Over
several weeks in 2012, an animal rights activist secretly filmed
workers at an Idaho dairy farm kicking and punching cows in the
head, jumping up and down on their backs, sexually abusing one,
and dragging another behind a tractor by its neck. The Mercy for
Animals-made video—one of roughly 80 that activists say they've
recorded over the past decade—prompted the owners of Bettencourt
Dairies to fire five workers and install cameras in their barns
to prevent future abuses. A police investigation, meanwhile,
ended with three of the fired employees charged with animal
cruelty. It was a clear victory for those groups that have made
it their mission to expose animal cruelty and criminal
wrongdoing on modern American farms.
It will also be their last, if the agriculture industry and its
allies in state government have their way.
Earlier this year, Idaho became at least the seventh state to
pass a law aimed specifically at thwarting such undercover
investigations, and roughly a dozen similar bills are currently
winding their way through statehouses around the country. While
the specifics vary, so-called ag-gag laws generally make it
illegal to covertly record animal abuse on farms, or to lie
about any ties to animal rights groups or news organizations
when applying for a farm job. Idaho’s law is the strictest of
those currently on the books. It threatens muckrakers with up to
a year in jail and fines up to $5,000—a sentence, it should be
noted, that’s the same as what someone convicted of animal abuse
faces.
The laws specifically target animal rights groups like the
Humane Society of the United States, People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals, and similar organizations that have
increasingly turned to clandestine video in their battle with
Big Ag. But the way many of the laws are tailored, they also
could ensnare journalists, whistleblowers, and even unions in
their legal net, in the process raising serious concerns about
the legal impact on everything from free speech to food safety.
A wide-ranging coalition of organizations, including the
American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Food Safety,
has joined animal rights groups in challenging the Idaho law,
along with a similar one in Utah, in federal court. The lawsuits
also have the backing of the Government Accountability Project,
the AFL-CIO, and a host of media organizations, including NPR.
“They can dress these laws up however they want, but ultimately
the rationale here is pretty clearly self-interest on the part
of the industry,” says Michael McFadden, the general counsel at
Farm Forward, an advocacy group that’s leading the charge
against such laws. The industry and their statehouse allies
don’t necessarily disagree. State Sen. Jim Patrick, a lead
sponsor of the Idaho legislation and a farmer himself, explained
the rationale behind his bill: “It’s not designed to cover up
animal cruelty, but we have to defend ourselves.”
The way Patrick and his like-minded colleagues see things,
farmers in their state are under attack by activists who will
stop at nothing to paint what happens on factory farms in the
worst possible light. “Terrorism has been used by enemies for
centuries to destroy the ability to produce food and the
confidence in food safety,” the Idaho Republican told his fellow
lawmakers while advocating for his bill several months ago. He
struck a similar note during our conversation, comparing groups
like Mercy for Animals, which has made a name for itself legally
capturing wrongdoing on camera, with more extreme groups like
the Earth Liberation Front, an eco-terrorist organization known
for setting fire to ski resorts and lumber mills.
Farmers and their allies are quick to brush off the unsanctioned
animal rights investigations as craven attempts to manipulate
the public and undermine the meat and dairy industry as a whole.
“Their goal wasn’t to protect the animals,” Patrick said of the
Mercy for Animals investigation at Bettencourt. “Their goal was
to put the farmer, or in this case the dairyman, out of
business.” That, the activists admit, is largely true. After
investigations uncover inhumane or illegal practices on big
farms, the groups have a history of applying public pressure to
any corporation it can tie to that particular farm. In the case
of the Idaho dairy, Mercy for Animals publicized an indirect
link to Burger King—complete with a still-active webpage,
BurgerKingCruelty.com—and successfully pressed the fast-food
giant to stop topping its burgers with cheese made from the
dairy’s milk. While that didn’t put Bettencourt, one of the
nation’s largest dairies, out of business, it certainly hurt its
bottom line.
The industry concedes that abuses do happen on farms—how could
it not when there is video evidence one Google search away?—but
largely dismisses them as the work of bad actors that are the
exception to the industry rule. The industry says reporters and
the public are welcome behind closed barn doors—just as long as
farmers are there to give context and explain the unsightly
details. “We have no intent to stop journalists, but we do want
them to ask permission first,” Patrick said, noting that he and
his colleagues intentionally left their law as broad as they
could.
There are plenty of problems with that logic as far as the
public good is concerned. For starters, Upton Sinclair didn’t
rely on official tours of Chicago’s slaughterhouses before
sitting down to write The Jungle, the 1906 novel that was based
on his undercover trips into meatpacking facilities and a work
that is widely credited with driving widespread regulatory
reform. Likewise for the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting of the
New York Times’ Michael Moss, who used confidential company
records in 2009 to raise questions questions about the
effectiveness of injecting ammonia into beef to remove E. coli.
The AFL-CIO warns that the effort could have a chilling effect
on unions by making it more difficult for undercover organizers
to land positions at companies where they are unwelcome, a
practice known as “salting.” Ditto for whistleblowers, who in
theory could be charged under the law if they were to record
evidence to back up their allegations, according to the
Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower protection
and advocacy organization. State lawmakers behind the efforts
often voice fears that activists could easily stage abuse where
there is none, leaving farmers convicted in the court of public
opinion without a chance to defend themselves—although Patrick
couldn’t cite any examples of that ever happening.
There’s also the arguably more pressing matter of the laws’ main
target: camera-toting activists on farm factory floors. While
the industry might not like what it sees in the videos, it can’t
make a convincing case that the footage has no value. In the
last three years alone, activists have taped stable workers in
Tennessee illegally burning the ankles of horses with chemicals,
employees in Wyoming kicking pigs and flinging piglets into the
air, and farmhands in Iowa burning and snapping off the beaks of
young chickens. Those actions went undiscovered, or at least
unreported, by the farm owners and government regulators before
they were caught on camera by muckraking activists.
What they capture on film can go far beyond animal cruelty, too.
The footage is capable of shifting the debate from one about the
welfare of livestock to that of humans, a topic much more likely
to hit home with consumers. The most damning investigation in
the past decade occurred in Southern California, where an
undercover Humane Society operative caught workers illegally
pushing so-called downer cows, those cattle that are too sick or
weak to stand on their own, to slaughter with the help of
chains, forklifts, and high-pressure water hoses at the
Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. The U.S. Department of Agriculture
has deemed those cows potential carriers of mad cow disease,
salmonella, and E. coli. As a result, the video prompted the
recall of 143 million pounds of beef—the largest meat recall in
U.S. history—large portions of which were destined for school
lunch programs and fast-food restaurants. That investigation
would have likely never happened if laws like Idaho’s had been
on the books in California.
Both sides are set to get their day in court later this summer
when a federal judge hears the suit against the Idaho law. But
even if the law is ultimately struck down, the fight will
continue. “If it fails, we’ll revise it,” Patrick said. “I know
we did the right thing.” |