It's not your imagination. Booking popular experiences in our national parks can feel impossible if you're a mere mortal. Going for a permit to backpack The Enchantments or a campsite on Diablo Lake is kind of like buying a lottery ticket these days. 

The reason our parks are starting to feel like the Hunger Games arena comes down to bots, artificial intelligence, and the government's top cyber security contractor.  

On today's episode, is there anything we humans can do to take back our public lands from the bots?

GUEST: Heather Hansman, freelance writer and editor. She recently wrote a piece for the nonprofit newsroom RE:PUBLIC and Wired titled, "The US Built a Site to Ensure Fair Access to Public Lands, Then Everything Went Wrong."

Do you have a story idea for us? Give us a call at (206) 221-7158 and leave a voicemail. You can also email us at booming@kuow.org.

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Booming is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. Our editor is Carol Smith. Our producers are Lucy Soucek and Alec Cowan. Our hosts are Joshua McNichols and Monica Nickelsburg.