10 June 20
As a result many those who use the service totally disrespect the organization's financial wellbeing. What those of you who the use the service but do not contribute reasonably are saying is, “Be corporate, be ruthless.” Take a moment to consider what RSN does for you and what the ruthless do to you.
Get behind this thing.
Marc Ash
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10 June 20
RSN: Marc Ash | The Four Corner Posts of Police Violence
Marc Ash, Reader Supported News
Ash writes: "Experienced civil rights and police reform advocates were undoubtedly deeply saddened to see the killing of George Floyd captured in a shocking video, but it's not likely many were surprised."
Marc Ash, Reader Supported News
Ash writes: "Experienced civil rights and police reform advocates were undoubtedly deeply saddened to see the killing of George Floyd captured in a shocking video, but it's not likely many were surprised."
This is a scene that plays out day after day, all across America, and sometimes video of the incident makes its way into the public realm. The video being the key. No video, no public outrage. The police know that.
Two things the police do not want pointed at them are guns and cameras. Guns pose a lethal threat, so that’s understandable. Cameras, however, pose a different threat that police fear – a legal threat.
Very often when a video surfaces implicating a police officer engaged in the commission of a crime there is a tendency on the part of some in law enforcement to blame the video or the person who made it rather than the police officer committing the crime. This explains the images we now see coming out of riot police in Minneapolis targeting journalists.
Of course violence can be distilled into universal themes. Inhumanity, lack of compassion or empathy, and yes, good old all-American racism. But the longstanding pattern of police violence in America depends upon very specific mechanisms to continue to function year after year. These are the four corner posts of police violence in America.
1. Absolute Authority
The concept that a law enforcement officer can and must totally control the interaction in every instance is foundational to policing in the US. When an American police officer instructs someone they are interacting with to do or not do something, a process begins. If the instructions are followed, the process often goes smoothly. But if the person they are interacting with objects, American police are trained to begin to increase the pressure and if necessary use force, including lethal force, to compel compliance. Non-compliance is viewed as unthinkable.
Non-compliance with police commands leads to a large number of police-involved fatalities every year. Even doing nothing when commanded to do something can result in the use of deadly force. There are many reasons why a person may be non-compliant, including disorientation and fear.
When a person is shot while attempting to flee, that is more specifically a person shot for non-compliance, and that accounts for a significant percentage of police-involved shootings every year.
It should be noted that in many other countries, particularly so-called Western democracies, police are trained to withdraw from situations that are not going well and reevaluate rather than force a potentially more dangerous conclusion.
2. Virtual Immunity
Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison is already on record warning that convicting Minneapolis police officers in the killing of George Floyd will not be easy: “What I’m really saying is that, you know, it’s hard to convict the police – and even when the criminal wrongdoing appears to be in front of your eyes.”
The record in fact would indicate Ellison’s assessment is something of an understatement. Traditionally, charges against US law enforcement officers in cases involving use of force are rare, and convictions almost unheard of. Radley Balko, writing for The Washington Post, breaks it down pretty thoroughly.
The legal process is designed from top to bottom to give police officers the benefit of every doubt and broad deference. From fellow police officers who would investigate, to district attorneys who would prosecute, to judges who conduct trials, and especially jurors who render verdicts, there is unilateral support for police officers and great reluctance to try, let alone convict them. The legal shield around police officers has for decades been so impenetrable that the effect has been virtual immunity.
The trial of former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager for the slaying of Walter Scott was indeed a stark example. Although Slager would ultimately plead guilty to federal civil rights charges in the killing of Scott, his state trial ended in a hung jury, despite direct video evidence of the killing that proved not only that Slager killed Scott as he attempted to run away, but also that he lied to investigators. It appeared to be an airtight case.
A single juror held out against convicting Slager, writing in a letter to the judge, “I cannot with good conscience consider a guilty verdict.” Neither the evidence nor the law made any difference to one juror who simply did not want to convict, and the trial had to be aborted.
3. Infiltration of Law Enforcement
For decades, really since the end of the Civil War, men who wanted to commit acts of violence against communities of color, but to avoid becoming themselves subjects of law enforcement, have sought to infiltrate law enforcement agencies. This has allowed them to commit those acts under color of law.
The murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia is a real-time reminder that violent racists still seek the protection and sanction of law enforcement agencies. Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael, and their alleged accomplice William Bryan are charged with murder in the death of Ahmaud Arbery. Gregory McMichael had a nearly four-decade-long career as an officer with the Glynn County Police Department and after that as an investigator for the District Attorney’s office there.
Georgia has a long history of racist attitudes and conduct, and that might suggest that law enforcement agencies are more receptive to individuals with ill will toward people of color seeking to become police officers. However it seems more widespread.
San Francisco has the reputation of being the most socially and politically progressive city in America and arguably the world. But in 2016, a scandal broke when text messages sent by multiple veteran San Francisco Police Department officers came to light revealing blatantly racist language. At least 14 officers were implicated. The problem was not limited to a few bad apples, but appeared to be commonplace within the department.
4. Police Unions
Oversight of police departments by civilian or politically elected leaders at the state or local level works very much the same as oversight of the US Armed Forces on a national level. With one very significant difference. At the state and local level police unions to a very significant extent stand between the civilian overseers and the rank and file police officers.
Very often the police unions are among the most powerful organizations in their states. The result is that when civilian administrators become aware of misconduct, even when there is significant evidence of wrongdoing or illegality on the part of police officers, taking corrective action is an uphill legal battle against a powerful machine.
Stephen Rushin, writing for the Duke Law Journal to describe the manner in which states negotiate with police unions, put it this way:
“Most states permit police officers to bargain collectively over the terms of their employment, including the content of internal disciplinary procedures. This means that police union contracts – largely negotiated outside of public view – shape the content of disciplinary procedures used by American police departments.”
Rushin’s piece, supported by extensive citations, illustrates the impact of police unions on disciplinary actions and reform efforts. It provides powerful insight into why, even when discipline and/or reform are clearly warranted, it is often the police union that prevents it.
Solving a problem requires understanding its construct. Change is possible, but the mechanisms have to be understood and addressed.
Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Philonise Floyd speaks during the funeral for his brother, George Floyd, on June 9, 2020, at The Fountain of Praise church in Houston. (photo: Godofredo A. Vasquez/Pool/AFP/Getty Images)
George Floyd's Brother to Testify in House Police Brutality Hearing
Benjamin Siegel, ABC News
Siegel writes: "George Floyd's brother, his family's lawyer, a former Secret Service agent and the sister of a federal law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty will testify before lawmakers on Wednesday as Congress works to respond to Floyd's death in police custody."
READ MORE
Benjamin Siegel, ABC News
Siegel writes: "George Floyd's brother, his family's lawyer, a former Secret Service agent and the sister of a federal law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty will testify before lawmakers on Wednesday as Congress works to respond to Floyd's death in police custody."
READ MORE
Militarized police. (photo: Shutterstock/alternet)
William J. Astore | "Light 'Em Up": How America's Forever Wars Came to Our Streets
William J. Astore, TomDispatch
Astore writes: "From their front porches, regular citizens watched a cordon of cops sweep down their peaceful street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Rankled at being filmed, the cops exceeded their authority and demanded that people go inside their houses."
William J. Astore, TomDispatch
Astore writes: "From their front porches, regular citizens watched a cordon of cops sweep down their peaceful street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Rankled at being filmed, the cops exceeded their authority and demanded that people go inside their houses."
EXCERPT:
Here’s a little portrait of the United States in June 2020, a passage from a New York Times report on the National Guard’s treatment of a recent protest march of people chanting “We can’t breathe!” in Washington, D.C.:
“A Black Hawk helicopter, followed by a smaller medical evacuation helicopter, dropped to rooftop level with its searchlights aimed at the crowd. Tree limbs snapped, nearly hitting several people. Signs were torn from the sides of buildings. Some protesters looked up, while others ran into doorways. The downward force of air from the rotors was deafening. The helicopters were performing a ‘show of force’ -- a standard tactic used by military aircraft in combat zones to scatter insurgents.”
Talk about America’s wars coming home! George Floyd’s recent killing is both a long way, and yet not far at all, from the police shooting of the unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. Many Americans felt shocked then on seeing that city's police force respond to the ensuing protests togged out in Pentagon-supplied gear of every sort, including sniper rifles and Humvees, often directly off the battlefields of this country’s ongoing wars. As Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver put it then, referring to an Iraqi city largely destroyed by the U.S. military in 2004, “Ferguson resembles Fallujah.”
