coquito
Registered
Hello everyone,
I just received this message from one of the sites I am subscribed to. After reading it, I feel that there may be more to the story that what is stated here. So I will refrain from stating an opinion regarding this individual's situation. However, I was wondering if there is some merit to the claims of these laws against diving in AL. Does anyone have knowledge of this? Have you heard about it? Comments anyone?
**********************************************************
December 18, 2003
Alabama's Unfriendly Diving Rules
This is important to the scuba divers of Alabama and Georgia and
extremely important to those in the scuba diving business. The game
wardens of Alabama and Georgia are fining people for scuba diving.
Please forward this to your suppliers, divers, and anyone interested in
continuing to dive in Georgia and Alabama.
Friends, divers, and all interested parties, In 1999 the Alabama
State Legislature passed a new law to control the salvage of sunken
ships in the public waters of Alabama. This law was passed without any
input from the 100,000 divers in the state of Alabama. After the law was
passed we divers were made aware of the law. The Alabama Historical
Commission was granted permission to write the regulations that control
the shipwrecks and diving on them. Don't confuse the Historical
Commission with the State Department of Archives and History. The State
Department of Archives and History is interested in history and do a
great job in the preservation of history. The Historical Commission has
overstepped their boundaries and is attempting to control all the relic
hunting, gold dredging and diving in general in our state. Southern Skin
Divers Supply and many other divers have been trying to work with the
Historical Commission with no success. They told us that the law would
not affect recreational divers, relic hunters, or gold prospecting. This
was not true. We are being mistreated and put upon by the Historical
Commission employees. The Legislature did not want these unfriendly
regulations but that is what we got.
Alabama has 77,000 miles of inland waterways. We have more than
any other state in the lower 48. Florida has 11,000. Most of our public
waters have never been dived. The Historical Commission does not have
divers or historians. They are archaeologists who know nothing about
diving or history. Archaeologists study prehistory and how to apply for
grants. Money is their main interest, history and diving are not what
they care about.
In October of this year I was arrested along with Perry Massie
who is the head of the Outdoor Channel on TV. He was going to make a TV
show about diving in Alabama similar to the one he made of us diving for
fossils and relics in South Carolina last year. We were diving at Selma
where I have dived for 30 years. We were not diving on a sunken ship.
There are no sunken ships at Selma. This site has been dived by hundreds
of divers, even before my time. My boat was confiscated and Perry and I
were charged with a felony. We had to post bond and Perry's 8 year old
daughter had to see her father arrested. We did not commit any crime. We
violated no laws and were diving within the regulations of the
Historical Commission.
We were arrested anyway. It's all about money. The Historical
Commission wants my Civil War Collection so they can sell it and pay
their salary with the proceeds. According to the regulations that they
wrote the Historical Commission gets to keep whatever they can steal
from divers. I know that it is hard to understand but it is true. I had
already agreed to loan my entire collection to the state to be put on
display. They had to insure and display the collection but they could
not sell it. It's all about money.
The charges against Perry and I should soon be dropped because we
have not done anything wrong. What I worry about is the other divers who
will be harassed under these thugs at the Historical Commission. I do
not want my sons, or any other divers bothered by these people. If you
want to dive in a swimming hole and find a coin or bottle, that's just
fine. I don't want you to feel threatened by your own state employees. I
want you to take an interest in your own freedoms and the future divers
that will come along. We need to get our Legislature to fix this bad law
and even worse regulations. We can do this in court if we have to but it
would be better if our own representatives would fix the problems they
created. Bad laws can be fixed. Please write your state legislators. We
have made a big file of correspondences since 1999 with the Historical
Commission, State Legislators, the Governor and others concerning our
problems with the Alabama Historical Commission.Click here
www.ssdsupply.com/aucra.htm. to learn more. Remember you have a dog in
this fight. You are a free American citizen, you are not a subject. You
do not have rulers, in fact you make the rules. Our Federal and State
government is good, not bad. It is us. We have to keep an eye on our
employees in our government to make sure they do for us, not to us.
Please take charge, write your Legislators.
