Days before the nation's 250th birthday, residents of a small coastal community in Massachusetts opened their mailboxes to find a notice from their own town government warning that flying American flags on their property could land them on the wrong side of state and federal law.
The Town of Newbury sent the letter to homeowners on Plum Island, a beach community north of Boston, cautioning that "mylar streamers, flags, [and] reflective materials" displayed on private property might deter protected shorebirds, and that doing so "may be viewed as harassment or disruption of normal feeding, nesting, or migratory behavior" prohibited under state and federal Endangered Species Acts.
The notice warned of "significant regulatory and financial penalties" and stated that "non-compliance may result in state or federal enforcement actions." For longtime residents who had been gearing up to celebrate America's semiquincentennial with patriotic displays, the timing and tone of the letter felt less like a friendly reminder and more like a threat from their own government.
Marc Sarkady, a Plum Island homeowner who has lived on the island for more than 30 years, had already organized a grassroots effort to mark the 250th anniversary before the town's notice arrived. He and his neighbors distributed roughly 50 American flags and about 100 revolutionary-style signs reading "Plum Island Honors America" to fellow residents, Fox News Digital reported.
Then came the letter.
Sarkady told Fox News Digital his reaction was immediate and blunt:
"Are you serious? You're telling me I can't fly American flags on my property to [celebrate America 250]?"
He described the effort to distribute flags and signs as nonpartisan and community-driven. "It's really us trying to bring the island together, everybody, by the way, not left, not right, America, American citizens, and really reaching out. That's really the spirit of what I'm trying to do here," Sarkady said.
But the town's notice cast a shadow over that spirit. The letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, stated that officials had "become aware of the use of devices and materials intended to deter" protected shorebirds from local beach and dune systems. It listed flags alongside mylar streamers and reflective materials as examples.
Newbury Town Administrator Tracy Blais defended the notice, telling Fox News Digital the town was "not in any way attempting to interfere with the property owner's rights to use their property or to restrict their use of their property for ordinary and patriotic purposes."
Blais said the town had agreed to a request from MassWildlife, the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, to "spread the word" about protecting endangered species. She characterized the letter as informational, not coercive.
"The letter merely recited provisions of the law, and the Town is not asserting any threat or legal liability, merely reminding property owners that they live in a very special place which comes along with certain responsibilities."
A MassWildlife spokesperson offered a similar line, saying the agency "is not prohibiting residents from displaying American flags on their property and has not issued any violation letters or notices to these landowners, nor has it taken any action to impose or threaten penalties."
That framing, we're not threatening anyone, just reminding you of the law, is the kind of bureaucratic two-step that citizens have learned to distrust. The notice itself cited "significant regulatory and financial penalties" and warned of "state or federal enforcement actions." Whether the town intended it as a threat, it read like one. And the residents who received it treated it accordingly.
Sarkady and two of his neighbors contacted the Pacific Legal Foundation, a national nonprofit legal organization that litigates property rights and constitutional cases. PLF responded quickly. On Wednesday, the organization sent a letter to Newbury Conservation Agent Mason Ferrick, the official who apparently distributed the town's notice, raising what it called "significant concerns" about property rights and demanding legal clarification.
The PLF letter asked the town to state plainly whether it was claiming homeowners are legally prohibited from displaying flags, streamers, or reflective materials on their private property. It also demanded the legal basis for how the Massachusetts and federal Endangered Species Acts apply to privately owned beachfront land.
Mark Miller, PLF's Director of Environment and Natural Resources Litigation, did not hold back. In a press release, he invoked one of Massachusetts' own Founding Fathers:
"Flying the red, white and blue on the Fourth of July is as American as apple pie. For Massachusetts local officials to claim otherwise violates both the First and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution. As Massachusetts Founding Father John Adams famously said, 'Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.'"
Miller told Fox News Digital directly: "When governments send letters that look like threats, sound like threats and walk like threats, they shouldn't be surprised when people take them as threats."
PLF also noted that no court has ever found a homeowner liable under the Endangered Species Acts for displaying decorations on private property. That detail matters. If there is no legal precedent for this kind of enforcement, then the town's notice amounts to a warning about a violation that has never been recognized by any court in the country.
