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OREILLYM <OREILLYM@CC*.AB*.CO*> wrote (Subject: Re: Wreck laws):- > [at] The Divers Showcase ... a Michigan Underwater Preserve Council Meeting > which was very scary. Larry Miller Division of State Parks DNR > representative from Cedarville Michigan is pushing for legislation that > would allow law enforcement to stop and search any vessel without cause. ... No!! I am not having the underwater world turned into a police state and a mass of private areas like when someone goes for a walk in the country and everywhere except a few main roads is "Private, keep out". Searching without cause is just police-state-ism and what the black people had in the USA South for a century until the Federal Government saw sense in time else there would have likely been open rebellion down there. It would be used via corrupt connections to harass away ordinary people so that a few idle rich can have the area all to themselves. Before the 1939-1945 war backpackers (hikers in Britain) had this, with open areas kept private for a few rich game bird shooters, until the backpackers lost their patience and there were demonstratory mass trespasses and violent incidents such as the famous incident on Kinder Scout in (I think) Derbyshire. What in the end is all this security in aid of, anyway? There is nothing secret naval being developed in the Great Lakes, as far as I know. If there is, why should the mass of divers be kept out of big areas for fag-ends of commercial secrecy or so that armed forces men can develop ever more efficient frogman and anti-frogman etc weapons and suchlike? Archaeology?: what archaeology? All the wrecks in there are from the last 2 centuries, times very well documented from other sources, not even as if it was Greece or the Middle East where there are thousands of years of archaeology from times with few or no good written records. Archaeology is interesting: so is ordinary diving. This sounds like keeping old things for its own sake and treating everywhere as a lumber-room. Ownership of these old wrecks?: Surely in the case of many of them, the owner has had quite enough time already to salvage his property. And this new proposed law even seems to stop the owner getting his own stuff back from the lake bed. Stuff can't wait forever. If the archaeologists want to study these and other wrecks, let them get on with the job and not keep diving water out of bounds for ever and ever for it. THERE HAS TO BE A LIMIT TO WHAT THE DEAD STOP THE LIVING FROM USING. > He claimed that through the DNR officer training program that the cowboys > would be eliminated so there wouldn't be any unreasonable searches. He is > also trying to raise the fines levied against violators. And I suppose: police divers trained to arrest sport divers underwater, and ever more efficient and advanced diver-catching submersible and surface patrol craft, and powerful underwater ultrasound guns, and underwater loudspeakers ordering you to surface or else, and licences needed to dive, and licences needed to possess scuba gear, etc etc until diver-controlling becomes a pursuit in itself and `what is underwater needing protecting from what danger?' is lost sight of. No no no!!! > We were informed many times during the meeting and in private that articles > on the bottom of the lakes belong to the public and the public loves ... The call is: The divers should keep on protesting, and swamping officials' mailboxes (paper mail, not email) with protesting letters. Even thus about 30 years ago the divers saw off a determined State of California attempt to severely restrict sport diving on an excuse. > There was also an accusation by a charter operator out of Marysville > Michigan I beleive, that John Halsey the Bureau of Michigan History head has > said that he would like to outlaw diving in Michigan to all but historians / > archeologists. Yes, archaeologists can get like that, and think that they own everywhere there is something old. E.g. I believe that by the letter of the law, in Chester in England (a Roman town) you need official permission even to use a metal detector to look for dropped car keys in your own garden! > ... the President of the Underwater Society of America (P. O. Box 628, Daly > City CA 94017) ... Their Legislative Director, Anne Giesecke, is named as a > party to this convention. And we don't want one small minority of the divers trying to keep all the other divers out. They also, likely started as ordinary divers. > Abandonment being redefined in favor of the archaeologists. This cleverly > removes the main pitfall found in the Shipwreck Protection Act of 1987. The > traditional law of salvage is precluded. The old idea of "preserve in place" > is promoted. Enough and halt to this! I want somewhere to dive! All this excess of dusty antiquarianism: Tolkien once flamed it as "holding the names of long-dead ancestors more dear than the names of sons" and "scavenging in a garden compost heap trying to identify remains of last year's dead flowers, rather than digging the stuff into the ground and observing its effects on the coming year's new living flowers.". Archaeology has its place - its place and no more. Like fire, and organized religion, etc, it looks here like becoming yet another "good servant but a bad master". I don't want it to get like the water off Greece, where most of the sea is off limits diving to preserve hundreds of ancient wrecks which will never get dug. Archaeology which is never dug may as well not exist. In Greece, I saw on the TV that on the south coast of Crete the natives got tired of this, and local illegal sport diving is widespread. They leave old wrecks alone: this the archaeology is preserved, but also unreported. Re old relics: You Can't Keep Everything Old! There isn't room for it all! Same as in offices where the tendency to "file everything" has to be fought. > John Halsey got extremely mad and called the charter operator a liar. Evidence and witnesses, please: let's get such counter-allegations sorted out properly.
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