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Opinion
Jun. 21, 2009
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Do the feds own everything?

Utah's U.S. senators say they want Congress to probe the actions of federal agents who arrested two dozen people -- four of them older than 70 -- June 10 in an investigation of the "theft" of ancient artifacts in the Four Corners region.

A day later, one of the men arrested, a prominent local doctor, committed suicide.

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    • There are reports of neighbors being roughed up and confronted by agents in bulletproof vests with weapons drawn. Some 300 federal agents were involved.

    Were authorities after armed desperadoes who had blown open the safe and opened fire at guards at some archaeological museum?

    Actually, that's not the kind of "theft" that's alleged, at all.

    Federal indictments accuse the suspects of stealing, receiving or trying to sell artifacts belonging to Indian tribes that vanished from the area centuries ago. But the artifacts -- bowls, stone pipes, sandals, arrowheads and pendants -- were "stolen" only in the sense that they were dug up from the desert sites where the Anasazi abandoned them, perhaps more than a thousand years ago.

    Such "pot hunting" has been a common hobby around the Four Corners area -- and other sparsely inhabited parts of the Southwest -- for generations.

    The objection from archaeologists is that such artifacts lose much of their informational value if they're removed from their original sites without being carefully mapped and documented.

    The amateur pot hunters reply that museums and archaeologists have more of this stuff than they know what to do with.

    Were the areas where these artifacts were found scheduled to be mapped and professionally excavated next summer? The summer after that? In 15 years? Never? If left untouched after being "eroded out," what would have been the most likely fate of these artifacts -- to be trampled by animals, washed away in the next rains?

    "Pot hunting" is legal on private land; it is considered a crime on lands controlled by the government.

    But the tiny ratio of private to "government-controlled" land in the West would be considered outrageous anywhere else.

    No one is endorsing wanton vandalism of such sites or artifacts. But it would be useful and realistic if a cooperative, rather than an adversarial, approach allowed quick surveys of such sites, with the most archaeologically promising being set aside for near-future professional digs, with residents told "Harvest the rest if you can."

    How do all such artifacts -- even those unknown and undiscovered -- automatically become the property of absentee archaeologists who may never even show up? Kate Fitz Gibbon addresses such issues in her book "Who Owns the Past?" (Rutgers, 2005.) Attorney and coin collector Peter Tompa also maintains a "Cultural Property Observer" Web site, which he "hopes ... will provide a counterpoint to the 'archaeology over all' perspective," at http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/.

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    wylie c walker wrote on August 19, 2009 08:50 AM: the days of federal troops invading americans is coming to an end.....a grand jubilee is coming and woe to them that are harming other.....the fury and wrath of god is about ready to be unleashed upon the governments of the earth staring with the usa....we the people are going to be set free from freemasonry barritry and usuery...which includes all of their enforcement agencies and armies.
    blessings and cheers
    wylie


    tanith wrote on June 28, 2009 01:47 PM:
    Illegal artifact sellers and pot hunters have stolen from me. They have stolen from my children, my grandchildren, my neighbors, the people I work with. They have stolen from you. Yes you, they have stolen from you without providing you compensation. Excess force? For 2nd or 3rd arrests for felonies? Do you complain as much when the feds arrest black urban people for selling drugs? Hey, at least the people selling drugs are generally not stealing from me. Maybe the addicts buying drugs, but not the sellers.

    The artifact sellers owe me for theft of my property rights to these objects. They owe me compensation for my loss. And I want it.

    And Winston, why is digging up the graves in Arlington any different than stealing from me by digging up graves on SW public land? When is it okay to dig up graves? Don't say that Nick is suggesting anarchy, his remark was to the point. Why is one grave sacred and obviously not to be disturbed and another one isn't?

    Is it because you don't consider the SW graves "properly" marked. They are marked well enough for artifact hunters to find them. Personally, I'm tired of hiking in the SW and finding human bones strewn about because someone wanted to sell an artifact that belongs to me.


    Peter Tompa wrote on June 25, 2009 06:31 AM: Perhaps, federal authorities could consult with Roger Bland of the UK's Portable Antiquiities Scheme to see if that program might provide some ideas for what can be done in the American Southwest. See: http://www.accg.us/issues/news/bland?searchterm=Bland There should be some way to balance the interests of Native Americans, archaeologists, pot hunters interested in local history and the Federal Government outside the purely punitive approach exemplified by the raids in the Four Corners area.


    Nick wrote on June 23, 2009 02:31 PM: Who's up for a trip to Arlington, Va.? Surely there's no problem with "harvesting the rest" of the graves of past soldiers.


    Doug wrote on June 22, 2009 01:24 PM: This editorial makes several false assumptions.

    The first false assumption is that the looted items "belong" to long dead peoples. Archaeological objects on federal lands belong to all Americans.