This is not the first time Plum Island residents say they have been pressured over their property displays. Sarkady alleges that in a prior year, a Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife official sent a "nearly identically worded letter" to one of his neighbors after she put up ornamental banners on her beachside lawn. He claims the official then called the woman directly, threatening fines and even arrest.
"This person actually threatened the citizen from Plum Island, who's a homeowner, with fines and potentially being arrested and put in jail."
"She felt very threatened," Sarkady added. He said the neighbor ultimately removed her displays "out of fear."
The state agency flatly denied that account. The details of that earlier incident remain murky, no names, no dates, no documentation beyond Sarkady's testimony. But the fact that Sarkady describes a pattern, and that the town's latest notice uses similar language, raises fair questions about how wildlife regulations are being wielded against private property owners on the island.
Plum Island itself, Sarkady noted, has roughly 10 miles of open beach completely free of houses, ample habitat, he argued, for shorebirds to nest without being disturbed by a homeowner's flag. "It's a nature preserve. So, to us, it's like, 'Folks, come on, be reasonable,'" he said.
The Plum Island dispute fits a wider pattern of local conflicts over patriotic displays and American symbols. In Northport, New York, a mayor removed Pride flags after veterans objected to their placement above military tribute banners, a different controversy, but one driven by the same underlying tension over what flags mean and who gets to display them in public spaces.
Elsewhere, hostility toward military identity has surfaced in unexpected places. A tattoo shop in Largo banned military members and veterans, calling them "war criminals", a provocation that drew fierce community backlash.
These episodes share a common thread. In each case, ordinary expressions of American identity, a flag, a uniform, a civic celebration, collide with institutional or cultural hostility. The specifics differ. The dynamic does not.
And the cultural erosion runs deeper than local disputes. Surveys show that most American students cannot pass a basic civics test, a failure that makes it easier for bureaucrats to stretch regulatory authority into places the law was never meant to reach, and harder for citizens to push back when they do.
The Endangered Species Act, both at the state and federal level, is designed to protect threatened and endangered species from activities that harm them or destroy their habitat. It is a serious law with real teeth. Nobody disputes that.
But applying it to a homeowner's flag display on private property is a stretch that no court has validated. PLF's letter makes that point explicitly. The town's notice does not cite a single case, ruling, or enforcement action in which a homeowner was penalized for flying a flag near shorebird habitat. It simply warns that penalties exist and urges compliance.
That gap, between the law as written and the law as the town implied it, is where the real issue lives. A municipal notice that warns of "significant regulatory and financial penalties" without citing a single precedent or specific statutory provision is not education. It is intimidation dressed up as public service.
Town Administrator Blais insisted the notice was "pretty clear" that the town was not asserting rights or control it does not have. But clarity is not the problem. The problem is a government letter that tells citizens their patriotic displays might be illegal, warns of penalties, and then claims it was never a threat.
The New York Post reported that the controversy has fueled broader outrage among residents who see the notice as emblematic of regulatory overreach on the island.
Several important details remain unresolved. The town's notice does not identify which specific shorebird species are at issue. It does not cite the particular statutory provisions it claims would apply. It does not explain how flags on private property, as opposed to, say, deliberate nest destruction, would constitute "harassment" under the law.
Conservation Agent Mason Ferrick has not publicly responded to PLF's letter. MassWildlife's denial that it has taken enforcement action is narrowly worded, it says it has not issued violation letters "to these landowners" or "taken any action to impose or threaten penalties" in this incident. It does not address Sarkady's allegations about the prior-year incident involving a different resident.
Whether the town will answer PLF's demands for legal clarification, or simply let the matter fade, remains to be seen. But the letter is on the record now. And so is the question it raises: on what legal authority does a Massachusetts town warn its residents that flying the American flag on their own property might be a crime?
Meanwhile, Sarkady and his neighbors are keeping their flags up. The kind of grassroots pushback they have mounted, distributing flags, contacting lawyers, refusing to be cowed, is exactly the response a free people ought to have when their government confuses a suggestion with a command.
When a town tells its citizens that honoring their country might break the law, the problem isn't the flags. It's the town.
