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Pigs are found in their shed on a farm in Iowa. A judge on Tuesday rescinded a law banning undercover investigations at Iowa's agricultural facilities.
Nati Harnik / AP
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Nati Harnik / AP
Pigs are found in their shed on a farm in Iowa. A judge on Tuesday rescinded a law banning clandestine investigations at Iowa's agricultural facilities.
Nati Harnik / AP
A federal judge from Iowa said that being clandestine in industrial farms, slaughterhouses and any other activity related to farming was no longer a crime. The 2012 law was a clear violation of the First Amendment, said the judge.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund, one of the plaintiffs in the case, described the judgment as "a victory for freedom of expression and protection of animals" .
"Ag-Gag laws are a pernicious attempt by the animal exploitation industries to conceal some of the worst forms of animal abuse in the United States," said ALDF Executive Director Stephen Wells. "Today's victory clearly shows that the government can not protect these industries to the detriment of our constitutional rights."
"Farmers have never intended to violate the constitutional rights of others," said the Iowa Pork Producers Association. the register of monks . "We relied on the courts to help protect our rights to legally conduct our business and take care of our animals."
Iowa created the crime of "fraud in an agricultural production facility" shortly after several investigations "drew national attention to the case of Iowa agriculture, wrote James Gritzner, Senior Judge of the US District Court in the Southern District of Iowa. Iowa is one of the largest livestock producers in the country.
Gritzner cited numerous undercover surveys of Iowan's industrial farms, in which workers had thrown pigs on the ground or burned the beak without analgesics. At least some of these surveys were conducted by people in these jobs to expose the abuse of animals, Gritzner said.
The legislature of Iowa began to consider the adoption of the law, prohibiting anyone from accessing an agricultural site. production facility "under false pretenses". This effectively criminalized all the infiltration operations carried out by a journalist and activists. In fact, "no undercover investigation has been taking place in Iowa since the approval of the law," reports the Associated Press.
Iowa is not the only state to have passed a law criminalizing undercover investigations into farms. Similar laws in Idaho and Utah have also been rescinded, NPR reported.
Legislators in Iowa said the law addressed two concerns of the agricultural industry: the safety of the facilities and the damage to the reputation that can accompany investigations. "What we want is to stop these groups who embark on campaigns that they use to raise money trying to give a bad name to the agricultural industry," had then declared the Senator Tom Rielly.
Opponents of the law argued that lawmakers were undermining the protections offered to journalists by the First Amendment. However, Iowa lawmakers said the law had been promulgated to defend the private property rights of the country's residents who own agricultural facilities.
The question put to the judge was whether the lie – in this case, to hold a job under false pretenses – was protected. In the circumstances, he said, the lies are protected. "To a certain extent, the concept of constitutional protection for biased statements can be worrisome," wrote Gritzner. However, he said, quoting the US Supreme Court, "the nation knows full well that one of the costs of the first amendment is that it protects the discourse we hate as well as the speech that we embrace. "
The first amendment protects false statements, said Gritzner, "whether it is deception of investigation or harmless lies".
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