Law Agains Undercover Video at Animal Farms

A all the same from Burger Rex Cruelty, produced past Mercy for Animals.

Americans honey their hamburger, but they hate to meet where information technology comes from. That dichotomy is leading to a rash of then-called "Ag Gag" laws being enacted across the US, as reported on by The New York Times this week. The laws aim to block or severely limit activists' ability to motion picture inside agricultural facilities, such as slaughterhouses and egg, cattle, and dairy farms. So far, three states have passed such laws, and there are xi more being considered. The trouble, as far as large-scale farming is concerned: the films are merely as well successful at what they endeavour to do.

The clandestine video investigation — where an activist goes to piece of work at a farm, films animal mistreatment via photographic camera telephone, and then presents it online and to police force enforcement — has go the killer app for animal rights groups similar the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), People for the Ethical Handling of Animals (PETA), and Mercy for Animals over the last five years. Many videos have led to criminal convictions and plant closures for their targets. Less directly but no less importantly, they've helped sway public stance to approve a mounting number of state ballot initiatives that prohibit confining cages for pigs, calves, and chickens, too equally pressuring big businesses like McDonalds and Chipotle to denounce the same. "With the success of each prior investigation, we take more individuals contacting us wanting to be investigators." says Vandhana Bala, General Counsel for Mercy for Animals, which conducted five such investigations in 2012 alone.

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"With the success of each prior investigation, we have more than individuals contacting us wanting to exist investigators."

The Ag Gag laws tin can be categorized in three ways. Firstly, are those that would make information technology illegal to tape video or take pictures within facilities where food animals are raised or slaughtered. The second category criminalizes gaining admission or entry through misrepresentation or faux pretenses. So, in other words, it would exist illegal to pretend you're going to piece of work on a farm for any other reason than to collect incriminating prove. And thirdly, are laws that require anybody who takes video or photos of animal abuse or fail to report it to legal regime within as petty equally 24 hours or risk criminal penalties. Some, like New Mexico's proposed SB 552, combine more than one of the iii approaches.

"...for the about part the biggest lovers of animals are the farmers and ranchers."

"There are a few operators out there giving agriculture a bad name, simply for the most part the biggest lovers of animals are the farmers and ranchers," says Republican Senator Cliff R. Pirtle of New Mexico, a fifth-generation dairy farmer who introduced the nib this year. "I don't desire that causing a sweep across the nation of everybody becoming a Michael Moore going out with a video camera and simply rolling onto someone'southward private property."

The more benign-sounding third category of police force, the "mandatory reporting" laws that require i to plough in documentary footage mere hours afterward it is captured, are typically described by their supporters as an attempt to nip fauna cruelty in the bud.

"Our view is non to silence whistleblowers or stop investigations," says Stevie Ipsen, Manager of Communications for the California Cattleman's Association, which is sponsoring California'southward AB 343. If passed, the law would require anybody with pictures or video of creature abuse to report it to authorities within 48 hours or be subject area to a $500 fine. "We just want to protect animals, and to protect consumers from potentially eating unhealthy animals."

A map depicting undercover investigations in animal facilities. Prototype credit: Animal Visuals

But activists have pointed out that the public is best protected when livestock farmers and processors who intermission the constabulary suffer the consequences. And it'due south harder to build a legal case based on one isolated image or video prune, versus weeks' worth of footage showing a blueprint. Have, for case, the 2007 cloak-and-dagger investigation past the HSUS of the Authentication Meat Packing Co., a major supplier of beef to school lunch programs based in Chino, CA. Nerveless over vi weeks, video footage showed sick "downer" cows tortured on their fashion to slaughter, and led to the biggest beef recall in the nation'due south history, the plant existence shut down (though it later reopened), and closure of a federal legal loophole that had allowed downer cows into the nutrient system to begin with.

"I exercise come across the point that by investigating for six weeks, they had more damning footage to call out those facilities," says Ipsen. "Unfortunately during that half-dozen weeks, unhealthy animals were put into the food chain for children to swallow."

For the most function, though, legislators behind the Ag Gag laws make no bones about the true intent: stop animal rights activists from creating public relations nightmares that, they say, misinterpret and misconstrue mod farming practices. "People have a romantic notion of what farming ought to be, and anything less than that is evil," says Casey Guernsey, a Republican representative from Missouri and 7th generation dairy farmer, who introduced a bill, passed final year, requiring 24-60 minutes mandatory reporting of documented beast rights abuses. "If y'all are only initially introduced to some of these practices, it's kind of a culture shock, " says Guernsey, citing "crowded barns" as an instance.

"People take a romantic notion of what farming ought to exist, and anything less than that is evil."

The animal rights organizations involved in undercover investigations openly promote vegetarian or vegan diets, a fact that causes many people in agribusiness to write them off completely. Why listen to annihilation the opposition is maxim if they'd ultimately adopt to eliminate your livelihood? Guernsey says he's afraid that American consumers will ultimately pay the price for assertive their "propaganda," noting that if American farms cannot stay competitive, they will not survive against cheaper meat from Brazil and China, where oversight is even less stringent. "But Americans are still going to want their meat," he says, ominously.

But will they?

Should livestock farms and slaughterhouses install webcams?

A study performed by researchers from Kansas State and Purdue Universities showed that meat demand went down in direct correlation to creature welfare issues being reported on in the media.

Guernsey says that the farming industry should do better telling its side of the story and educating people about what information technology takes to exist a farmer today. A recent editorial in The New York Times suggested one solution: livestock farms and slaughterhouses should install webcams.

"Personally I don't think it sounds like a bad idea," says Ipsen, of the California Cattleman's Clan. "But I'grand sure the opposition would have a problem with the mode the camera is angled."

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Source: https://www.theverge.com/2013/4/10/4208900/animal-farm-a-look-at-the-ag-gag-laws-that-are-making-it-tough-to-film-cruelty