FBI undercover arrowhead sting

[DesertWalker]

That's pretty much old information. The horse roundups have been shut down for quite a while, (2 yrs) it put one of my friend's family out of the business. The feel good preservationist groups have sued the BLM and won. I won't need to pm you.

[lillyput]

American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign: The Issue
Latest info I received was 28 Dec 2011

Happy New Year!

[willybee]

Originally Posted by joshuaream

Willybee,

So you don't think gross violations of public property, private property, federal law and state law give anti-collecting groups ammunition against us? The National Geographic article on the looting of the Slack Farm resulted in changes in collecting laws the same year. The GE Mound case in Indiana did the same. This case is nothing compared to those, but because of the press it's brought the issue back to the surface and like a boa constrictor the laws will just get tighter.

Whether you like or respect the specific laws regarding collecting on public land, when you break them and get your name in every paper you end up hurting the rest of the collecting community.

This year was slow for me, but normally I dig a lot more than most people. My only point with that is to say I'm not anti-digging nor anti-collecting at all. I've been tricked in to digging crappy sites, already dug sites, but I've never been tricked into Digging. These people weren't tourists who were flagged down from the highway and told digging was legal, these were people who knew it was illegal. They might not have liked the law, but they knew what the laws were.

what they knew is irrelevent to my point. thats an on purpose distraction from the 500 pound gorilla in the room. i can't blame you for not wanting this thread to be about defending archaeologists. thats a difficult proposition.

i only care that collectors and hunters realize they need to participate in government in the future to keep archaeologists from trampling our rights.

i think gross violations of the law and national geographic aritcles resulted in ammunition archaeologist used to convince lawmakers to pass crappy over-reaching laws. who is defending looting?-and why would anyone?


i am against FLORIDA state law being implemented nationwide in the future because of national media coverage of BS arrowhead stings by the FBI .

you obey the law or you go to jail-its that simple. laws have nothing to do with feelings, and certainly don't require agreement. laws can be changed.

sorry you had a slow year. i do a little digging on private land, but have avoided burials completely. we are lucky to be able to surface hunt effectively here.

the important point here is arrowhead hunters need to participate enough in government to change bad laws or at least to stop archaeologists from taking any more of our rights like they did with the graves repatriation act and the florida termination of the isolated finds policy.

you are not going to deflect that argument by blaming looters -or by implying i want to dig public lands and break laws.

sure there are some archy's who aren't against collectors-all three of them are here on arrowheadology.



willy

[Rocker5]

I still question an underlying principle of these prosecutions, that being (1) not only do the self-appointed intellectual elite claim ownership of this ancient property; but (2) living tribal entities claim the Anasazi ancestry.

In my opinion, both define the definition of lunacy, and should properly be challenged in a court of law. The Univ. of Utah curator of these artifacts describes them as "dating as far back as 100 A.D." I have never heard of any recorded prehistoric geneological citation to bolster anybody's Anasazi ancestry.

Though I can prove Scottish ancestry definitively, I have no claim to prehistoric relics -tools, weaponry, etc. from that hallowed region.

Why is it that no one in the legal/judicial system challenges this demented idea?