The question is: What does the U.S. resemble six years later? You know, I’m talking about the place that Secretary of Defense Mark Esper recently referred to as a “battle space” (as in “dominate the battle space”) in a contentious discussion he and President Trump had with the nation’s governors. I’m talking about the country where that same president has been threatening to call out the troops as police forces. (When retired military brass screamed bloody murder, Esper began backing down.) I’m talking about the land into which Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton has the urge to send the 101st Airborne Division, or Screaming Eagles, whose assault troops have previously seen action in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. ("If local politicians will not do their most basic job to protect our citizens, let's see how these anarchists respond when the 101st Airborne is on the other side of the street.")
Could you ever doubt that America’s wars would sooner or later come home in a big way? I suspect retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and historian William Astore didn’t. After all, he’s been writing for years at TomDispatch about how our former citizens’ military has, in those very wars, become the equivalent of a foreign legion. Fully militarizing the police and bringing the legionnaires home, a subject he explores today, seems like just the next obvious step in this country’s precipitous decline.
-Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch
Donald Trump and Stephen Miller in the White House. (photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
White House Prepares New Immigration Limits, Using Coronavirus as Cover
Priscilla Alvarez, CNN
Alvarez writes: "The Trump administration is preparing to roll out another set of restrictions on legal immigration, citing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, even as it argues for the reopening of the US economy, according to sources familiar with the deliberations."
Priscilla Alvarez, CNN
Alvarez writes: "The Trump administration is preparing to roll out another set of restrictions on legal immigration, citing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, even as it argues for the reopening of the US economy, according to sources familiar with the deliberations."
"Why would he want to cut off critical workforce that will help the economy recover?" said Greg Chen, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
"It's not a rational or reasonable approach to the stated goals of what they're trying to achieve, which only points to the underlying purpose of effectuating the President's campaign goals of cutting off immigration," Chen added.
Trump pledged the previous order would "ensure that unemployed Americans of all backgrounds will be first in line for jobs as our economy reopens."
The White House did not immediately comment for this story.
CNN previously reported that Trump's political advisers view the immigration steps as motivating for his base supporters at a moment when the President's key election message -- a strong economy -- is badly weakened by the pandemic.
Legal immigration, which has already taken a hit during the outbreak, is again in focus in deliberations about an anticipated immigration executive order.
A slate of visas, which allow immigrants to temporarily work in the US, are under consideration to be suspended for a period time, including L-1 visas for intracompany transfers, H-1Bs for workers in a speciality occupation, H-2Bs for temporary non-agricultural workers and J-1 visas for exchange visitors, according to three sources familiar with plans.
Exceptions are expected to be made for Covid-19 related activities, like health care professionals and jobs related to food supply, according to the sources.
Over recent weeks, businesses and industry groups have submitted concerns in letters, underscoring the importance of the high-skilled workforce to the US economy.
On Tuesday, a technology trade group wrote to Trump arguing that non-immigrant visas have been key to sustaining the economy in the midst of a global public health crisis.
America's foreign-born workforce, wrote the Information Technology Industry Council, "is enabling many Americans to continue to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is playing an essential role ... to keep businesses running securely and people connected."
ITI is backed by companies including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Oracle.
"Constraints on our human capital are likely to result in unintended consequences and may cause substantial economic uncertainty if we have to recalibrate our personnel based on country of birth," reads a May letter signed by hundreds of employers, trade, industry and higher education associations and groups. Signatories included Facebook, Twitter, Google and Lyft, among others.
In a separate letter to Trump, the H-2B workforce coalition reiterated that visas are "a critical safety valve for companies to address seasonal labor needs" when there aren't American workers to fill the short-term jobs.
"There are employers, there are trade associations that are constantly talking to the administration and the Congress about the value of these programs," Gregg Hartley, co-chair of the H2-B workforce coalition, told CNN. "It's an ongoing effort. The letter is one of many attempts that policymakers have all the facts on their hands."
But just as businesses and industry groups have provided their input, so have advocates of reduced immigration who say the changes are necessary to protect American workers.
"We're providing information through backchannels and most importantly, our members, our grassroots are pushing the same agenda," said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a group that advocates for reduced immigration.
