Smokey, who was captured by the Forest Service and held in a very small and inhumane cage, was forced to be a spokes-animal for the Forest Service while the Forest Service turned his home and the homes of hundreds of millions of other creatures into devastated stumpland. We have freed Smokey from his cruel captors who have now tried to confine him to a Forest Service web page. Now Smokey can say what he really wants to! Remember, only YOU can stop the logging and Smokey is counting on YOU!
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The Forest Service has a long history of trying to suppress the constitutional rights of citizens who oppose what their government (i.e., the Forest Service) is doing to their public lands. One example is the Forest Service used to harass and threaten to sue citizens who used Smokey for purposes such as this site. The Forest Service passed a regulation making it illegal to use Smokey for free speech purposes. After the Forest Service threatened to sue LightHawk for using an ad that had Smokey with a chainsaw hidden behind his back, LightHawk sued the Forest Service. The court ruled that the Forest Service had violated the First Amendment as uses of Smokey such as on this site is constitutionally protected free speech. The Court stated, "the Forest Service has threatened to apply the statute and regulation to LightHawk’s political advertisement, which as a form of criticism of government policies is on the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values."