipment and any other gear you may have.

Really.

Section 6308 says:

(b) Forfeiture- All paleontological resources with respect to which a violation under section 6306 or 6307 occurred and which are in the possession of any person, and all vehicles and equipment of any person that were used in connection with the violation, shall be subject to civil forfeiture, or upon conviction, to criminal forfeiture.

You noticed that "subject to civil forfeiture, or upon conviction, to criminal forfeiture" didn't you? That's a example of a notorious practice called "civil asset forfeiture," which means the government gets to steal your stuff without proving a case against you, and you have to sue to get it back. Oh, and the law also says the government gets to keep or dispose of the stolen goods as it wishes, so there's an incentive to steal as much and as often as possible.

Civil asset forfeiture has a disturbing history of abuse for the benefit of government agencies, including actual highway robbery. Some law-enforcement agencies have become notorious for stopping cars, seizing cash and goods without ever even pretending to bring criminal charges, and returning the loot only if the folks passing through bring suit and win a court order. The situation got so bad a decade ago that it culminated in a bipartisan piece of legislation, the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (PDF). Compromise that it was, the bill softened some of the worst abuses of forfeiture, but left the practice in place.

Obviously.

Tracie Bennitt, president of the Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences, points out that the bill also threatens prison time for any person who might "make or submit any false record, account, or label for, or any false identification of, any paleontological resource excavated or removed from Federal land."

That's a problem, says Bennitt, because "[w]hat you find and label in the field may not be what you find as preparation is undertaken in the lab. Penalties for misidentification of fossils will place every museum in jeopardy. There is not one museum that is free from labeling errors on specimens on exhibit or in collections."

Ultimately, says Bennitt, "Our government does not need to put scientists in jail and confiscate University vans. We can visualize now a group of students unknowingly crossing over an invisible line and ending up handcuffed and prosecuted. An honest mistake is just that and should be treated accordingly."

Yes, "honest mistakes" should be treated as such, but so should simple rock gathering and poking in the dirt. If the feds want to target real pirates who are going after fossils on public lands with front-end loaders, they need to do so with weapons that don't threaten hikers, scientists and hobbyists.

And they need to entirely abandon the monstrous practice of civil asset forfeiture.

Oh, and if the feds want that souvenir back, they should feel free to send somebody around to collect it. Just have him stand back about 90 feet. That's the distance from home plate to first base. I can throw that far.