I'm not a US citizen but I am amused by threads of this nature that pop up from time to time. Odds are that this will turn out to be the usual tempest in a teapot about fees for commercial use.
But the outrage expressed that the guvmint charges people a fee to use public parks even though as citizens you already own it, is comical. I own my house, but I still to pay for maintenance, don't I? Why would you expect to use those public lands without paying for their maintenance?
Since those guvmint departments have had their budgets cut in recent decades, because taxes were too high being the usual silly obvious argument, they were simultaneously told to behave more like private enterprise. Why then would you be surprised that they raise their fees? What's the other option, magic? Those departments were put into that position by elected guvmints, weren't they? You can always change it back by changing the elected guvmint.
Or are you taking some sort of armchair libertarian position that all guvmint action is bad as a matter or principle. If that's the case, maybe you should be lobbying for Disney or someone else to take over the national parks system. Then the fees will magically come down and they'll let you take all the pictures you want for free, I'm sure, and even sell them.
So long as we're complaining about things, I have a complaint about visual space. Why is it that some company can rent space at the top of some building and from then on limit my use of that visual space? If I want to take a photo of an urban panorama to sell, I may find myself limited in the usage rights of that photo because of the presence of a company trademark or logo. But nobody compensated me for the loss of that visual space. Why did that company get that for nothing?
