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“Ag gag” bills pick up speed; Tennessee expected to be latest state to pass law
Story Date: 4/19/2013
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Source: Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 4/18/13
The Tennessee House is expected to approve today a bill that would make it illegal to record animal cruelty incidents on livestock farms without reporting it to police within 48 hours. Gov. Bill Haslam is expected to sign the measure into law.
It does not, however, expressly prohibit the recording of incidents (whether through photographs or video) without the permission of the farm’s owner – something typically found in similar bills.
A similar bill is under consideration in Alabama, although that proposal would provide 120 hours for those in possession of evidence of animal cruelty to turn it over to law enforcement.
The move comes one day after a similar measure in California was pulled just before a vote by the Assembly Agriculture Committee.
The ag-gag concept is picking up speed nationwide.
Pennsylvania recently became one of about half a dozen states considering laws that would make undercover videos illegal, including Arkansas, Indiana and Nebraska.
Similar moves have failed in recent years in both Nebraska and Tennessee, as well as a handful of other states. Later this year ag-gag bills are expected to be introduced in Minnesota, North Carolina and Vermont.
In January a state bill was proposed in the New Hampshire legislature that would force anyone recording cruelty to livestock to report such cruelty and submit such recordings to a law enforcement agency within 24 hours.
Missouri passed similar legislation last May, just two months after Utah became the second state (after Iowa) to pass such legislation, dubbed “ag-gag” laws by activists.
Both the New Hampshire and Missouri legislation differ from laws passed in Iowa and Utah last year, which prohibit taking photographs or videos on farms without permission.
The New Hampshire legislation stipulates that the photographs and video recordings submitted to law enforcement must be unedited.
For more stories, go to http://www.meatingplace.com/.
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