Last month, Republican Sens. Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Chuck Grassley and Josh Hawley also sent a letter to Trump calling for new guest worker visas to be put on hold for 60 days, as well as "certain categories" of new guest worker visas, for "at least the next year, or until unemployment has returned to normal levels" to protect American workers.
The White House immigration proclamation, dated April 22, was one of a series of modifications to the immigration system, attributed to the pandemic. The order targeted people outside of the United States seeking to legally migrate to the US, with some exceptions.
"Whenever appropriate, but no later than 50 days from the effective date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Labor, recommend whether I should continue or modify this proclamation," the order reads, setting the deadline for this weekend.
Protesters around the Robert E Lee statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. Richmond's mayor has said the statue will be removed this month. (photo: Ryan M Kelly/AFP/Getty Images)
ALSO SEE: Confederate Statues Are Being Removed Amid Protests Over
George Floyd's Death. Here's What to Know
George Floyd's Death. Here's What to Know
'It's a Big Turning Point': Is This the End of Racist Monuments in America?
Nadja Sayej, Guardian UK
Sayej writes: "Although a number of Confederate monuments across America were torn down in 2017 after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, many still remained. But a bigger tide appears to be turning."
READ MORE
Nadja Sayej, Guardian UK
Sayej writes: "Although a number of Confederate monuments across America were torn down in 2017 after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, many still remained. But a bigger tide appears to be turning."
READ MORE
Grandmothers of the disappeared at Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Argentina during the 'Dirty War.' (photo: Jacobin)
Argentina's Dictatorship Was Not a "Dirty War." It Was State Terrorism.
Constanza Dalla Porta and Pablo Pryluka, Jacobin
Excerpt: "Argentina's military dictatorship relied on widespread torture and disappearances to eradicate all political opponents, real or imagined. Seeking to conceal the junta regime's one-sided terror, the Right still refers to those years as a 'dirty war.'"
Constanza Dalla Porta and Pablo Pryluka, Jacobin
Excerpt: "Argentina's military dictatorship relied on widespread torture and disappearances to eradicate all political opponents, real or imagined. Seeking to conceal the junta regime's one-sided terror, the Right still refers to those years as a 'dirty war.'"
Argentina’s 1976–1983 military dictatorship relied on widespread torture and disappearances to eradicate all political opponents, real or imagined. Seeking to conceal the junta regime’s one-sided terror, the Right still refers to those years as a “dirty war.” But the only accurate way to describe the dictatorship is as a period of “state terrorism.”
n the United States and across much of the Anglophone world, the term “dirty war” has become a mainstream label to describe the years of dictatorship in Argentina between 1976 and 1983. From the White House to the academy to the international press, the term has been picked up as a political shorthand for those dark years when state repression, kidnapping, and all manner of human rights abuses were used by the state to maintain its military-backed power.
But to what extent is the term “dirty war” an accurate one? To what extent is it neutral? With the implication of having two warring sides, each attacking the other with, if not equal force, then at least some comparable strength, the term implies a very different power dynamic than that which existed during the years of Argentina’s dictatorship. Sometimes extended to describe other violent regimes in the Southern Cone as well, the term distorts the truth of South American history more broadly, even if some may use the term naively. Understanding the history of the term “dirty war,” and the ideological and political positions that underpin it, will help us to discard it altogether and reach for language that better describes the one-sided murderousness of the regime that took power by coup in 1976.
War, What War?
It is historically inaccurate to describe the years of dictatorship in Argentina as a dirty war. There were no two sides vying for control over territory, nor was there a professional army (hidden or not) to rival the state’s forces, be they the official armed forces, the police, or various paramilitary formations.
Political violence was certainly a regular feature of the Argentine landscape since the early 1970s. Before the coup of 1976, there were left-wing guerrilla movements such as Montoneros and the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo, and right-wing paramilitary organizations like the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina. However, the coup inaugurated a new era of systematic and unchallenged violence that left little space for these movements.
Left-wing guerrilla groups had no chance to seriously match the might of state forces. The armed capacity of revolutionary resistance was never able to successfully or continuously confront state violence, and they certainly did not use repressive tactics. As Daniel Feierstein and Eduardo Duhalde have shown, the guerrilla activity that characterized the years before the dictatorship was rapidly smashed by the state. A few months after the coup, the leaders of these organizations were dead, disappeared, or exiled. The political terror lasted until 1983.
