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Iowa Rejects Video Privacy Protection For Cows
Hugh Pickens writes "The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports that an effort to outlaw the undercover recording of animal abuse in livestock operations appears to have stalled in Iowa after previously failing in Minnesota, Florida and New York, with the pushback coming from citizens and activists complaining that the proposals were aimed at protecting an industry that doesn't exhibit enough concern for farm animal welfare. A bill introduced earlier this year to criminalize the actions of activists who make unauthorized hidden videos of animal abuse appeared to be headed for approval in the Iowa Legislature, with proposed penalties including fines of up to $7,500 and up to five years in prison. 'I feel it is wrong to absolutely lie to get a job to try to defame the employer,' says Iowa representative Annette Sweeney, a farmer and Republican legislator who sponsored the bill. But District Attorney James R. Horton, who filed animal cruelty charges against employees and the owner of a large-scale calf-raising farm, says he probably 'wouldn't have a case' if not for covert video provided by an animal protection group, and that 'we wouldn't have anything' in terms of evidence against the suspects in the beating deaths of dairy calves at E6 Cattle Co."
I wonder though - if they have good video evidence. Is it really defamation ?
Moo!
... do we try to enact privacy laws for cows, all the while emasculating or eliminating entirely the privacy laws for humans. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U...
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
If the company is adhering to the rules of the law, they wouldn't have to worry about being defamed by people who lied to be hired and then made covert video tapes.
What about THAT side of the argument, Annette Sweeney, farmer and Republican legislator?
... are the US's sacred cows.
In my humble opinion, as humans, if we have an opportunity to raise food in a humane way, we should strive to do it.
why is it that always republicans are behind the gravest, dastardliest shit, and they are behind less dastardly shit with a democrat close to their aisle ?
a while ago, i heard that mccain and 30 other republican senators opposed a bill which would prevent companies from putting clauses into their contracts that would prevent female employees from suing the company if they were raped in company's employ overseas by company employees. that included john mccain, the presidential candidate. the justification was 'we think it is wrong to tell businesses how to do business'. so, its ok if a company legislates rape in its overseas operations by putting a clause in its contracts ?
what the fuck is wrong with republicans ?
Read radical news here
Iowa already has defamation laws. So if it really were defamation, they could already sue the activists. They don't need any new laws.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
This law would never have survived First Amendment scrutiny anyway. It not only prohibited taking the videos, but also prohibited displaying them on the news. But even if it was unconstitutional, it's great that it's dead now rather than later.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
Does stabbing them with pitch-forks and gouging out their eyes help the meat taste better? What about when they slaughter cows that are too sick to walk? Yummy! The crap documented on these farms isn't just slapping a few cows around. It would shock any meat-eater and these activists are doing excellent work.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
They don't need a lawsuit. All they need is to attach those special apple IR transmitters to the cows and there's no problem at all.
Do you butcher your own meat? You seem to have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Natural predators strive for a clean, efficient kill, so your "lions and gazelles" analogy doesn't hold water. Animal cruelty encompasses disease and feed quality, among other things; it ends up in the food we eat. It's sad that it has to be put in such practical terms for you -- being tortured to death is something no being should have to endure.
That sounds like a reason to not care about the contents of the video. It doesn't sound like a good reason to make it a crime to record the video. Sure, you might say the purpose of the video is to spread propaganda that food isn't food, but propaganda shouldn't be a crime, even if you think it's bullshit.
It's batshit insane (well, no, actually just plain corrupt) that such a bill is even seriously considered.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Indeed, these are the farmers' property, being made less valuable by their actions. Do you smash your own windows? Do you key your own car?
Unlike you I have actually raised and slaughtered my own food. They may be food but you don't have to be cruel to them and make them miserable. Beating them to death? Really? Wtf is wrong with you? I waste extra shells to headshot any hunted animal after bringing it down to make sure it doesn't needlessly suffer, a lot of people do that.
Humanely killing animals is both cheap and easy, there is pretty much no excuse for the behavior you're advocating.
Trying to outlaw this kind of undercover journalism, would in my view be to undermine democracy.In my humble view, this kind of legislation heads the road to FASCISM. There is a couple of other words for it, but this one fit well enough. /T
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
Doesn't matter. We don't have to rip apart still living creatures to feed ourselves, I think that alone justifies the notion that if we're going to eat meat that we at least have the decency to treat it with some modicum of respect. I don't think that torturing animals makes them healthier to eat or more delicious.
but not cops? Why can we gather evidence of animal abuse by videoing farmers, but we cannot gather evidence of human abuse by law enforcement?
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
I am a huge supporter of anti-animal abuse as anyone but your facts are not really correct.
Predators often go for a quick efficient kill, but to learn how to do this they often spend time "playing" with their food while they are growing up and if an animal is down but not dead then they do not have a problem simply starting to eat as a animal is not going to get away if its entrails are hanging out.
And if we want to be complete then I could mention that many predatory bugs and fungi kill in excruciatingly gruesome fashions.
