In a clear display of government overreach, the U.S. Forest Service is threatening to impose $1,000 fines on reporters who don’t buy $1,500 permits before shooting photos or videos inside publicly owned wilderness areas.

The federal agency this week announced plans to permanently implement this fee and fine system, ostensibly to protect 100 million acres of wilderness from commercial exploitation.

Officials were quick to point out that coverage of breaking news events, such as fires and rescues, would be exempt. However, a broad range of other news-gathering activities would fall under the restriction and control of the agency. For example, a reporter who photographs possible mismanagement or videos a newsmaker in a wilderness area would have to first seek special approval.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has concluded this is “pretty clearly unconstitutional.” Press freedoms are not limitless – photos aren’t allowed inside U.S. Supreme Court sessions, for example. But in the absence of some important countervailing need, the Bill of Rights imposes a strong presumption in favor of unrestricted coverage.

The idea that gathering news – good, bad or neutral – would be subject to a bureaucracy granting its consent runs counter to the very tenets of American democracy. Clearly this would have a chilling effect on whistleblowers and news gatherers if they have to pay for government permission for First Amendment activities within wilderness areas.

Restrictions on commercial uses are aimed at profit-making enterprises whose actions might degrade natural functions and qualities, and it’s not hard to imagine how a large film crew making a movie or TV commercial might cause at least temporary impacts.

But a reporter doing his or her job would neither degrade wilderness conditions nor negatively impact how others experience the wilderness. From a practical standpoint, it’s not like there are throngs of news photographers and videographers in the wilderness. If anything, the Forest Service should be making it easier for news operations to tell other citizens about the splendors of these public assets and the serious challenges they face.

Instead, the proposed rules seem to be an open invitation for selective enforcement to silence those who may choose to tell stories the agency doesn’t like.

That specter has sparked concern beyond newsrooms and the blogosphere to the nation’s Capitol. Oregon’s U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Greg Walden both questioned the policy this week.

Wyden told Oregonlive.com: “The Forest Service needs to rethink any policy that subjects noncommercial photographs and recordings to a burdensome permitting process for something as simple as taking a picture with a cell phone … This policy raises troubling questions about inappropriate government limits on activity clearly protected by the First Amendment.”

Walden, in a letter to Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell, called it “just the latest example of access to our public lands being further restricted,” and said he too was concerned about implications for First Amendment freedoms of speech and the press.

Across much of the West, Forest Service officials on the ground face distrust that is fueled in part by a seemingly impenetrable bureaucracy. The agency administration’s attack on the First Amendment certainly won’t improve that situation; worse, it’s likely to antagonize the very folks in position to relate the agency’s message.

It doesn’t take a reporter to sense the overreach here. A growing choir is voicing objections to this action, and Forest Service administrators should listen. Meanwhile, people can register an official comment here: tinyurl.com/mt2gtae.