Tickets

The mere act of purchasing a pass is counted as proof that you support the fee-demo program. Agencies measure success based upon the number of customers who continue to use a test site after implementation of the fee and upon the revenues collected at that test site. If you do not want to be counted as supporting user fees but are unwilling to accept any risks associated with being defiant toward this program, then don't use public lands where fees are being charged.

The fact that the average citizen can't use public lands without appearing to support fee-demo is the Catch-22 which Congress and its corporate partners so cleverly built into the fee demonstration program. If you pay, you are counted as supporting the program. If you do not pay, you are very likely breaking the law as the law was written. A modern day mob-style protection racket - either pay some now or pay more later.

If you are using a forest for educational, religious, spiritual, work related or other non-recreational purposes, or if you are on public lands to exercise your Constitutional rights, then you need not purchase a recreation pass. Unfortunately, the burden of proof will likely be upon you. Whether you are found innocent or guilty with depend upon your ability to present your case convincingly and upon the personality of the judge who hears it. Those are the basic rules of the road.

The man or woman who gets a ticket, who fights it in court on the basis that the program is morally wrong, who is found guilty and is fined, who refuses to pay the fine, who is found to be in contempt of court and who accepts jail time because he or she would not pay to walk in the woods and who does all of the above with the media in attendance, will accomplish more to defeat the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program than any other person has done in the entire six years this program has been in existence. That being said, the following are some loose guidelines for what may happen should you decide not to purchase a pass and enjoy your public lands.

We know of hundreds of people who, collectively, have seen it all. One woman has received 18 notices without ever receiving a genuine ticket. One man has been to court multiple times for fee-demo offenses and has won every time. Another was apprehended at gunpoint and, after being jailed overnight, has never received a trial date after nearly two years. Another returned from a filed trip with elemntary school kids to find their vehicle surrounded by Forest Service officials. The instructor was questioned for over an hour. Two others made it clear they would embarrass the Forest Service in court and their cases were dropped at the last moment. After waiting for almost a year, four folks were threatened with up to $5,000 in fines and/or jailtime only to have the judge throw out the case because the Forest Service could not prove that any of them were in the area in question. Another man lost in court but won big in the press because the fee-demo program was exposed for the scam that it is. Other persons have lost in court and have nothing positive to show for their efforts.

REGARDLESS OF YOUR PARTICULAR SITUATION, SAVE YOUR ARGUEMENTS FOR THE JUDGE!

Everything you say can and will be used against you. No matter how friendly the Forest Service may seem, no matter how passionate you feel about this issue, the less you say to the enforcing officer(s) the better. This will be difficult, and they will not make it easy for you to ignore them, but this is simply the BEST TACTIC. When contacting the Forest Service, NEVER ADMIT that you did not purchase a pass, that you refuse to purchase a pass or that you were in the forest for recreational purposes.

REMEMBER........ Never threaten, touch or otherwise interfere with the enforcing officers/volunteers. A volunteer can not make you do anything, but they will call for officials if you do not cooperate with them. Be polite, be courteous, accept whatever they hand you, and leave.

If you had an encounter with an actual Forest Service employee or volunteer please click here. If you returned to your vehicle to find a citation, but never saw or spoke with an employee or volunteer, please click here.

Across the country, encounters with Forest Service personal and volunteers are becoming a lot less friendly and informative. (Not everywhere mind you! But we do get calls, and more calls, and more calls........) As the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program oozes over the landscape and the men in green go after your green, their role becomes more one of a meter maid and less a caretaker of the public landscape. We are constantly amazed by the amount of trash we pick up - right next to a vehicle with a fresh citation on it. Enforcing an unpopular program, which pays little more than the costs of the program itself, has become an unfortunate and DOMINATING reality for the once proud Forest Service.

It's gotten so bad, that we get calls from people who tell us they stopped to take a pee in the bushes or perhaps grab a quick glimpse of the sunset, only to return to their car and find a uniformed officer writing them a ticket. Hardly a week goes by without someone asking us: "What should I do?"

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those of us who profess to favor freedom yet deprecate agitation are men who want the crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will."
--Frederick Douglass, activist