Food securityFarm states pass bills to protect farms from activists, whistle-blowers

In an effort to stop animal rights activists from recording acts of animal cruelty on farms, lawmakers in  twelve states have proposed or enacted bills which would make it illegal secretly to record livestock farms or apply for a job at a farm without disclosing ties to animal right organizations.

Some states have also drafted measures to require recordings to be sent to law enforcement immediately, which activists say would hurt any meaningful investigation of large factory farms.

The New York Times reports that  some of the legislation was inspired by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a business advocacy group which includes representatives from  farm states.

The group has created a model bill, the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act, which state legislators may use, with modifications, as a basis fror state law. The model bill  makes it illegal to film or take pictures on livestock farms in order to “defame the facility or its owner.” Violators of the law would be placed on a “terrorist registry.”

Animal rights activists told the New York Times that they have yet to see  proposed legislation which would force them to register as terrorists, but other measures make it  difficult to go undercover and produce an expose. As a result, some groups have ceased operations in those states.

“It definitely has had a chilling effect on our ability to conduct undercover investigations,” Vandhana Bala, general counsel for Mercy for Animals, told the Times.

Indiana and Tennessee will vote on  measures similar to the model bill in the coming weeks, and other states, including California and Pennsylvania, continue to debate them.

Animal rights activists have recently won some battles with legislators, defeating a handful of bills in New Mexico, New Hampshire, and several other states. A bill in Wyoming stalled after stiff opposition from animal rights activists. Another bill, in Indiana, drew strong opposition from labor organizations and the state press association, which said the measure violated the First Amendment.

The bill has been redrafted and was unveiled yesterday, according to Greg Steuerwald, a Republican state representative and chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Livestock companies say their businesses have taken hard financial hits as a result of the unfair videos, which are less about protecting animals and more about getting people to stop eating meat. Representative Don Lehe (R-Indiana) said some videos can cast farms in a negative light and make it difficult for them to set the record straight.

“That property owner is essentially guilty before they had the chance to address the issue,” Lehe told the Times.

Advocates for the meat industry believe that whistle-blowrs are protected from prosecution due to provisions in some bills which give them between one and two days to hand any recordings to law enforcement.

“If an abuse has occurred and they have evidence of it, why are they holding on to it?” Dale Moore, executive director of public policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation told the Times.

Animal rights organizations are not happy about the law, saying the videos can take months to put together between documenting a pattern of abuse, gathering enough evidence to force a government investigation, and determining whether managers condone the abuse.

“Instead of working to prevent future abuses, the factory farms want to silence them,” Matt Dominguez, who works on farm animal protection at the Humane Society of the United States, said. “What they really want is for the whistle to be blown on the whistle-blower.”