Pa. Sunday hunting bill strikes balance

It wasn’t exactly the shot heard around the commonwealth, but Gov. Tom Wolf’s signature on a bill allowing limited Sunday hunting in Pennsylvania represents a shift in centuries-old tradition. People on either side of this argument should be able to embrace the changes.

The compromise struck by Wolf and legislators marks the demise of one of Pennsylvania’s last antiquated blue laws — the notion, begun in the 19th century, that banning certain activities would preserve Sunday as a day dedicated to religious observance.

And family time, along with some peace and quiet for farmers. And in later years, a weekend day for nonhunting enthusiasts to take to the outdoors without worrying about bullets or buckshot.

The debate over Sunday hunting has been raging for years in the Keystone State. Hunters and outfitters have lamented the decline in participation, partly because of societal and familial changes that make weekend days valuable to people on tight schedules. Farmers, for the most part, objected to an intrusion of firearm season into their Sunday routines.

Finally, the differences were worked out. The state Senate voted 38-11 for the bill on Wednesday. Wolf signed it the same day.

The primary change is approval for hunting on three Sundays — one during deer rifle season, one during statewide archery deer season and a third Sunday to be selected by the Game Commission.

To address the opposition, the bill includes a requirement that hunters and trappers to get a landowner’s written permission to venture onto private lands on a Sunday, and makes it easier for wardens to enforce the anti-trespassing law, exposing violators to fines ranging from $250 to $500.

The changes won’t go into effect for three months, meaning the kickoff for deer hunters will come in the 2020 season.

Another significant change, approved by the Game Commission in April, is debuting today — beginning rifle deer season on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, instead of the following Monday. A Monday start had been the rule since 1963, beginning a tradition of taking a day off from work or school to get into the field at dawn.

This expansion should be acceptable to both sides, assuming hunters respect the opportunities and get a written OK from private landowners for Sunday hunting.

Preserving Pennsylvania’s heritage for hunters and nonhunters requires cooperation. This bill looks like a way to share the land.

Create DOJ digital bureau

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck a blow for privacy recently when it ruled, in a case from Luzerne County, that police may not force someone to reveal a personal computer password.

Justice Debra Todd’s majority opinion was especially controversial because the issue arose from a child pornography prosecution. But she was correct in asserting that “‘a shelter to the guilty’ is often ‘a protection to the innocent.’ “

Like other cases involving digital evidence, such as the 2014 fight over unlocking the iPhone of a mass murderer in Santa Barbara, California, the Pennsylvania case demonstrates the problems that digital evidence poses amid evidentiary laws and rules that were enacted before the digital age.

State legislatures and Congress have updated some of those laws but the lesson of technology is that it always is faster than the government.

To close that gap, Democratic Rep. Val Demings of Florida, formerly police chief of Orlando, has introduced a bipartisan bill to create the Office of Digital Law Enforcement within the Department of Justice.

Such an office would not settle the ongoing dispute over encrypted material.

But it would create specific procedures for digital searches, train federal and local police in digital forensics and update them on legal standards involving digital privacy and create databases of its own detailing where to search for specific types of digital data.

Now, with 2020 elections looming in the wake of verified Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, would be a particularly good time to step up digital law enforcement.

Congress should pass the bill to give police a chance to keep pace with digital criminals.