Random stops wrong

The Maine Warden Service claims it needs the authority to stop people, based upon appearance alone, to properly defend the state’s fish and game laws. But this claim is refuted by the service’s own statistics. More importantly, it promotes a policy that would unreasonably impinge upon the civil liberties of the public.

The service wants to be able to stop and search persons it suspects of having been fishing, hunting or trapping to check that person for licenses and potential violations. In short, if your wearing an orange cap and driving down a woods road in November, you’re a suspect and fair game to be investigated.

The Legislature is debating the granting of this authority. Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Lee Perry calls random stops “essential” for wardens to do their jobs. But what ill would such stops cure, and what ills would they create?

Of the citations wardens issued last year, less than 1 percent were for hunting, fishing or trapping without a license. There is no evidence that random stops would reduce poaching, bag-limit violations or similar problems. In fact, the best the Warden Service can do in explaining why it needs this power to stop presumed sportsmen is simply to assert it ought to have it.

The Warden Service asserts that because it oversees a regulated industry, much the way trucking is a regulated industry, it should be allowed powers not extended to law enforcement in other situations. But there is a big difference between stopping someone who obviously is driving a truck for commercial purposes to check compliance with weight-limit and record-keeping requirements and randomly stopping people whom wardens cannot directly establish are engaged in any activity other than being in the woods.

Even that, however, is ancillary to the root issue: Random stops aren’t necessary. The Warden Service has not established and cannot provide reasonable evidence that such broad authority to stop and detain, based solely upon appearance, will substantially improve the prevention or punishment of crimes against Maine’s natural resources.