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Idaho Law Against Recording Abuses On Factory Farms Ruled Unconstitutional
onproton writes: An Idaho law that made it illegal to record and document animal abuse or dangerous hygienic practices in agricultural facilities, often referred to as an 'ag-gag' law, was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge on Monday. The judge concluded that the law restricted constitutionally protected free speech, and contradicted "long-established defamation and whistleblowing statutes by punishing employees for publishing true and accurate recordings on matters of public concern." Idaho is just one of several states to pass this type of law, which allow food production facilities to censor some unfavorable forms of speech at their convenience. Under the Idaho statute, an employee that witnessed and recorded an incident, even if it depicted true and life-threatening health or safety violations, could be faced with a year in jail and fines of up to "twice the economic loss the owner suffers." In his ruling (PDF), the judge stated that this was "precisely the type of speech the First Amendment was designed to protect." This decision has raised questions about the constitutionality of these types of laws in other states as well, and it's likely that there will be more legal battles ahead.
Nerds like me eat food too, and I think it is important that abuse of animals is not kept secret. The ag industry should either fix their problems, or be subjected to more regulation and oversight.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
but how is this news for nerds?
It involves technology & free speech. How isn't it news for nerds?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
It is different. If and it is a big IF you had the consent of the woman undergoing the procedure then it would probably be O.K. to make and distribute the video of the abortion.
In the absence of such consent it is highly unlikely to be permissible to invade the privacy of the woman. In addition there are issues around patient confidentiality for medical procedures. There is also a lack of a public interest waver around an abortion because it has no impact on you personally and is not in contravention of any laws.
How were these clearly bogus laws voted in, in the first place? It seems pretty obvious that documenting health/safety violations would be protected from legal retaliation, much like how truth is an absolute defense against libel charges. Otherwise, there's no point to even having health or safety codes, if corporations can just say "yeah yeah, we're up to code, but no peeking!"
As a member of the animal agriculture community for over 15 years, I've never understood the point of these laws. They are essentially an admission that there is a problem, and that we'd rather try to gag our opponents than address it.
/. and other forums defending animal agriculture because, while I would be the first to admit we can do better, I think we do a much better job caring for our animals than most people believe. Animal rights groups do not concern themselves over much with things like facts, accuracy, or fair descriptions of why we do things the way that we do, but that does not mean that we should try to silence them. Instead we should be engaging with those willing to dig a little deeper than a 30sec sound byte, or a 5 paragraph news article by a writer with no direct connection to agriculture. We should explain, WHY we believe that gestation stalls are better than group housing for stalls, WHY castration of males is better for the animals and the humans who work with them, HOW we've developed programs like PQA Plus, TQA Plus, etc. These questions and misconceptions won't go away on their own, and gag laws do nothing to help our case.
I spend a lot of time on
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Just goes to show that as much as big companies and wealthy individuals would like to change that—and have been trying very hard over the past few decades to do so—profit is still not, in fact, more important than free speech. Or the Constitution, or people's lives.
Let's just hope we do see more cases like this. Laws like that are a terrible perversion of the American legislative system.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Your rights online.
Many of us give a damn when governments pass terrible laws which don't pass Constitutional muster, because increasingly governments don't care if the laws they pass are actually legal. They just feel they can pass any old law and that should stand.
Feel free to exclude YRO from your preferences, or stick to reading the video games section.
The rest of us care if our governments act like fascists who think they can pass any law they want to.
This is stuff which matters.
They didn't outlaw the animal cruelty, they outlawed telling people about it.
You should always care when a government passes a law which arbitrarily places limits on free speech. Or the next thing you know they'll make it illegal to criticize idiot governments who pass laws which place arbitrary limits on free speech.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Why not let people see them and decide?
how about we make secret videos of your personal activities, show them to the world and let other people decide whether they are appropriate or not, without asking you.
I was just about to comment with the same kind of thing. The edited videos came out along with the unedited videos.
Some have argued that the taped discussions that were conducted in California were done in a public setting (restaurant) and there isn't an expectation for privacy in those cases. There is case law that both agrees and disagrees with this.
It has also been said that the judge is pretty political. Judge William H. Orrick III is an Obama appointee and a major bundler and donor for Obama’s presidential campaign. Orrick raised at least $200,000 to the president’s campaign. Additionally, the judge donated $30,800 to committees supporting Obama.