    Second, an archaeologist who excavates such things never "owns" what he or she excavates. These items are strictly controlled, and the object's ownership goes to the federal government which often stores such objects in state museums. Implying that this is not the case belies a deep ignorance of the laws regarding public lands.

    Finally, the implication that federal law enforcement was somehow heavy handed for the display of force, (brandishing weapons and using body armor) ignores the fact that artifact looting and grave robbing in the four corners region is deeply and directly tied to the metaphetamine trade.

    Far from "grandma and grandpa" practicing a "hobby," these looters are part of a violent and dangerous rural criminal subculture. Failure to treat them as such would have placed law enforcement personnel at great risk.


    wake up everybody wrote on June 21, 2009 10:45 PM: .








    .


    HELEN WEILS wrote on June 21, 2009 07:23 PM: MEANWHILE ZICAM A HOMEOPATHIC ZINC BASED SWAB FOR THE NOSE THAT STOPS A COLD IN ITS TRACKS AND ALLERGIES IMMEDIATELY HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM THE MARKET BY THE FDA.



    ANYONE WHO BELIEVES THERE IS MORE FREEDOM COMING UNDER OBAMA AND NATIONAL HEALTH CARE HAS BEEN DRINKING OBAMA KOOLAID. WATCH THE FDA/PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES TAKE OVER NATURAL AND ALTERATIVE HEALTH CARE OPTIONS UNDER HIS PLAN.



    GERMANY/ HITLER/


    HELEN WEILS wrote on June 21, 2009 07:23 PM: MEANWHILE ZICAM A HOMEOPATHIC ZINC BASED SWAB FOR THE NOSE THAT STOPS A COLD IN ITS TRACKS AND ALLERGIES IMMEDIATELY HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM THE MARKET BY THE FDA.


    ANYONE WHO BELIEVES THERE IS MORE FREEDOM COMING UNDER OBAMA AND NATIONAL HEALTH CARE HAS BEEN DRINKING OBAMA KOOLAID. WATCH THE FDA/PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES TAKE OVER NATURAL AND ALTERATIVE HEALTH CARE OPTIONS UNDER HIS PLAN.


    GERMANY/ HITLER/


    HELEN WEILS wrote on June 21, 2009 07:23 PM: MEANWHILE ZICAM A HOMEOPATHIC ZINC BASED SWAB FOR THE NOSE THAT STOPS A COLD IN ITS TRACKS AND ALLERGIES IMMEDIATELY HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM THE MARKET BY THE FDA.
    ANYONE WHO BELIEVES THERE IS MORE FREEDOM COMING UNDER OBAMA AND NATIONAL HEALTH CARE HAS BEEN DRINKING OBAMA KOOLAID. WATCH THE FDA/PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES TAKE OVER NATURAL AND ALTERATIVE HEALTH CARE OPTIONS UNDER HIS PLAN.
    GERMANY/ HITLER/


    Kent wrote on June 21, 2009 05:22 PM: In the past when I would see a bumper sticker that said "I love my country but fear my government" I thought maybe they might be a little off center. I have since joined the ranks of those that love their country but fear their government.


    please do not censor this post again wrote on June 21, 2009 03:45 PM: http://www.redpills.org/?p=4680

















































    5


    patrick wrote on June 21, 2009 12:19 PM: winston:

    I'm hoping you could correct "Common Sense" here; wouldn't your philosophy "grant" the king of England the "right" to stop any peasants from poaching on "his" land? I mean, he did "own" it right?


    winston smith wrote on June 21, 2009 10:12 AM: Nick, Nick, Nick...

    Yes, that's always the response of the apologists of government tyranny: move to anarchy instead.

    LOL. Come now, certainly you can do better than that...

    The feds only have Constitutional authority to own land for a few limited purposes. Feel free to look that up. Anything beyond that is usurpation. Look that up too, if needs be.


    Mark wrote on June 21, 2009 09:11 AM: Anyone who doesn't see the evil of federal agents is blind.


    Nick wrote on June 21, 2009 08:15 AM: Why stop there?


    - POACHING: You know, there's no reason for people to need tags to hunt. What are animals here for if not eatin'?

    - PLANT THEFT: There are miles and miles and miles of cactus and creosote surrounding Las Vegas. Why shouldn't we be able to just take what we want?

    - MINERAL RIGHTS: Just who does the government think it is, telling us when we can and when we can't go in and reap the earth's bounties?

    - PETROGLYPHS AND ARTIFACTS: Why on earth should we leave things where they are, so that other people might discover them some day? Lots more people will discover them in museums than in the natural environment they were left in.

    If you guys are so fed up with the government, go move to Somalia. I hear they have a wonderful libertarian thing going on there.


    Common Sense wrote on June 21, 2009 07:58 AM: "it is considered a crime on lands controlled by the government."

    So, too, was hunting deer and picking wild vegetables on the "king's" land hundreds of years ago in Europe. The land and everything on it belonged to the king, not the peasants.

    The royal family had rights. The peasants had only priveleges.


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