Hello-
The National Forests are owned by the American Public. The U.S.
Forest Service was created and mandated specifically to caretake
our lands for us. It has not done so and has instead pursued
policies that are destroying the legacy that we should be
protecting for future generations. In addition the USFS has
become a tool of repression used by past Republican
Administrations to contribute to the destruction of our
environment and to promulgate the "conservative" goal of
conformity for its own sake.
The U.S. Constitution guarantees diversity through a variety of
inherent and protected rights that include freedom of religion,
association, assembly, expression and the right to petition our
elected and appointed officials. Yet the USFS, on the
administrative level, has labored ceaselessly to restrict the use
of publicly owned lands for these expressive rights and purposes.
they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in
unsuccessful court challenges and in providing a totally
unnecessary and undemocratic police presence in an attempt to
intimidate and control groups such as the Rainbow Family of
Living Light as these groups exercise their freedoms.
It has been said that a freedom that is not exercised is a
freedom that is lost.
It seems to me that Americans should be encouraged by their
government to experiment with their freedoms. It seems to me
that government agencies which do not live up to their mandated
responsibilities and instead use their resources in ways that
limit the American Public from pursuing and exercising their
(our) rights and freedoms are government agencies which should be
abolished.
I firmly believe that the USFS needs to be investigated,
dismantled and replaced with a new agency instructed to truly
caretake our land for future generations, for environmental
integrity. And I believe that public hearings should be held in
the immediate future regarding the continued existence of the
USFS as well as their proposed regulations seeking to restrict
peaceful, expressive use of public lands. I wish to know why the
USFS is wasting their time and our dollars in repeated and
continuing attempts to ignore and circumvent U.S. District Court
rulings that have found the agency's use of permits, insurance
requirements and performance bonds in such a manner to violate
the Constitutional rights of tens of thousands of Americans. Why
is the Agency's response to continue to pursue this illegal
policy?
Please respond to this letter and let me know what the Clinton
Administration plans to do in these regards. Please notify me of
the time and place for public, administrative hearings that I may
attend them. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Rev Dr Alan H Feldman
cc: Secretary of Agriculture, Congressional O.M.B., U.S. Dept of
Justice and Rainbow Legaliaison Office