The state of Wyoming recently enacted a law that makes it illegal to collect any data about property (whether private, federal, or public) outside city limits.
This law, passed by Wyoming governor Matt Mead (R), is intended to prevent environmentalists from trespassing on privately owned lands. However, environmentalists are concerned because this means that no landowners, private or public, can any longer be held accountable for what they do to their land.
Traditionally, one could find a heavily polluted stream or forest floor, then take a picture and submit it to the EPA or a forestry service. With this new law, that will be impossible without a fine of five thousand dollars and up to an entire year in jail.
Opponents of this bill are also worried about the law stating that the data, be it a ground sample, video, photo, or any other piece of data, can be used to convict the supposedly trespassing person, even if there isn’t enough evidence to prove it.
In the scope of this law, even just taking a picture on a public hiking trail can be seen as a crime, regardless of whether the picture was never meant to be turned over to an environmental agency or not.
The Sierra Club’s Wyoming chapter called the bill “poorly written and overly vague” and continued to say that they “can only conclude that it is an attempt by private landowners to scare people away from valid research efforts on public land.”