Big Ag Lobbies Want to Make it Illegal to Secretly Film Animal Abuse

[JohnyCanuck]

Big Agribusiness is fed up with pesky animal rights activists who expose their abuse of farm animals on film. According to the Associated Press, agriculture committees in the Iowa state government have approved a bill to outlaw secret filming of animal abuses and punish the accused with a $7500 fine and up to five years in jail.

Strangely, consumers may actually want to know if their meat is being electrocuted, beaten, or ground up alive as some recent videos have exposed. Consumers may also want to know what the animals eat, if they ever see sunlight, if they are injected with chemicals, or even genetically cloned. Since the FDA does little to shine light on these and other concerns, activists have been the only source of this information. Now, they will face jail time for doing so if this measure passes.


Bradley Miller, director of the Humane Farming Association, had this to say to the AP:

"They're trying to intimidate whistleblowers and put a chill on legitimate anti-cruelty investigations. Clearly the industry feels that it has something to hide or it wouldn't be going to these extreme and absurd lengths."

The excuse for the legislation given by the committee was that they were just trying to "prevent people from fraudulently seeking jobs in order to shoot videos that may give an unfair perspective on livestock operations." This type of thing needs to be legislated in the Land of the Free with all the problems the country faces?

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/03/big-ag-lobbies-want-to-make-it-illegal.html

[xchrom]

1. ...

:mad:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. The "Farm Animals' Right To Privacy Act"

Can't embarrass those farm animals, catching them in compromising positions, and all that.

[ehrnst]

3. As long as O'Keefe is allowed.... (nt)

[stuntcat]

4. if people knew what happened it would clearly hurt their business

I know some people who'd eat whatever the factories put out even if they saw how Hell-like and dirty it was! But there are some who wouldn't, enough to hurt the industry's profits.

The companies don't have to worry too much though since people would rather not know where their food comes from.

[LaurenG]

5. Wow, they all need to get a new line of business.

One day not too far in the future I am hopeful that people will find that exploiting animals is just not being a "good steward."

No one needs meat to live, they just eat it because they like it. I wish the world would wake up to the horrors of what others do to their food and realize the responsibility for this lies with all of us, at least all of us who demand their meat.

[AlienGirl]

6. Also this covers up human rights abuses of the ag workers...think "The Jungle"