Government Regulations

[+ccm352]

With the fact of terrorism as a part of life. I have read news articles about police finding caches and blowing them up etc. Do you forsee any regulations and having to have government approval before hiding one?

[nobby.nobbs]

be a sad day if they do. how would they regulate it though? you never know what knee jerk reaction you'll get from government.

[Azaruk]

Certainly not here in South Africa. Although fairly new to the sport here, both personally and as a country, we have experienced no interference from the authorities at all.

 

In fact, the few landowners I have spoken to to get permission have been very excited at the concept, and the potential for attracting more visitors to their location.

 

The police officials who have watched our activities, when appraised of the game, have also been intrigued and have often pointed out better hide locations!

[Keystone]

Hi ccm, I see you live in Pennsylvania like I do. Government regulation is already upon us, at least in places where caching has "grown up a bit" like in the U.S. and the U.K.

 

Just here in Pennsylvania, you'd need to be aware of the following land manager regulatory/permit systems before placing a cache, depending on the area:

 

Pennsylvania DCNR (State Parks and State Forests)

US Department of Agriculture (Allegheny National Forest - pro-caching)

US Army Corps of Engineers (Permit policy for recreational areas)

Chester County Parks

Centre Region Parks

Montgomery County Parks

Berks County Conservancy

Lancaster County Conservancy

Western Pennsylvania Conservancy

 

Get the idea? Then peek next door at Ohio. It is way more complicated there!

[+ccm352]

I was thinking on a more broad federal regulations. I know about the dcnr, montco parks etc..

[+Renegade Knight]

I was thinking on a more broad federal regulations. I know about the dcnr, montco parks etc..

I don't see broader regulations. Maybe tigher ones for the federal land agiences. NPS already says "no" Terrorist don't blow up trees and sagebrush so the BLM and Forest Service should be ok. GSA...maybe as Federal Buildings are targets. However in a lot of cases the GSA rents the building from another entity.

 

If you are going to ban caching then the issue of what a cache is will come up. Hikers will cache water for a cross desert hike. The forest service will cache supplies for emergencies. A fisherman may leave a cahe of fish in the creek to keep. Bubba will cache his 6 pack in the creek to cool when he runs out of ice. If I break down and walk back into town did I leave my car as a cache?

[+SilverMarc]

I read a monthly online newsletter on security and related issues, and this issue had info about yet another Bush Administration-ism. I've included the links to the full story and the related info.

 

--Marc @ N40°46.565' W073°58.756'

 

Shutting Down the GPS Network

 

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005...ing_down_t.html

 

The U.S. government is considering plans for temporarily disabling the

U.S. network of global positioning satellites during a national crisis

to prevent terrorists from using the technology.

 

During a national crisis, GPS technology will help the good guys far

more than it will help the bad guys. Disabling the system will almost

certainly do much more harm than good.

 

This reminds me of comments after the Madrid bombings that we should

develop ways to shut down the cell phone network after a terrorist

attack. (The Madrid bombs were detonated using cell phones, although

not by calling cell phones attached to the bombs.) After a terrorist

attack, cell phones are critical to both rescue workers and survivors.

 

All technology has good and bad uses -- automobiles, telephones,

cryptography, etc. For the most part, you have to accept the bad uses

if you want the good uses. This is okay, because the good guys far

outnumber the bad guys, and the good uses far outnumber the bad ones.

 

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/10140

Edited January 15, 2005 by SilverMarc

[+wimseyguy]

I can't speak for federal pilocy either, but here in NC we have a de facto ban on hiding caches in State Parks. You can apply for a permit to hide one, but it isn't easy to find out how, pay a $35 special event fee, and then after your permit expires in 90 days remove and archive your cache.

We are working to getting it modified, but changing existing policy is a lot harder than creating new ones.

[+Renegade Knight]

I can't speak for federal pilocy either, but here in NC we have a de facto ban on hiding caches in State Parks. You can apply for a permit to hide one, but it isn't easy to find out how, pay a $35 special event fee, and then after your permit expires in 90 days remove and archive your cache.

We are working to getting it modified, but changing existing policy is a lot harder than creating new ones.

Locally I called a park that allows caches to ask a question about caches. I got random person X. That person moved me to the special events coordinator and she talked about permits and fees and reservations and I realized that the left hand and the right hand were not communicating. I thanked her for her time and ended the call.

 

Parks that lump geocaching under gathering type events are clueless (but have an easy way to make it so that geocaching had a defacto ban). Now if I wanted to hold an event cache at the part, she is exactly who I would of needed to talk to.

Edited January 15, 2005 by Renegade Knight

[+sept1c_tank]

With the fact of terrorism as a part of life. I have read news articles about police finding caches and blowing them up etc. Do you forsee any regulations and having to have government approval before hiding one?

I doubt it. Although there have been disruptive caches, they are relatively very few. I'd like to think the government has more important things to do (although that is arguable).

[+Mopar]

I read a monthly online newsletter on security and related issues, and this issue had info about yet another Bush Administration-ism. I've included the links to the full story and the related info.

This is something that's come up here about 100 times already. It's hardly a product of the current administration. If you want to blame anyone, then I guess you would have to blame Bill Clinton, since the only reason he allowed civilian use of the higher accuracy signals we now use is because they had developed the technology to selectively shut down the civilian signal if needed. If the option to shut the signal down wasn't there back in 2000, there would be no geocaching today, and GPS would still be primarily used for military and general navigation where 300ft accuracy isn't that bad.

[+BalkanSabranje]

Do you forsee any regulations and having to have government approval before hiding one?

Not here in Europe, the continent of the free and the brave.

 

BS/2

[+Crew 153]

I recently sent a letter to the local council Parks Department and received a telephone call from them basically saying that they were not aware that caching was being done in their parks and the official response would be not to allow it but as that would not stop people from placing caches that they would not officially respond.

He did say that he would get a GPS and look for some himself- maybe a convert.

[Trinity's Crew]

He did say that he would get a GPS and look for some himself- maybe a convert.

Or maybe he wants to find them and remove them. Some people are sooooo uptight! If caches in the parks start to go missing, I guess you'll know.