Posted on 11/25/2002 3:28:03 PM PST by rs79bm
In September, during the early bear hunting season, according to information from the Department of Environmental Conservation, William Terry Jr., who lives near Redford NY, shot a bear that was coming to a bait pile. His photo hunter-type camera device that was facing the bait took Terry’s picture, along with the bear and bait pile.
Terry took the roll of film to the Wal-Mart 1Hour Photo processing center at Consumer Square, Plattsburgh. A Wal-Mart employee, also called an associate, saw the photo of Terry with the bear and bait pile as the photos were being developed and called the DEC. He also made extra copies of Terry’s photos and gave them to DEC.
The two DEC conservation officers assigned to the case then contacted the Clinton County District Attorney’s office and were given the go-ahead to proceed with the investigation.
Armed with prints of the bear and bait scene given them by the Wal-Mart employee, the two CO’s went to Terry’s house and read him his rights, after which, according to their statement, Terry confessed to the crime. The term "crime" is used here because under Conservation Law Section 110107.1, shooting a deer or bear with the use of bait fits the "taking wildlife, except as prescribed by law" misdemeanor.
Misdemeanors differ from violations, like traffic tickets, in severity. A misdemeanor also stays on the person’s record and could re-surface in a background check, as, for example, a firearms purchase under the Brady Bill.
I was asked to cover this case by Press-Republican Managing Editor Bob Grady, probably because of the hunting backdrop; however, the implications of the actions described earlier go far beyond a typical "Outdoors" article.
After doing extensive research on this case, I re-affirmed what I already knew: I am certainly not a lawyer, have little background with the judicial system and in no way want to pass judgment on a pending case (Terry has hired Livingston Hatch as his council). On the most basic level, DEC was presented with what it perceived to be a crime, got legal support, and moved forth. It is now up to a judge or jury to decide who is right.
But it really isn’t that simple. If you look at the overall "picture," as I tried to do, you begin to realize the complexities of navigating through the legal forest. With each path I followed, the trail led back to that 1Hour Wal-Mart photo shop, and each step of the way raised more questions than answers.
For one, that Wal-Mart associate who originally called DEC must have been somewhat aware an illegal act had been committed. But, can a photo be relied on to provide concrete evidence? Photos are snapshots of a moment in time, not videos of a complete event with a storyline. What appears to be in a still photo may not actually be reality, and who is to decide that? A one-hour photo-shop employee? Then again, is it the employee’s moral responsibility to call the authorities in such an instance, or it this an invasion of privacy? And finally, what should a consumer expect in the way of confidentiality when he or she takes a role of film in to be developed?
Another question involves the duplication of a photo. Does a photo-shop worker have a right to copy someone’s personal photos, photos that may someday be used against that consumer? There may be no clear answers. For example, On January 29, 2001, a one-hour photo employee in San Jose, California, working for Long’s Drug Store, noticed some of the photos she was developing showed caches of automatic weapons and bombs. She contacted the police who arrested a man who had evidently planned to commit a reign of carnage on nearby Anza College. According to the account on the webSPIRS5 records, the Santa Clara County Deputy DA is quoted as saying," If he (the defendant) had been successful, this would have overshadowed anything that Timothy McVeigh did." In this instance, the employee’s actions seem justified, but where do we draw the line?
There were still more questions I asked, two being: "Did the Wal-Mart associate go through his supervisor first, and what exactly is Wal-Mart’s one-hour photo policy?"
Cynthia Illick, Wal-Mart Spokesperson at the company’s central office in Bentonville, Arkansas, told me in a telephone interview, "In this case (the Terry incident), we did find our policy of insuring a customer’s confidentiality to be violated." "But," she continued, "the associate meant well." She also added, "Wal-Mart is taking steps to clarify its policy to insure it doesn’t happen again." According to Illick, memos are being sent to all Wal-Mart one-hour photo processing centers as a result of this incident.
Will this stop Wal-Mart (or other photo processing centers if they too have similar policies) from closely examining and even copying someone’s personal photos? Who knows?
Ironically, there was a movie out recently that dealt with the same theme. In "One Hour Photo," Robin Williams stars as a lonely photo developer who increasingly becomes obsessed with a family, whose photos he has been developing and copying over the years. They hang on a wall in his house, a pictorial essay of what he believes to be an ideal family’s life. Then, another woman brings in a roll of film to be developed. On it are vacation pictures that show her and the family’s husband blatantly having an affair. This infuriates William’s character.
I won’t ruin the ending for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie and wants to get the video when it is released, but the scenario is not as far fetched as it first sounds. Granted, that movie is fiction, but it does "focus" on a key point that should now be a reality for anyone getting his or her film developed: if you drop off your roll of film, there is a good chance someone else will see your photos, whether for quality control or other reasons. Most of us probably never think of that; we believe the machine does it all.
Probably the only sure way to make certain no one ever sees your photos without your permission is to develop them yourself, use a Polaroid-type camera or go digital.