Thanks,
Steve Phillips
Southern Skin Divers Supply
Birmingham, Alabama
I just received this message from one of the sites I am subscribed to. After reading it, I feel that there may be more to the story that what is stated here. So I will refrain from stating an opinion regarding this individual's situation. However, I was wondering if there is some merit to the claims of these laws against diving in AL. Does anyone have knowledge of this? Have you heard about it? Comments anyone?
**********************************************************
December 18, 2003
Alabama's Unfriendly Diving Rules
This is important to the scuba divers of Alabama and Georgia and
extremely important to those in the scuba diving business. The game
wardens of Alabama and Georgia are fining people for scuba diving.
Please forward this to your suppliers, divers, and anyone interested in
continuing to dive in Georgia and Alabama.
Friends, divers, and all interested parties, In 1999 the Alabama
State Legislature passed a new law to control the salvage of sunken
ships in the public waters of Alabama. This law was passed without any
input from the 100,000 divers in the state of Alabama. After the law was
passed we divers were made aware of the law. The Alabama Historical
Commission was granted permission to write the regulations that control
the shipwrecks and diving on them. Don't confuse the Historical
Commission with the State Department of Archives and History. The State
Department of Archives and History is interested in history and do a
great job in the preservation of history. The Historical Commission has
overstepped their boundaries and is attempting to control all the relic
hunting, gold dredging and diving in general in our state. Southern Skin
Divers Supply and many other divers have been trying to work with the
Historical Commission with no success. They told us that the law would
not affect recreational divers, relic hunters, or gold prospecting. This
was not true. We are being mistreated and put upon by the Historical
Commission employees. The Legislature did not want these unfriendly
regulations but that is what we got.
Alabama has 77,000 miles of inland waterways. We have more than
any other state in the lower 48. Florida has 11,000. Most of our public
waters have never been dived. The Historical Commission does not have
divers or historians. They are archaeologists who know nothing about
diving or history. Archaeologists study prehistory and how to apply for
grants. Money is their main interest, history and diving are not what
they care about.
In October of this year I was arrested along with Perry Massie
who is the head of the Outdoor Channel on TV. He was going to make a TV
show about diving in Alabama similar to the one he made of us diving for
fossils and relics in South Carolina last year. We were diving at Selma
where I have dived for 30 years. We were not diving on a sunken ship.
There are no sunken ships at Selma. This site has been dived by hundreds
of divers, even before my time. My boat was confiscated and Perry and I
were charged with a felony. We had to post bond and Perry's 8 year old
daughter had to see her father arrested. We did not commit any crime. We
violated no laws and were diving within the regulations of the
Historical Commission.
We were arrested anyway. It's all about money. The Historical
Commission wants my Civil War Collection so they can sell it and pay
their salary with the proceeds. According to the regulations that they
wrote the Historical Commission gets to keep whatever they can steal
from divers. I know that it is hard to understand but it is true. I had
already agreed to loan my entire collection to the state to be put on
display. They had to insure and display the collection but they could
not sell it. It's all about money.
The charges against Perry and I should soon be dropped because we
have not done anything wrong. What I worry about is the other divers who
will be harassed under these thugs at the Historical Commission. I do
not want my sons, or any other divers bothered by these people. If you
want to dive in a swimming hole and find a coin or bottle, that's just
fine. I don't want you to feel threatened by your own state employees. I
want you to take an interest in your own freedoms and the future divers
that will come along. We need to get our Legislature to fix this bad law
and even worse regulations. We can do this in court if we have to but it
would be better if our own representatives would fix the problems they
created. Bad laws can be fixed. Please write your state legislators. We
have made a big file of correspondences since 1999 with the Historical
Commission, State Legislators, the Governor and others concerning our
problems with the Alabama Historical Commission.Click here
www.ssdsupply.com/aucra.htm. to learn more. Remember you have a dog in
this fight. You are a free American citizen, you are not a subject. You
do not have rulers, in fact you make the rules. Our Federal and State
government is good, not bad. It is us. We have to keep an eye on our
employees in our government to make sure they do for us, not to us.
Please take charge, write your Legislators.
Thanks,
Steve Phillips
Southern Skin Divers Supply
Birmingham, Alabama
