Ag Gag Law: Animal Abuse Law In Idaho Challenged By Journalists
An animal abuse law in Idaho is being challenged by journalists. They claim that it limits their ability to even report on illegal activity involving animals and food production. Idaho was the seventh state as of February to become subject to said law.
Idaho’s new law states that anyone found recording or filming acts of animal cruelty in the state of Idaho can be jailed for up to a year. Known as the ag gag law, it is supposed to protect the public from scenes that happen every day on farms across the state.
These scenes can be disturbing and graphic, but they are commonplace where animals are processed for the meat we consume daily. In an increasingly populated world, farmers really can’t afford to do everything by hand any more, and the Idaho ag gag law was adopted to keep the process out of the public eye.
Idaho’s ‘Ag Gag’ law violates free speech and freedom of the press, ACLU says http://t.co/C3Uc3hc7mr
— HuffPost Green (@HuffPostGreen) March 19, 2014
This isn’t keeping groups such as PETA, American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, and the Center for Food Safety from bringing legal protest against the Idaho law. Exposing these practices is part of their job, and the ag gag law isn’t letting them do it for fear of jail time.
Apparently the ag gag law directly criminalizes the efforts of whistle-blowers and journalists to gather evidence and report on potentially criminal activity in the food processing workplace.
Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, constitutional law expert and dean at the University of California, stated in a press release:
“The Idaho law is deeply distressing because it is aimed entirely at protecting an industry, especially in its worst practices that endanger people, at the expense of freedom of speech. It even would criminalize a whistle-blower who took a picture or video of wrongdoing in the workplace. I am confident that this law will be struck down under Ninth Circuit and Supreme Court precedents.”
It’s a case of professional journalists against Federal law, and in the balance hangs the future of possible criminal activity and animal abuse.
The complaint allegedly states that Idaho’s animal abuse law makes it legal to allow “smashing piglets’ heads against concrete floors … beating and sexually assaulting pigs with steel gate rods and hard plastic herding canes.” This is only one of several examples of animal cruelty that the new law will allegedly allow to become commonplace. Others include workplace safety concerns and food quality investigations.
Do you think that Idaho’s new ag gag law is taking things too far, or is animal abuse worth hiding from the public eye?
[image via modernfarmer.com]
