After 2010, animal agriculture turned to state criminal law to stop activists from entering private property to collect evidence of animal abuse. This involved increasing penalties for trespass, making it a crime to lie on employment applications or make video or audio recordings without permission from the owner or property
Continue Reading ‘Right to rescue’ could be advanced by California felony conviction
District and appellate courts since 2010 have struck down the many ag-gag laws states have approved to protect animal agriculture.
But the United States Supreme Court has not yet reviewed the issue, and that will not happen anytime soon.
This week, the Supreme Court turned down North Carolina’s appeal to
Continue Reading SCOTUS isn’t interested in taking up Ag-gag
Animal Agriculture’s security requirements have only grown in recent years. Yet the legal strategy for security has largely come up short because the law put First Amendment rights over the security needs of farms and ranches
This reality has been a drawn-out affair. Back in the day, animal activist organizations
Continue Reading Letter From The Editor: Next!
A verbose 10th Circuit has split with the 8th Circuit over whether lying is constitutionally protected speech. The disputed ground between the Denver-based 10th Circuit and the St. Louis-based 8th Circuit involves their interpretations of so-called “ag-gag” laws in Kansas and Iowa.
In a 2-to-1 opinion, the 10th Circuit on
Continue Reading Circuit courts differ over whether lies to access property are protected by the First Amendment
One way for legal issues to make their way to the Supreme Court is when the federal circuit courts don’t agree with one another. It’s too early to tell, but the legal tangle that’s been going on for most of the past decade over state laws to protect animal agriculture
Continue Reading Differences in circuit court opinions are the stuff that makes Supreme Court cases
Federal judges did not much like the newer laws to protect animal agriculture from prying eyes. So-called “ag-gag” laws adopted during the last decade in Utah, Idaho, and Iowa were struck mainly down as unconstitutional when challenged by animal rights activists.
Kansas, North Dakota, and Montana, however, adopted ag-gag laws
Continue Reading Kansas becomes 4th state with unconstitutional “ag-gag” law
Federal judges so far haven’t been willing to share any of their enviable security blanket with animal agriculture.
But that might change if a strategy out of Iowa is successful. It was as recently as January that senior federal district court Judge James E. Gritzner ruled Iowa’s first “ag-gag”
Continue Reading An 8th Circuit strategy is behind Iowa’s ‘ag-gag’ 2.0
Federal judges have not much liked those state laws restricting spying on animal agriculture that have been adopted since 2010. When challenged by animal activists in federal courts have largely been knocking down the so-called “ag-gag” laws, citing Constitutional grounds.
An older generation of state laws designed to protect animal
Continue Reading Nation’s oldest “ag-gag” law challenged by animal legal activists
A federal judge has decided not to toss out a lawsuit about the constitutionality of Iowa’s 6-year-old “agricultural production facility fraud” statute, meaning the issue will very likely go to trial next year.
Federal District Court Judge James E. Gritzner, in a 38-page opinion, on Feb. 27 denied the crux
Continue Reading Activists’ case on constitutionality of ‘ag-gag’ law advances
Animal activists and the Center for Food Safety sued the state of Iowa in federal court Tuesday, claiming its law to prevent “agriculture production facility” fraud violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
The “ag-gag” law hasn’t seen much use in the Hawkeye State since its passage
Continue Reading Food safety, animal activists sue Iowa over 2012 ‘ag-gag’ law
