Court: Idaho Ag Gag Violates Free Speech

On Thursday, a federal appeals court ruled, Idaho’s ban on spying at farms, dairies and slaughterhouses violated free speech rights.  In 2014, Idaho lawmakers passed a bill making it a crime to videotape agriculture operations after the state’s $2.5 billion dairy industry complained that videos of cows being abused at a dairy two years earlier unfairly hurt their businesses.  Animal rights activists, civil rights groups and media organizations quickly sued once the bill received the governor’s signature, arguing the law criminalized a long tradition of undercover journalism and would require people who expose wrongdoing to pay restitution to the businesses they target.

In last week’s decision, the appeals panel upheld a prior federal judge’s ruling that the ban was an unconstitutional infringement of the First Amendment.  The panel also ruled the law correctly criminalized those who made false statements to either obtain records at an agricultural facility or to obtain employment with the intent to inflict harm.

The panel then reiterated a federal judge’s point that there are already state and federal laws on the books that protect private property.  The Idaho attorney general’s office was reviewing the decision and planned on discussing it with state officials.

According to the opinion, the panel particularly took exception to the law’s ban on audiovisual recordings but not photography, rejecting the state’s argument that the act of making a video or audio recording is not protected by the First Amendment.

The Idaho Dairymen’s Association wrote the measure after the Los Angeles-based animal rights group Mercy For Animals released videos that showed workers at Bettencourt Dairy beating and stomping cows in 2012.

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