Has Anyone Heard About The Pending Law In Sc?

[+ladysmokeater]

Has anyone heard anything else about the anti geocaching law that is pending in SC? I send post cards to all senators in the sc state house and I also am in the process of sending out more mail ini regaurds to this. I also have the endorsement of a small historical society that is willing to assist in our efforts to prevent this law from getting passed next year.

[MapheadMike]

Do a keyword search using "Ceips" and all the past discussion will come up. Ceips is the state rep who instigated the effort against us.

[+jon & miki]

The bill passed the House and was brought to the Senate late in the session. There was not time for the legislative subcommittee to work through the issues in the final week of the session, so the subcommittee planned to resume work in the Spring.

 

Since the House has already passed their version of the bill, the most effective way to modify the bill at this point is to work through your senator. Education is very important - if the bill's proponents talk to the senators first, they get to "define" geocaching and geocachers in a negative way and set the agenda for further discussions.

 

If you can, meet with your senator, maybe even take him or her geocaching before the next session starts. If the legislators see that geocachers are not the sociopathic renegades alleged by the bill's proponents, they are likely to try for a reasonable balance in the final bill.

Edited November 2, 2005 by jon & miki

[+Retired Redleg & Missy Messy]

Wow guys n gals, what is it she has against Geocaching? That's really a shame. I did a Google search and came up with the Bill she's introducing, and we all know one has to get permission from someone to place caches, but this sounds like she's trying to make it illegal to place caches in most of the places caches are placed. As in Parks and such. I can understand it about the cemetaries, wouldn't want to visit those places anyway, but gees, she has a hair about geocachers for some reason. Good luck and my hopes go out to ya'll in SC.

 

Retired Redleg

[+ladysmokeater]

I am working on contacting several of my representivitives in Spartanburg county. But folks from SC I can not do this alone!!

Please join me in writing, calling, and emailing our elected officals with the message that we Geocache and WE VOTE!!

There are already laws on the books to punish those that vandalize, harm, or deface proptery with out adding one that eleminates a family sport.

Would you ban the sport of football just because some USC players got into trouble? NO you'd punish them according to their crime and let the game go on.

Ok Im on my soapbox here... but if we are going to beat this we have to show them just how many of us there are!!!

I sent 46 postcards or so to state representivities last session about geocaching, and I made dozens of phone calls (none were returned...hum) Be sure to stress the rules we follow, AND the CITO that most of us do on the trail.

IF ANYONE wants any ideas or has a plan they would like to shair with me on how to keep this law OFF THE BOOKS, email me Slancas640@aol.com.

you may IM me on aol or aim if you see me online.... slancas640

 

IF we band together, we CAN make a difference!!!!

Shelly

[magellan315]

If I remeber Coyote Red and his partner have been leading the effort to deal with this issue. You may want to contact them to see what they are working on.

 

Here is there profile link. They have some links and contact info.

Edited November 8, 2005 by magellan315

[CoyoteRed]

Wow guys n gals, what is it she has against Geocaching?

Well, nothing really.

 

The only real issue is she thought she saw an opportunity to get her name on a bill. The whole time she's been in office she's only got one bill through.

 

While this is complete and pure speculation, it is my firm opinion that her campaign manager is the true orchestrator behind this push. What better way to pad his own resume than to be able to show how successful he is at putting folks in office and keeping them there. He needs to show Cieps is an effective legislator. With only, maybe, a hundred or so geocachers in the state we don't have the group size to draw really effective opponents. The ones we do have they've already made effective attempts at marginalizing them. The rest of us are on a crash course of dirty politics and I must say, I'm very disheartened if this is politics as usual. (Is "dirty" in "dirty politics" redundant?)

 

How are they getting traction on this issue? Lies. Both twisting the truth and bald-faced. There is nothing they can't twist into a good bullet point against geocaching. They even accuse police officers of urinating on grave stones! How pathetic is that?

 

In doing a bit of research this campaign against geocachers is being run very much by a formula. Vilify a group. Then associate an action to this group. Doesn't matter if you don't actually belong to this group, but if you do this action, their take is, you are part of that group by default. This polarizes folks not only against the group, but also the action. Once this is done it's hard to get this turned around. Doesn't matter if the action is actually harmless. Because only those of the vile group do it then it's easy to outlaw it.

 

There are plenty of examples of this being done in the past century. Some campaigns have been thwarted and we still enjoy freedom to pursue whatever action was attacked. Other capaigns have been so successful that even to this day any public figure who even suggested re-examining the issue losing their job.

 

Looks like it about time to start getting mobilized again. I'm not looking forward to it, but it has got to be done.

[+sTeamTraen]

I think the term we're looking for here is "witch-hunt".

[+AtlantaGal]

Well I'll be in SC over Thanksgiving and plan to do some caching. I sure hope it's not the last caching I'll be able to do in your state

[+gas4cache]

I hope so too.. I'm new to these forums...and getting my first GPS Unit for christmas. I can't wait to start. I'm in SC. about 2 miles from the I-26/I-95 cache. Can't wait to go out and find it and add something...lol.

 

Does anyone know what the fine/punishment would be for geocaching... Nevermind, they'd have to totally be in the right place at the right time to catch someone. If someone wanted to they could always claim to be lost and trying to figure out where they were with their GPS..

 

I also own about 6 acres of land near a large horse farm. I'll probably be putting a cache somewhere on my land before long. Maybe meet some new friends..

 

Anyway, just wondering

 

Ron

[+Texas-Jacksons]

If you'd like to read the full text of this bill visit http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess116_2005-2006/bills/3777.htm

 

I think that Geocaching has set fair rules for itself without going to such extremes as passing prosecutable laws.

 

May I paraphrase: http://www.geocaching.com/about/guidelines.aspx#offlimit

Off-limit (Physical) Caches

By submitting a cache listing, you assure us that you have adequate permission to hide your cache in the selected location. Caches may be quickly archived if we see the following (which is not inclusive):

Caches on land maintained by the U.S. National Park Service or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (National Wildlife Refuges)

Caches placed on archaeological or historical sites. In most cases these areas are highly sensitive to the extra traffic that would be caused by vehicles and humans.

All local laws apply.

Edited December 19, 2005 by Texas-Jacksons

[+renegade9]

Hello all. I was wondering what is up with this bill. I am in the army stationed in Korea. Have started caching since i have been here. I will be in SC dec 23rd and looking forward to caching in my homestate. Please tell me its stil leagal. I fight for our country and they want to take something as fun and simple as geocaching away. I will be in the Union area any cachers wanna fill me in please email me at infantry79r@yahoo.com i will help anyway i can. Thanks and happy chaching

 

SSG Patrick Smith

Edited December 22, 2005 by renegade9

[+gas4cache]

it's still legal as of now...

 

I sent an email to both Rep George Bailey and Senator Glenn McConnel. I know both of them personally (not really close, but we've met informally many times) explaining a little about geocaching and inviting them to go on 2 caches with me. If I don't get a reply by about mid January, I'm gonna try to catch them by phone somehow.

 

Ron

[nightowl1352]

This is crazy, it sounds like they think geocaching is tearing up the land or damageing things. I really hope this bill is shot down. I only know a few geocachers and it seems that they and me are all lovers of nature and enjoy being outside and hiking and such and would not damage the land.GOOD LUCK

[+jon & miki]

There's an update on the status of the SC legislation about in the middle of this post.

Jon

Edited January 1, 2006 by ikim & noj