You mean donating. They weren't selling and never have sold fetal tissue. FYI the videos broke several California state laws and amount to harassment.
They didn't film people having sex, they filmed people abusing animals and creating unhealthy environments in which to be growing food for human consumption.
Arguably there is a much more clearly defined public interest as opposed to if you like to wear your wife's underwear as part of your thing in your "personal activities".
This is about blocking employees from filming stuff which happens in their place of work ... it's not so much about "personal activities" as it is about suppressing constitutionally protected speech.
This is not the same as someone releasing your damned sex tape.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Hmm... supposedly unedited portions of a highly politically motivated video. You can see why we would consider them suspect. Even unedited, carefully selected sections of video, taken out of context, can convey a very different message than one in context. Now, if there were to release the unedited copy of the entire video than you statement of allow the public to decide might be valid, though the video itself would still remain illegal.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
I woke up today to hear on the news how Germany has effectively outlawed Keynesian economics in those countries that were suckered into the Euro currency union (the Right in the UK were absolutely right to avoid joining the monetary union. It's a shame they get so much else wrong).
On the elevator I saw a news blurb on how Hedge funds are demanding that Puerto Rico close their schools to pay back debts (rather than take a haircut on their risky investments that earned them well over market interest rates for years. Hint: you get that interest rate because your return is risky, not guaranteed).
And of course there's the endless snowden leaks that make Security Systems look benign, and the ridiculously skewed anti-abortion propaganda that may bring down one of the most important institutions for women's health, and so on and so on.
It really does feel like the world of Channel 23, and wondering how soon they will ban the off switch (rhetorical shots across the bow are already being made, with talk of ad blockers "violating copyright". How soon until turning off your TV is the same?)
Finally, after years of giving corporations and the rich unfettered leeway to buy elections, exploit the poor and middle class (and now, more and more, the upper-middle class), we get a judicial ruling in favor of people over corporations. Of course, our downward death spiral will no doubt resume shortly, but in the meantime it is a breath of fresh air to see sanity in our courts for once.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Really? How about "you shall not murder?"
Okay, I'll bite. What does "murder" mean? Is it "murder" when I cut my toenails? Is it "murder" when a woman refuses sex? Is it "murder" when a condom is used? Is it "murder" when a fertilized egg fails to attach to the uterine wall? Is it "murder" when a raped woman terminates her pregancy? Is it "murder" when a badly mutated fetus is terminated?
Is it "murder" when young children are denied food and shelter and education, they have no opportunity for the fine trappings of your privileged life, and they end up dead at 14 or 16 at the hands of the police?
Which means any funds that go to Planned Parenthood fund abortion, period.
??? So when I go to the grocery store and buy some canned beans, I am really funding abortions because they also have a drugstore ???
What, like war? Or tax cuts for the rich? Or the right to say god hates fags via charitable status and donations? Or the enforcement of copyright laws bought and paid for by industry? How about treaties which are also for the benefit of corporations instead of taxpayers?
Or is it only the stuff you object to you think is tyrannical you wish would stop?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Clearly you are a moron with no experience with medical procedures, insurance, or medical billing.
You can't blow your nose in a medical facility without spending $30 - $100.
Either that or you're just s shameless partisan who doesn't actually care about facts and won't let them get in the way of a good crusade.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
My issue is that if they are indeed donating the tissue and only getting paid for their costs, then they should not be haggling over the price
I don't see anything wrong with haggling in a donation. A donation isn't defined by a lack of haggling, but not being a contract with consideration.
By consideration, I mean both parties offering something of value for exchange, with each regarded as being sufficient for the other.
If you're paying me for a pen, you could sue me if I take the money but not don't provide a pen, or I can sue you for taking a pen without giving me money.
Donations need not consideration. You could give me something that's worth well beyond what I'm giving you... if I give you anything at all. You can't sue me for not giving you anything in return for your donation.
But just because I don't have to doesn't mean I can't. Charities do things in return for their donors all the time, and there's certainly room to haggle what gets done.
It is tax payer money. Money is fungible. If PP got split into two organizations that no longer have anything to do with one another (1) a women's health clinic and 2) an abortion clinic), then we wouldn't be having this debate.