Oh ok, it all makes sense now.
Out west the favored method is to ambush the deer while they are looking for p_s_y. That is truly sporting.
Clinton County is one of the poorest counties in NYS. It used to cater to the SAC 380th bomb wing of the AF before x42 and company shut it down, devestating the area economically. All that's left of any consequence is a SUNY college that (last I heard) had an administration that was as corrupt as the Klinks.
As a kid, to survive, you HAD to raise a garden and HAD to be a hunter. Fresh roadkill was not off-limits. I have fished through 42+ inches of ice and skinned yellow perch until my hands have bled. I have waded through waist-deep snow to cut the track of a snowshoe rabbit . I hae trapped and eaten critters out of necessity. When pre-PETA-types from town used to tell me to take a picture of the pretty animals rather than kill them, I would explain to them that "You can't eat a picture!".
In my opinion, the guy in this story was only surviving as best he knew how, just as his daddy and granddaddy probably did. His mistake was documenting it and assuming everyone was like him. Unfortunately, taking the guvn'ers game in a non-sporting way can get you in trouble (if you're caught).
I am a sportman, but I've seen the other side of the coin in this area. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. This is a UN commissioned bio-zone as well! Oh! Can't upset the globalists by killing the pretty animals! It just isn't cricket!
Time to go to bed. I'm starting to rant and ramble. Apologies to the forum...
It'd be scary if that's what it was... but there was much more to it...
It was : be stupid and unsportsmanlike and violate the law, then be even more stupid and take a photo of yourself in the commission of said crime; then be even more stupid and take your roll of film to a public photo developer in a store which sells hunting licenses and gear and which certainly may have someone on staff who knows the relevent wildlife code. Make it more interesting and expect those same workers to not notice probable evidence of a crime, and be selfish in expecting them to sacrifice their principles to protect your unprincipled self.
Be stupid and make them unwilling accomplices in your crime by dumping the evidence in their lap, which they are bound to look at becuase it is part of the quality control process since chemical baths aren't stable and change with use. And then be a really stupid poacher and confess when confronted by the police without talking to a lawyer.
When you stupidly dumped the evidence in front of them, you selfishly took away another person's right not to be involved in your criminal activity. You forced them to choose between aiding and abetting you in concealing a crime which but for you they never would have witnessed or been involved in any way - or instead reporting the violation of law and becoming a 'nark' in the eyes of an idiot who had decided to eliminate his own privacy by taking his photos to other people to process.
The choice was yours all along not to commit a crime in the first place, or once committed, not to be discovered; the choice was yours all along to not subject anyone else to having to choose what to do with your evidence. You chose to involve other people in your act which you knew to be illegal and which you were even proud of, proud enough to photograph, but you didn't ask them if they minded developing photos of your crime before you dumped the evidence in their lap. So they were the ones who were wronged, not just the employee but also the company, who have a reasonable expectation to not be involved in aiding and abetting a poacher, or any other criminal. No one has a right to demand that others look the other way upon seeing evidence of a crime.
Indeed, as citizens, we are in good faith obligated to protect and defend the constitution and by extension, the laws of our country and our states, until such a time as we are willing to face the consequences and challenge their constitutionality, or even defy them outright on principle. From time to time government will intrude upon our rights- as it has done with the Brady Bill, and we all shall face the decision of obeying laws, challenging laws, or if things are bad enough, even of violating what we see as unconstitutional laws in order to preserve essential liberties. It's up to us individually. From time to time our own human nature will also present us with temptations to choose between doing good and participating in, or being neutral to evil. But we do not have a right as individuals to force that decision on others, to demand others to participate in the actions we alone choose to take or to demand that others blindly conceal them or ignore them.
Would the people here complaining about the 'nark' see things the same way if the photo developer had seen a picture with evidence of illegal alien smuggling and reported it? Would a person be a 'nark' if he went over to the neighbor's house to return a borrowed chain saw and stumbled upon the neighbor hiding illegals in his shed, or evidence of illegal alien smuggling, and decided to report it? Would we call such a person 'principled' if they chose not to report illegal alliens? Was Moussaoui's flight school instructor a 'nark' when he reported that he was suspicious of Moussaoui because he wasn't interested in landings?
Some lazy slobs do it that way. Although it's still not as simple as you make it out. Other, more ethical hunters, do not do it that way. One more thing...even when people put out feeders, chances are those feeders get more turkey traffic than deer, especially in areas where there are alot of acorns.
And you consider that hunting?
I used to work at a Wal-Mart photo lab and the employees were required to inspect each photo to make sure there was no copyright violations and no nudity (store policy). I usually didn't bother enforcing the no-nudity policy. Often times I would place the most embarassing photo right on top of the stack just to see the look on thier faces as most people liked to open up thier pictures right after paying for them. The most memorable moment was the time a father was picking up his college student daughter's pictures. I'll leave the rest to your imagination.
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