I've thought about this one in the past a bit, and in some cases I agree with having a permit; at least then if someone tells you that you can't detect, you can show them the permit. There are some cities here in Florida (St. Augustine, for example) that completely forbid detecting, probing, digging of any kind on city property due to archaeological finds and such. And in my own county I've had one parks guy tell me that it's not allowed in the parks, only to tell him that I've talked to the county and looked up the statutes myself and that it is in fact NOT illegal to do so, and that they have NO ordinances on any such thing (even digging). He soon recanted and told me that they just don't like it. That was just one guy, though. All of the other parks guys always come up and ask if I'm finding anything interesting. Go figure.
Aeryck
