Utah’s 2012 Ag Gag Law Challenged in Court - National Humane Education Society

Paws Up!

To Amy Meyer and plaintiffs in the case against Utah’s Ag Gag Law, which criminally penalizes citizens who expose illegal activity in factory farms.

In 2013, 25-year-old animal welfare advocate Amy Meyer stood on a public street outside of a slaughterhouse in Draper, Utah. She filmed a front end loader dumping a sick cow outside the slaughterhouse – an illegal practice. However it was Amy, not the employee of the slaughterhouse, who found herself being questioned moments later by police and later, charged with a misdemeanor crime for violating the state’s “Ag-Gag” law passed in 2012. The specifics of Ag-Gag laws vary by state, but the commonality of these laws lies in that they prohibit citizens (even employees of the factory farms and slaughterhouses themselves) for filming and releasing evidence of unsafe, illegal, and inhumane practices in agricultural operations.

Amy escaped criminal charges after her footage proved in court that she did not enter private property to film the video. Shortly after, lawyers on behalf of Amy and two animal welfare organizations, returned to court – this time to challenge the constitutionality of Utah’s Ag Gag law. Three years later, the case continues. Animal welfare advocates hope that the law will be overturned just as Idaho’s Ag-Gag law was earlier this year by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill.

The horrors of factory farming in the United States are among our nation’s ugliest secrets, and Ag-Gag Laws aim to keep it that way. Without the testimony and evidence provided by whistle blowers, factory farms in violation of laws that protect the rights of animals, preservation of the environment and human health will continue to act recklessly and illegally without fear of discovery or consequence. Though not always popular with some in positions of power, whistle blowers have long been an important part of maintaining the integrity of every facet of American enterprise and politics. The agricultural industry should be granted no exception.

Take action. Adopt a diet with less meat, or better yet, a vegetarian diet. Write your legislators, and urge them not to support any bill that would put the interest of the agricultural industry over the humane treatment of animals and public health.