The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council is having a special webinar Q&A public meeting about Vessel Monitoring Systems in Amendment 30. I know how hard it is to attend public meetings unless they are close by. It does not get much closer than your computer. This is our chance to show our overwhelming OPPOSITION to Vessel Monitoring Systems from the comfort of our own homes. This is our chance to WIN a VERY BIG battle for our freedom to fish and Constitutional Rights!
PLEASE sign up for this webinar and call in to at the very least say, I OPPOSE VMS.
Please post on this thread if you will sign up and encourage everyone you can to do the same. There is no reason we cannot get 1,000 people attending this webinar with hundreds calling in. I have already signed up and WILL be calling with a brief statement and question.
Thanks guys! Are any of you going to call in? Would anyone like me to post my statement and question on here so those who do not want to ask a question could just call and say they support my statement/question if you do?
Here is a rough draft of my statement and question.
This Q&A webinar is quite the extraordinary and unprecedented action by this council to pass an amendment in record time. I wish the council put half as much effort into properly managing quotas with appropriate possession limits to avoid the million pounds of projected regulatory discards that will be wasted this year. One of the many sad things about why Amendment 30 is being so rushed is that the council knows America is bankrupt and it is trying to pass this law before the funding is gone. The council is also well aware of the questionable Constitutionality of requiring law abiding American citizens to install tracking devices on our private property. This council knows that the outdated technology of Vessel Monitoring Systems do nothing to promote the safety of fishermen at sea beyond the other safety equipment that we are already required to have. In fact VMS poses a very real threat to our safety at sea as it is an unnecessary drain on the limited power supply of small boats and introduces a potential fire hazard WHEN they fail. Vessel Monitoring Systems would add an average of $2,000 a year to the expenses of fishermen who are already struggling to survive with the multiple extended closures that contribute significantly to the million pounds of dead discards deducted from our already lower than necessary annual quotas that are based on “fatally flawed data”.
Why want the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to MARK Marine Protected Areas with data buoys or platforms equipped with video cameras that would monitor any recreational, for-hire, or commercial vessel approaching a closed area rather than violating the civil and Constitutional Rights of a small minority group of commercial fishermen?
Thanks for your support with fighting this ridiculous overreach of the Fed’s but it seems to me that the 2nd paragraph gives the OK to MPA’s as long as they are posted/well marked (in some manner).
I’m in. In my opinion VMS violates the 1ST 4TH 5TH and 6TH amendment. Does anyone know if the Gulf council was sued about VMS there?
Next thing you know we will have them in cars and they will just mail us the tickets. Remember the Ridgeland photo speed trap? This state pulled that one down. Pertinent case law??
Gulf council was sued, but won. VMS has been in us in the US for something like 20 years, the talk and threat of a lawsuit won’t get you anywhere on this one. And yes, I am signed up for the webinar.
Thanks guys. It is extremely hard to win a court case against a government bureaucracy being represented by a government lawyer in front of a government judge. We need to win in the court of public opinion before this law passes.
We already have several MPAs that should be marked. Based on my lack of ANY confidence in the SAFMC I do not support any new MPAs at this time. There are three ways I would support future MPAs.
Limit MPAs to three five square mile areas off each state. Mark and monitor those MPAs with data buoys and/or platforms. Create equal areas of new artificial reef habitat to offset the closed areas.
Create new artificial reef MPAs in areas of sandy barren bottom away from where most people fish.
Create a one mile wide strip of MPA running along the inshore side of the shipping lanes with energy production platforms marking and monitoring it.
I would be happy to go into more detail on this if anyone is interested. You can read more about these ideas in some of my public comments at this link. Read the one to BOEM. It is the second comment down on the page. http://www.freefish7.com/public-comments.html We have to offer positive solutions that deal with the reality of our situation.
Gulf council was sued, but won. VMS has been in us in the US for something like 20 years, the talk and threat of a lawsuit won’t get you anywhere on this one. And yes, I am signed up for the webinar.
NOAA fisheries does not give a flip about being sued. Government bureaucrats who live off taxpayer money, going to court using tax payer money against the very taxpayers providing that money and then paying high dollar lawyers with tax payer money to punish the tax payer.
Must be nice to have unlimited funds to do whatever the heck you want.
SAFMC could not care less about the Constitution and legal actions are perfectly acceptable to them.