PP doesn't want to do that. That's fine. Why not give the taxpayer money to another women's health organization that doesn't perform abortions?
If this is truly about women's health, then that should be okay. It wouldn't matter if the taxpayers were funding PP or a different women's health clinic if you are proposing that money is not fungible.
But you know money is fungible and you do want the taxpayers to pay for abortions.
You might find that you're more of a cow than you think. Or rather, if you were to see some of the videos, you might find that your empathy towards them is closer to human and further from "other" than you might expect.
That doesn't mean you have to stop being an omnivore. Meat and animal products are good food. But you can demand that the animals you consume be treated humanely, while they live and as they die. You do indeed live in the first world, which means you have enough money to pay them to use processes that take at least some care for the animals, rather than treating them as inanimate objects that can't feel pain.
It's very unfortunate that the loudest advocates for the rights of animals make fools of themselves in the process. They're fools, and you're right to ignore them. But that doesn't mean that there aren't real abuses going on in factory farming, and you're in a position to demand that they stop the abuses. Pretending they don't exist is just as foolish. And you can tell yourself that these are purely inanimate objects whose pain doesn't matter to you, but I suspect you'd feel otherwise if you went and looked.
(Or maybe not. There are people who don't. But people who don't empathize with animal suffering often don't empathize with human suffering, either, and that's widely considered a moral failing. Which means I wouldn't be able to convince you of that, either. But for anybody reading this, I think it's worth considering the notion that they should look at the videos and see if they would rather have it be different.)
I also think that this story reflects the fact that a significant minority of people out there get way more outraged by cruelty to animals that cruelty to humans. I find this attitude quite sickening.
In our world, cruelty to animals is applied on a scale that completely dwarfs cruelty to people. So even if you think the suffering of a cow or pig matters 1/10th the suffering of a person, the total amount of suffering among farm animals is still daunting and horrible.
That said, cruelty to anyone is bad and it's reasonable to be upset about any and all of it. I hate the way farm animals are treated, and I also hate it when police harass/abuse/execute innocent people. I won't fault anyone for focusing their outrage a different way than I do.
Duct tape, XML, democracy: Not doing the job? Use more.
> There is a substantial difference between someone breaking and entering your property and filming, vs. committing fraud by accepting employment, and potential other crimes in the process, when compared to a legally designated government inspector from the Department of Health or Department of Agriculture.
Because 1) government is corrupt. In Idaho, the gov are a bunch ag people themselves. 2) when the government is watching, you know they are watching you, and you modify your behavior. What matters is what happens when the government is not watching.
> These were not long time employees suddenly incensed by recent activity, and they were not long time employees who suddenly got the anti-factory-farm religion because they happened to start dating a vegetarian.
1) So what? 2) Of course the long-time employees would be okay with it, otherwise they would not be long time employees. The torturers were stung by an undercover whistle blower, what is wrong with that?
> The laws happened because there is an ongoing problem of these activists illegally entering the property -- technically breaking and entering, criminal trespass, and a large set of other chargeable crimes, and the police were getting sick and tired of responding to those acts, so they strengthened the penalties. When it became to costly, in terms of risk vs. reward to use those tactics any more, then the activists resorted to fraud. The specific law which was declared unconstitutional in Idaho was enact to strengthen the penalties against this fraud. In other words, it's an escalation of tactics.
"Resorted to fraud" - just listen to you. These concerned individuals wanted to document what actually happens. How else can you do it? How else do you stop the torture?
> This judges decision will likely be thrown out on appeal on the basis of contravening the "shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre" theory of limitations on first amendment rights, since what they were filming on the farm generally has no bearing on actual food safety, according to the Ag. Inspectors, and was intended to be alarmist and result in a negative backlash, rather than an increase in food safety. These people are in fact anti-meat activists.
It is not about food safety, so much, as cruelty to animals. And these factory farmers are horrifically cruel to animals.
> Like the "shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre" theory, you are in fact free to say what you want; however, what you say may also have social, civil, or even criminal consequences which you don't like and don't want. But that's what happens to people who acto out sociopathic tendencies for what they see as justifiable ends: ostracism, lawsuits, or (ultimately) criminal charges.
How else do you stop these animal torturers?
BTW: it's okay to "shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater" if the theater is on fire.