We can only understand the term “dirty war” within the greater context of the Cold War, and the American fight against communism more broadly. The US doctrine of national security identified what it saw as internal security threats facing each country in Latin America. Through specific training programs for local armed forces, the US military taught torture and counterinsurgency techniques destined to fight against what was seen as communism and to destroy internal enemies.
But the political repression in Latin America went far beyond these declared objectives. Members of left parties and trade unions, as well as Jews, homosexuals, and many others seen as not conforming to the Catholic conservative view, were labeled “subversives” or even war enemies — a designation that wrongly suggests that these political activists and mobilized citizens were warriors bearing arms.
This war rhetoric hid the political and social goals of the military junta. Adopting a broader scope, the dictatorships of the Southern Cone all worked to dismantle the welfare states that had been recently built up and, with it, smash the labor unions. As neoliberalism settled in under the terror of the armed forces, any trace of resistance was silenced. As Federico Lorenz reminds us, we tend to think of the disappeared as young Che Guevaras of sorts. In reality, most of them were workers and unionists.
Tracing the Origins
According to its most widespread definition, during a dirty war, the state employs all of its resources to fight against an elusive and hidden enemy. It is not a conventional war because there are no open battles — the state needs to perform a reticular search when looking for its enemies. Importantly, the enemies of the state are armed and covertly active; as a consequence, kidnapping, torture, rape, and clandestine detention centers are, so goes the narrative, required. The rules of warfare seem to mutate when it comes to eradicating a clandestine opponent.
It is according to these mutating rules that the Argentine military defended their own performance during the dictatorship. In a crusade against those who aimed to subvert the Catholic and traditional lifestyle of the country, the junta proclaimed that they were fighting against a slippery and internal enemy. As James Brennan has shown, the term “dirty war” was favored by the military itself in the last stages of the dictatorship, and was first used in a press conference by General Reynaldo Bignone, head of the last military junta between 1982 and 1983.
The junta’s use of the term is no accident. The term “dirty war” deliberately invokes another campaign of counterinsurgency, specifically by the French in Algeria. Indeed, many Argentine military personnel had been trained in counterinsurgency tactics by French intelligence agents. By referring to the dictatorship years as a dirty war the junta claimed to link its battle with that of the French, ultimately seeking legitimation from their European counterparts.
The term “dirty war” is concocted by precisely those figures who perpetrated the crimes during Argentina’s dictatorship. Why do so many use it uncritically today? It is similar to talking about the “Middle Passage” to describe the transatlantic slave trade.
Re-Centering the State Responsibility
In December 1983, two months after the fall of the dictatorship and the transition to democracy, then-President Raúl Alfonsín established the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP for its Spanish acronym). After a thorough investigation, that commission published the Nunca Más (Never Again) report, which contained testimonies of torture, kidnapping, disappearances, and other human rights violations during the dictatorship. Its prologue, written by the famous Argentine writer Ernesto Sábato, stated that “during the 1970s, Argentina was torn by terror from both the extreme right and the far left.”
Such words opened the door for a debate still with us today. Many have accused the Nunca Más report of fostering the so-called theory of the two demons, which pins responsibility for human rights violations on both state forces and local guerrilla groups. In 2006, in an effort to address this misrepresentation, and under the Peronist administration of Néstor Kirchner, this prologue was rewritten in a new version of the report. Significantly, in the 2016 presidency of Mauricio Macri, the original prologue was restored.
The term “dirty war” carries this baggage with it today. It is deeply offensive to those victims and their families who suffered — many of whom are still alive. To refer to it is, consciously or not, to align with a right-wing reading of history that seeks to diffuse responsibility for the violence of the dictatorship, and to justify the widespread torture and disappearances that characterized the era.
How do we more accurately name the period that Argentina’s right designates with “dirty war”? Latin American scholars and human rights workers are looking for a better term, and many have argued that “genocide” would be more accurate due to its emphasis on the extermination of a targeted part of the population. Others have focused on the precise features of authoritarian states, proposing terms such as “parallel state” to highlight their illegal use of repression, or “national security state” to underline their ideological origins.
The concept of state terrorism might be the most accurate due to its emphasis on both aims and methods. The term clearly signals the state’s agency for using illegal practices to spread terror among the population to impose a specific economic, social, cultural, and political model. Indeed, it is this concept that most human rights conversations in Argentina employ today.