In summery animal predators do not really care one iota about their prays comfort, they simply are not ever sadistic without a really good reason.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
If the company were to say the way they process the cattle is a trade secret, couldn’t they file a suit against the person or organization that created the recordings?
Not if their "trade secret" was actually breaking the law.
He doesn't have to define humane - it's already defined into law. A law that livestock operators know well, and are responsible for obeying.
And in this case it wasn't healthy, pampered cows being slaughtered for food, it was a bunch of sick, frostbitten, starved calves that had been so poorly cared for, they were bludgeoned to death and dumped. I think only a psychopath would not agree that behavior is inhumane and unacceptable.
a law was proposed which would make it illegal to film or photograph a farm as well.
The problem is customers have grown to appreciate the warm wool pulled over their eyes that depicts farms as wholesome, good, and kindhearted.
A place where animals die of natural causes and everyone attends church on sundays.
The average consumer doesnt understand high density/high intensity farming and agriculture and when prompted, generally does not care to learn about it.
the educated consumer understands high density/high intensity farming and agriculture, but still readily retreats to his Pepperidge farm fantasy.
The facts stand and yet we ignore them in the pursuit of ever larger quarter pounders and ever more delicious ribs.
A factory farm is a hell mouth, strewn with feces six-inches deep and animals literally one foot in the grave.
chickens are too bloated from hormones to stand, cows too drugged to care about the gaping abscess that was once an eye,
pigs boiled alive in pursuit of shaving seconds from a cycle time on a machine
and immigrant labor too illegal to question a single action or decision for fear of losing their american dream.
once in a while, just every so often, an undercover PETA investigation might bring light to these torture engines.
workers may find comfort in this as a means to perhaps ending the suffering they witness daily but even with this bills defeat, the fact remains:
consumers blissfully ignorant will fill in the blanks and avoid the truth;
effectively marching lockstep in the corporate machine of factory farming.
and if you dont care to know where your brisket or tenderloin or chicken nugget comes from, you have no right to contest your cancer, low sperm count, obesity and heart disease.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Defamation only works if the evidence isn't true, just like libel. If they dead beat animals to death, it's the truth, not a de-faming of the accused.
Litigation to sue the activists would certainly fail, unless it was contrived or staged. If it wasn't, then animal cruelty charges apply and I hope they stick.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
The problem with the final solution wasn't the gas chambers, it was the gas they were using and the reason for doing so
And here I thought the problem was that they were killing sentient beings in the first place. Of course, if one followed that logic one might wonder about the ethics of airstrikes which kill civilians as 'collateral damage'.
Apparently it's okay to start a machine which you know will kill civilians as long as you're doing it to assassinate leaders of a murderous political movement you don't like, but not okay to start another machine which you know will kill civilians in order to put political pressure on an invading military you don't like. And threatening to kill millions of civilians and building automated machines to carry out that threat on a hair-trigger is not just okay, but gosh-darned common sense. Recruiting civilians into the military, even by force, and then making them cannon fodder is a-okay. But killing civilians just because you don't like them is evil. Unless those civilians have been found guilty of a capital crime by a jury of their peers in a state that allows capital punishment, and subjected to a torturous year-long wait. Or if they've been suspected of being terrorists, or arrested in the company of suspected terrorists, and whisked away to a black site where the Constitution doesn't apply and waterboarded for a bit.
It's all in why you're killing the civilians, is the point.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
The farms don't want the cruelty investigations to stop.
They just want it restricted to bona fide undercover police agents whose political bosses are easier to bribe.
Think about why kobe beef is renowned for its flavor. In japan, they treat their cattle like royalty.
My guess is that stressing the animals is bad simply because it makes the meat taste worse.
Farmers should be humane to the livestock out of simple self interest.
Fraud is already illegal. If it was really fraud, they could use that law too. All these people are doing is video-taping a farm. If the activists destroyed property, exposed trade-secrets, or were causing a national security concern, then it's fine to criminalize it. But here, the conceptually no different than a farm worker who goes home and tells his wife and a few friends about the horrible things he saw. The only difference is that these activists can tell many more people.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
The naturalistic fallacy once more in the GPs post. Seems to be quite popular lately. You can't derive an ethical rule from the fact that something happens in a certain way in "nature":
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Mu.
(It's a Buddhist joke Mods.)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Cows might be property, but as living creatures we recognize that they are a special kind of living creature. If you took your sofa out back, tied it down and threw bricks at it you wouldn't get in trouble. There would be nothing anyone could do about your destruction of your sofa using bricks. Do the same with a cow, dog or other animal you own, though, and you'll be arrested for animal cruelty (rightfully so). Yes, the cows are going to be killed and turned into meat, but that doesn't mean you need to be cruel to them up before they enter the slaughterhouse.
What was rejected was that property rights of the cows' owners don't trump animal cruelty laws and First Amendment rights.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
They're animals, and deserve to be treated humanely. Beating a dog produces pain; so does beating a cow. Cows are used for meat, it's true, but they don't deserve torture or mistreatment.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.