Don’t tread on me

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This is the February 5, 2004, statement of Robert Bartsch to United States District Court Magistrate Judge Jennifer T. Lum, who found Bartsch guilty of engaging in a recreational activity within California’s San Bernadino National Forest without paying the $5 recreational fee known as the Adventure Pass. Bartsch was sentenced to three months probation with the stipulation that he stay out of the forest for that period of time and pay a $10 court cost.

The Adventure Pass is part of the nationwide Recreational Fee Demonstration Program that was passed as a rider on the Appropriations Bill in 1996. This program has just been extended by another rider for the fifth time by Congress and is now scheduled to end January 1, 2006.

Bartsch is the second person successfully prosecuted by the Forest Service in Southern California for failing to comply with what is universally known as the Fee Demo Program.

According to the Western Slope No Fee Coalition, there have been at least 28 convictions of people for failure to pay the Fee Demo fees in Colorado alone.



Your Honor,

I am not guilty of doing anything immoral or wrong. If this test program (which is responsible for me being here in court today) becomes permanent law, we will be barred from all of our public lands without a permit everywhere within this country. This will essentially take away a very important part of our freedom so that it can be sold back to us at “FAIR MARKET VALUE.”

There is no limit as to what we can be charged. Without a doubt, the vast majority of Americans will agree, that we will have lost a very important part of our freedom if we must have a permit to simply go for a walk in our forest.

Our public lands belong to all citizens of this country, rich and poor, not just those who can afford to buy a permit to leave the city. It looks to me as if America has become a hypocrisy, our government brags to the rest of the world how wonderful our freedom is and at the same time they are taking away our birthright to walk on our own public lands.

I really do believe that this is a sad day in the history of our country.

Your honor, I am 64 years old and the best years of my life are over.

If I can not continue to pursue freedom the way that our forefathers intended, you may as well lock me in prison.

I refuse to pay any monetary fine that you impose on me or serve community service as a penalty.

There is only one way that I can prove to this court, the Forest Service and our lawmakers that there are still many millions of Americans who believe in and cherish the principles of freedom that our forefathers fought and died for.

I am unwilling to compromise those principles and for this reason, I will serve the time in prison rather than pay the $100 fine. There is no other way that I can protest this totally corrupt un-American test program that was fostered by corporate America to benefit corporate America.

I will appeal this guilty verdict.