"CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Two Wyoming laws that prohibit trespassing to collect environmental data violate the U.S. Constitution’s free-speech protections, a judge ruled in siding with two environmental groups and a news photographer association.
Wyoming officials moreover failed to demonstrate the laws are necessary to discourage environmentalists from documenting damage to streams and grasslands because of livestock grazing, U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl ruled Monday.
“There is simply no plausible reason for the specific curtailment of speech in the statutes beyond a clear attempt to punish individuals for engaging in protected speech that at least some find unpleasant,” Skavdahl wrote in his ruling.
The laws prohibit not only trespassing to collect resource data on private land but trespassing on private land to collect data on public land. Skavdahl ordered Wyoming to not enforce the statutes with regard to trespassing on private land to collect data on public land."
Mead Gruver reports for the Associated Press October 30, 2018.
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