When caught abusing animals, just criminalize photojournalism. Why not?
by David Atkins
Another dispatch from the heartland:
In a time when consumers are demanding more information about how their families’ food is produced, why is our dairy industry in Idaho desperately trying keep them in the dark? The state’s large dairy operators are trying to ram an irresponsible bill through our Legislature that would make it illegal for brave whistleblowers to expose food safety violations, environmental crimes or animal abuse on factory farms.
Exactly what does this industry have to hide? The answer: videos such as the 2012 investigation conducted at Wendell-based Bettencourt Dairies. The footage shocked Idahoans and the nation. This investigation led to a manager and two employees being charged with criminal animal cruelty.
One would think the state’s dairy industry would have taken this embarrassment as an opportunity to make meaningful reforms and prevent these kinds of abuses from occurring in the future. Instead, the industry and its lobbyists took the exact opposite approach. Rather than trying to prevent problems on factory farms, they’re now simply trying to cover them up. And the vehicle to do just that is an anti-whistleblower “ag-gag” bill, S1337, that seeks to criminalize whistleblowers who would expose such problems.
S1337 would make it a crime, punishable by imprisonment, to simply photograph or videotape abusive, unsanitary or otherwise unethical activity on a farm. Even employees and journalists who take photos or video to document misconduct on farms could face criminal prosecution if passed, whether it’s mistreatment of animals, food safety concerns, worker safety violations, sexual harassment, financial embezzlement or environmental crimes.
The Idaho dairy producers aren’t acting alone. The nation’s largest meat and dairy corporations have been exposed over the last decade by dozens of investigations exposing rampant cruelty, and in some cases, tainted animal products entering the nation’s food supply, including millions of pounds of meat that were headed to school children’s lunches. So the agribusinesses and their front groups have poured millions of dollars into trying to punish anyone who dares to document these abuses.
In 2013, 15 ag-gag bills in 11 states were introduced.
Thankfully, none of them has passed. Yet.