Guest Quella Posted July 31, 2001 Share Posted July 31, 2001 Just a general warning to all people looking to place a cache. We received an email to pick up our cache from a ranger station in the Boston region. We were told to pick it up within the week or they would destroy it. I went in thinking nothing of it, being this was our first placement and all. Until the Fish and Wildlife Police met us in closed doors and took our personal information and we also had to sign for the evidance (cache) collected. Today we received a $50.00USD ticket for breaking two laws as stated by the police. The first was to do with abandoment of items in a federal place, and the second had to do with treasure seeking on federal land. Anyone else have this happen? We enjoy the sport, but it will be in seeking only mode from here on. If this leeps up the sport will have to go underground. Just a warning Quella Quote Link to comment
Guest makaio Posted July 31, 2001 Share Posted July 31, 2001 Wow - you have my condolences. I guess we never really imagine this harmless activity could be considered a crime, but that's our federal government for ya. I suppose the abandonment charge is legitimate by their definition, although we all know the cache isn't abandoned as we expect it to be visited and most of us revisit them semi-regularly to maintain them. I would think the treasure seeking charge may be beatable as the statute (and this is purely conjecture) was probably created to prevent people from removing artifacts, minerals, plants, etc. which are native to the area. Not for hunting a foreign object placed there by a fellow geocacher. Personally, if I were in your shoes, I'd go to court and plead my case. If you explain the sport to the judge, and how this object was not 'abandoned' and certainly not 'treasure' by the definitions I mentioned above, he/she just may drop the charges with your agreement not to place anymore caches on federal property. Again, I'm no attorney and this is just my opinion. Still, this could turn out to be a landmark case with regards to where and how we can place objects on "our land". Good luck and keep us informed. Quote Link to comment
Guest bunkerdave Posted July 31, 2001 Share Posted July 31, 2001 I previously posted with some edited expletives which I knew would get deleted, but I had a point to make. In essence, I was saying that in a situation such as this, there is considerable leeway allowed to enforcement officials as to how they wish to address it. This is a clear example of said officials making the wrong choice, and behaving in a manner which only exacerbates the mistrust many citizens already have of government officials. Quote Link to comment
Guest bunkerdave Posted July 31, 2001 Share Posted July 31, 2001 I previously posted with some edited expletives which I knew would get deleted, but I had a point to make. In essence, I was saying that in a situation such as this, there is considerable leeway allowed to enforcement officials as to how they wish to address it. This is a clear example of said officials making the wrong choice, and behaving in a manner which only exacerbates the mistrust many citizens already have of government officials. Quote Link to comment
Guest cliffy Posted July 31, 2001 Share Posted July 31, 2001 Yikes Quella! Ya I agree with Makaio, you could probably beat that fine fairly easily as those laws don't seem to coincide with their reasons for existing given the circumstances. I too had a slight run in with the law last weekend while seeking a cache. I was trying to get to the other side of a large lake in Quebec but got stopped by a large gate with cameras all around. I didn't cross the gate or fence but proceeded to follow the perimeter of the fence through the bush only to have 2 armed RCMP officers hollering at me. It turns out the property in question was our Canadian Prime Ministers summer hideaway (Much like Camp David or Kennebunkport for the US president) Ooops!!!!!!! At any rate they were nice about it but did say I'd best be on my way...the OTHER way! LOL http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=3468 Quote Link to comment
Guest Cape Cod Cache Posted July 31, 2001 Share Posted July 31, 2001 Boston area is pretty vague... Which park area ? There have been a few threads about the National Park System, and how they are protecting us from ourselves. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts seems to be OK with 'caching. I spoke with my town's Dpt of Conservation, he was VERY cool about it, has hit a cache and loved the idea. One Cache on Cape vanished, but it was on National Seashore property, which is most of the outer Cape. Still enough to tick off the Pope... I think the Nat'l Park cops were being over zealous, could have just sat and talked over their concerns. How did they find the cache ? Look it up, trip over it, see someone looking ? Quote Link to comment
Guest cache_ninja Posted July 31, 2001 Share Posted July 31, 2001 where was it exactly? maybe you could please post coordinates/info so others don't get into similar trouble with that park..its too bad they didnt tell you beforehand that you were getting a ticket, you could've just not showed up and let them destory it, im sure you didnt spend 50$ on the cache. but yeah, i bet you could beat it in court... Quote Link to comment
Guest Quella Posted August 1, 2001 Share Posted August 1, 2001 The cache was placed in the Great Medows Concord,MA area. I was also told by the police that they are notifying other local areas about this issue. Also they said they found it on-line on www.geocaching.com under the zipcode option. The issue with fighting the ticket is that if the judge is not nice we could get a $5000.00 Max fine instead of the $50.00 one. Not sure yet what we are going to do. I will keep you all informed. Quote Link to comment
Guest jaw2925 Posted August 1, 2001 Share Posted August 1, 2001 I notice that you are new to this pursuit. You may want to consider editing out the coordinates on the cache page and then archiving it. You can also e-mail Buxley's Geocaching Waypoint (www.brillig.com/geocaching/massachusetts.shtml) and ask to have the cache removed from his site. This should help mollify the Rangers. My sympathies, I had to archive a cache immediately after I placed it in a National Park. Fortunately Jeremy was the person who enlightened me and not a Ranger. Joe Quote Link to comment
Guest EraSeek Posted August 1, 2001 Share Posted August 1, 2001 Sounds extremely heavy-handed to me. If you leave a cache in an area that you have doubts about it seems to me you could leave either a logbook-only cache (not exactly an abandoned item or a treasure, and not terribly imposing) or do a virtual cache. It seems to me any reasonable judge would certainly side with you. Does anyone know the ratio of reasonable judges to judicial bureaucrats? Quote Link to comment
Guest Cape Cod Cache Posted August 2, 2001 Share Posted August 2, 2001 EN ticket you, AFTER using geocaching.com to locate the cache reeks of entrapment. A gross miscarrage of justice. Quote Link to comment
Guest EraSeek Posted August 3, 2001 Share Posted August 3, 2001 I have the perfect Latin motto for you Quella: Illegitimus non carborundum! (Don't let the B*****ds get you down) (also used by the Whitehorse Yukon Star) Quote Link to comment
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