Letter to Editor: Wilderness

The control and management of the open, unsold lands of Nevada are very clearly in the hands of the United States.

These United States have not changed their stance on the exercise of authority over the land since it was designated the Territory of Nevada. While the land was territory, the authority of the U.S. to manage the land obtained in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was "plenary and without limitation." The rights people have in the territory are only what Congress will allow. U.S. Constitutional rights do not exist.

Nothing has changed on the unsold land in Nevada. Citizens still do not have U.S. constitutional rights while they are traveling over land managed by the BLM and Forest Service because Congress still regards these lands as territory and authority then is derived from the Property Clause, Art. 4, 3, 2. Beware sportsmen, recreationists and wood cutters; given the militancy creeping into the policies of the government agencies, isn't it time Nevada became a 100 percent state and we rid Nevada of the federal presence? If we don't get our Legislature to do it in 2003, by 2005 we may not be able to drive off the paved highways to go anywhere on the land.

Sen. Dean Rhoads is holding hearings to determine what other land should be put into wilderness. Good grief. Do we need more wilderness areas?

O.Q. CHRIS JOHNSON

Elko