Judge overturns Idaho's 'ag gag' law in victory for animal rights campaigners

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

A federal judge has lifted a controversial ban on undercover surveillance inside Idaho’s factory farms, delivering a significant victory to animal rights’ activists.

Judge B Lynn Winmill ruled on Monday that the state’s so-called “ag gag” law violated the constitutional right to free speech.

“An agricultural facility’s operations that affect food and worker safety are not exclusively a private matter,” said the judge. “Food and worker safety are matters of public concern.”

The agriculture industry’s political allies passed the law last year after an undercover investigator with the advocacy group Mercy for Animals used a hidden camera to expose cruelty and neglect at Bettencourt Dairies, Idaho’s largest dairy factory farm.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/03/judge-overturns-idaho-ag-gag-law-victory-animal-rights-campaigners

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Rory Carroll in Los Angeles
Tuesday 4 August 2015 00.28 BST

[They_Live]

1. “Food and worker safety are matters of public concern.”

Yes!

[mpcamb]

5. So let's extend it to packaging. It's the same issue: " Food and worker safety".

We want to know where it's from.

[TexasBushwhacker]

14. Not to mention tons of shit washed into our

waterways.

[IDemo]

2. Winmill comes through again

Great to see this hideous law overturned. Thank you, Lynn.

[riversedge]

3. Again and Again Repugs pass laws and taxpayers have to go to court

over and over.

[meow2u3]

4. Maybe the judge ought to make Repug lawmakers pay out of their own pockets

instead of putting taxpayers on the hook.

BTW, the judge made the right call. No law that curtails people's freedom of speech should even see the light of day, let alone passed.

[daleanime]

6. Amen.....

[Novara]

12. I'd like to see some damn fines for passing laws they know will be overturned in court

You think if they had to foot the bill for a legal defense that they would pass these things? Especially all the anti-women legislation that is clearly unconstitutional?

Bastards.

[retrowire]

7. woohoo!

defunding planned parenthood and this struck down in the same day! awesome!

[Jack-o-Lantern]

8. Yes! Expose the cruelty of factory farming to the public and they will demand reform.

[restorefreedom]

9. damm f*ckin straight. nt

[niyad]

10. about damned time.

[CharlotteVale]

11. K&R

[Gothmog]

13. Cool-these laws infringe on the First Amendment

I am glad that a challenge to these laws worked