Judge: Idaho’s Anti-Dairy Spying Law Is Unconstitutional

According to Food Safety News, seven other states have similar ag gag laws on the books. North Dakota, Montana and Kansas that adopted first generation bills during the 1990-91 legislative session.

The Idaho attorney general has yet to file an appeal.

“This is a victory for the Constitution, and animals and consumers nationwide”.

U.S. Judge Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill found that the law violates the First Amendment. Under this law, journalists, workers, activists, and members of the public can be convicted for videotaping animal cruelty or life-threatening safety violations. ALDF filed the nation’s first lawsuit against an Ag-Gag law, in Utah, in July of 2013.

Public Justice challenged the law in Idaho federal court as part of a broad coalition including the Animal Legal Defense Fund, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, Center for Food Safety, and Farm Sanctuary. “It means that Idaho’s factory farms can no longer operate in secret”. Winmill found the state’s “Agricultural Security Act” unconstitutional for criminalizing certain types of speech.

The state’s $2.5bn dairy industry said the sting was an attempt to hurt businesses and rallied legislators in the state capitol to pass a law making it a crime to film inside agricultural facilities. Though Mercy for Animals released another set of videos showing further abuse, Idaho Gov. Butch Otter signed the bill into law shortly after passage.

“This decision is very important”, said Leo Morales, executive director of ACLU of Idaho. “The legislation was designed and crafted to try and protect First Amendment rights while also trying to provide some personal property protection”.

Johnson Smith said in the end the ultimate goal of these activists groups is ending animal agriculture by misrepresenting the industry. Currently, eight other states have passed some sort of law against such surreptitious filming, even though many more have been introduced in state legislatures.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. He said the ban violated the First Amendment. “Food and worker safety are matters of public concern”, Winmill wrote. State lawmakers crafted the legislation in response to an undercover video by the group “Mercy for Animals”.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Filth, overcrowding, disease, suffering. Local authorities in Wyoming charged nine farm employees with cruelty to animals.

There are wiretapping laws, such as California’s wiretapping law, that require two-party consent to record a conversation, which protects individuals’ right to privacy. It also prohibits making video or audio recordings of the conduct at the facility. Certainly anybody has a right to write about anything they want, to say anything they want-but they can’t trespass or misrepresent themselves to gain information.

The ruling comes as a different federal judge tried to ban anti-abortion activists from releasing undercover videos of Planned Parenthood officials talking about harvesting the organs of aborted unborn children.