Words matter, and terms like “dirty war” cannot be used innocently. There was no war; there was only persecution, torture, disappearance, and extermination. We cannot echo the junta’s language and we cannot reproduce its narrative.
A mother bear and her cub. (photo: istock)
Trump Administration Makes It Easier for Hunters to Kill Bear Cubs and Wolf Pups in Alaska
Darryl Fears, The Washington Post
Fears writes: "Hunters will soon be allowed to venture into national preserves in Alaska and engage in practices that conservation groups say are reprehensible: baiting hibernating bears from their dens with doughnuts to kill them and using artificial light such as headlamps to scurry into wolf dens to slaughter mothers and their pups."
Darryl Fears, The Washington Post
Fears writes: "Hunters will soon be allowed to venture into national preserves in Alaska and engage in practices that conservation groups say are reprehensible: baiting hibernating bears from their dens with doughnuts to kill them and using artificial light such as headlamps to scurry into wolf dens to slaughter mothers and their pups."
A ban against luring mothers from their dens with doughnuts and other treats will be lifted
With a final rule published Tuesday in the Federal Register, the Trump administration is ending a five-year-old ban on the practices, which also include shooting swimming caribou from a boat and targeting animals from airplanes and snowmobiles. It will take effect in 30 days.
State officials primarily composed of hunters in Alaska argued that the October 2015 regulations ordered by the Obama administration infringed on traditional native hunting practices and were more restrictive than what is permitted on state land.
National Park Service Deputy Director David Vela said in a statement that the federal government will defer to Alaska’s wildlife management on national preserves. “The amended rule will support the Department’s interest in advancing wildlife conservation goals and objectives, and in ensuring the state of Alaska’s proper management of hunting and trapping in our national preserves, as specified in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act,” Vela said.
But conservationists called the changes inhumane.
“National preserve lands at Denali, Katmai, Gates of the Arctic and others are the very places where people travel from around the world, in hopes of seeing these iconic animals, alive in their natural habitat” said Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association. “Shooting hibernating mama and baby bears is not the conservation legacy that our national parks are meant to preserve and no way to treat or manage park wildlife.”
Jim Adams, the association’s Alaska director, said the state’s real aim is to reduce the population of wolves and other predators to increase the numbers of caribou, moose and other game animals that sport hunters enjoy harvesting. Adams said the rule was established in 2015 when the National Park Service determined that Alaska’s practices conflicted with the federal mission to protect wildlife. Reducing the predator population throws the natural ecology out of balance, conservationists say.
Opponents said the administration has “declared open season on bears and wolves” amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The rule changes have been pending since 2018. That year, then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke issued a memo to department heads declaring that fish and wildlife management on federal land “should defer to states.”
The National Park Service, a division of the Interior Department, says it “reconsidered its prior position” after determining that the “2015 rule conflicts with federal and state laws which allow for hunting and trapping in national preserves.”
Alaska permits practices such as baiting with doughnuts, grease-soaked bread and other foods to lure brown bears in some areas with federal land.
The new rules will mean that hunting on federal land will align with hunting and trapping regulations “established by the state of Alaska by providing more consistency with harvest regulations between federal and surrounding nonfederal lands and waters,” Vela said.
The move was praised by members of the state’s congressional delegation and Gov. Michael J. Dunleavy (R), who called it “a step toward acknowledging Alaska’s rightful control over fish and wildlife resources all across the state.”
Park Service officials agreed with nearly every position taken by the state. Without naming them, it cited six national parks where it is legal to hunt with artificial light, seven areas that allow hunting black bears with dogs, and four that permit bear hunting with bait.
Coyotes, which proliferated from west to east after federal and state officials eliminated gray and red wolves that kept them in check, do not generally receive the same protection as wolves. The final rule does not specify the type of bait that parks in other states allow for hunting bears.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said the decision “protects Alaska’s hunting and fishing traditions and upholds long-standing states’ rights,” and she thanked Interior Secretary David Bernhardt for encouraging and signing the rule.
Alaska hunting and trapping organizations also praised the move. Outside Alaska, Safari Club International’s chief executive, Laird Hamberlin, said the old rule had been “based on the subjective views of the decision-makers, with complete disregard for biological need and the expertise of Alaska wildlife management experts.”
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