ag gag ! freedom of expression in america.

"Ag Gag" ! Just call it what it actually is . CENSORSHIP ! No visual evidence will be allowed  to show the many crimes against animals and humanity that are committed by the many inhuman industries that  run  the world.

There is nothing even vaguely subtle about  these laws   encacted in the many states that make up the" Land of  the Free" . The land that preaches Press Freedom to the world even as it actually curbs it .

Minnesota’s “ag-gag” law — isn’t that a great name? — would seek to punish not only photographers and videographers but those who distribute their work, which means organizations like the Humane Society of the United States and Mercy for Animals, which contracted the videographer for the E6 investigation. “It’s so sweeping,” says Nathan Runkle, the executive director of Mercy for Animals, “that if you took a picture of a dog at a pet shop and texted it to someone, that could be a crime.” Unconstitutional? Probably, but there it is.

Videotaping at factory farms wouldn’t be necessary if the industry were properly regulated. But it isn’t. And the public knows this; the one poll about the Iowa ag-gag law shows a mere 21 percent of people supporting it. And poll after poll finds that almost everyone believes that even if it costs more, farm animals should be treated humanely.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/26/who-protects-the-animals/





Florida Senate - 2011 SB 1246
By Senator Norman
12-01071A-11 20111246__
Page 1 of 1
CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.
1 A bill to be entitled
2 An act relating to farms; prohibiting a person from 
3 entering onto a farm or photographing or video 
4 recording a farm without the owner’s written consent; 
5 providing a definition; providing penalties; providing 
6 an effective date.
7
8 Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
9
10 Section 1. (1) A person who enters onto a farm or other 
11 property where legitimate agriculture operations are being 
12 conducted without the written consent of the owner, or an 
13 authorized representative of the owner, commits a felony of the 
14 first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, 
15 or s. 775.084, Florida Statutes.
16 (2) A person who photographs, video records, or otherwise 
17 produces images or pictorial records, digital or otherwise, at 
18 or of a farm or other property where legitimate agriculture 
19 operations are being conducted without the written consent of 
20 the owner, or an authorized representative of the owner, commits 
21 a felony of the first degree, punishable as provided in s.
22 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084, Florida Statutes.
23 (3) As used in this section, the term “farm” includes any 
24 tract of land cultivated for the purpose of agricultural 
25 production, the raising and breeding of domestic animals, or the 
26 storage of a commodity.
27 Section 2. This act shall take effect July 1, 2011.



http://flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2011/1246/BillText/Filed/PDF

Wave of "Ag Gag" Bills Threaten Food Safety and Freedom of the Press

by Rebekah Wilce — March 13, 2013 - 7:02am

Topics: Food, Animal Rights

Projects: Food Rights Network, ALEC Exposed

Remember "fecal soup"? A CBS "60 Minutes" exposé in 1987 documented widespread food safety violationsby the poultry industry, making use of undercover video from a hidden camera placed by the "60 Minutes" crew. The episode vindicated U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) whistleblower Hobart Bartley, who had been ignored and threatened by his superiors and finally transferred to another plant when he warned of unsanitary conditions at a Simmons Industries plant in Missouri. Bartley was particularly irate about the "eight-foot-high vat of water called the 'chiller,' where as many as 10,000 chicken carcasses were routinely left to float, soaking up moisture to increase their selling weight. Dried blood, feces, and hair were floating in along with the dead birds. Diane Sawyer later called it 'fecal soup.'"

In the modern era, effective enforcement of food safety and the humane treatment of animals has long relied on undercover video investigations by reporters and citizens. The footage and images gained can serve as proof of criminal wrongdoing or lay ugly practices bare. Such images can vindicate whistleblowers who otherwise risk retaliation when speaking up. Now this practice, which has time and time again exposed hidden dangers -- including downer cows linked to Mad Cow disease in the food supply -- is under threat by a series of state bills dubbed "ag gag" bills.

Recent Ag Gag Law in Florida, Followed by 17 Others in Two Years

In 2011, a 21 million egg-a-year Florida producer, Wilton Simpson of Simpson Farms, requested a bill from then-state Florida Senator Jim Norman.

At Simpson's behest, in February 2011 Norman introduced a bill to the Florida Senate that would make photography "at or of a farm" a first-degree felony. SB1246, the "Farms" bill, and copycat bills in Minnesota and Iowa would later be called "ag gag" bills by the New York Times' Mark Bittman.

Simpson and the Florida Farm Bureau wanted to "deter animal-rights activists from obtaining imagery used to harm the industry," according to The Florida Independent, but the bill as written would have applied to anyone, including journalists. The bill died in committee in 2012.

But while Florida's bill did not pass, similar "ag gag" bills were introduced in Iowa, Minnesota, and New York in 2011. A modified bill passed in Iowa in March 2012. The bill's proponents in the Iowa state legislature were heavily funded by corporate agribusiness interests.

2012 saw the introduction of similar bills in six more states. "Ag gag" became law in Utah, and a modified version was signed into law in Missouri. Nine "ag gag" bills have been introduced so far in 2013: in New Hampshire, Wyoming, Nebraska, Indiana, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and New Mexico. (See the Center for Media and Democracy's article on SourceWatch for more.)

New Tactic Devised to Make Bills Legal

In its original form, the "ag gag" bill was a blatant violation of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression and would have quashed the right of independent investigators to document the truth. So legislators in Iowa and Utah changed the bills to make lying on employment applications a crime. Now factory farms and slaughterhouses can screen out reporters and other investigators by asking on job applications, "Are you affiliated with a news organi m,zation, labor union, or animal protection group?"

A former Humane Society investigator, Cody Carlson, wrote inThe Atlantic, "Two years ago, I had to answer a similar question when I applied to work at the nation's second biggest egg producer, located in Thompson, Iowa. If the Ag Gag law had been in effect then, I might be writing this article from a cell." The same would have been true for a New York Times or Chicago Tribune investigative reporter.

Instead, Carlson was able to work undercover at four Iowa egg farms in the winter of 2010 and expose abuses such as manure pits not cleaned or maintained in multiple years, and laying hens with unnoticed and untreated prolapsed uteruses.

Carlson wrote, "A few months later, Iowa's egg farms were in the news again when nearly identical conditions were found at several other locations, this time by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The farms were at the center of a massive salmonella outbreak that caused the biggest egg recall in United States history."

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/03/11411/wave-ag-gag-bills-threaten-food-safety-and-freedom-press