Organic Consumers Organization opposes NAIS animal ID laws

[Guest guest]

Here's more opposition to the USDA's NAIS laws on Animal ID in the US --

from the Organic Consumers Organization. You'll note that Mary Zanoni

specifies how it violates the first amendment rights of religious orders

like the Amish. Similarly, I do not think we would want Krsna's cows

and bulls to have radio chips implanted in them -- and we certainly do

not want to provide data on them to the overseers of the NAIS program,

such as the Cattleman's Beef Association.

 

your servant,

 

Hare Krsna dasi

 

***********

 

 

Comments on NAIS "Draft Program Standards" and "Draft Strategic Plan"

 

By Mary Zanoni, Ph.D. (Cornell), J.D. (Yale)

 

I have carefully examined the Draft Program Standards (Standards) and

Draft Strategic Plan (Plan) issued by the USDA (the Department) on April

25, 2005, in furtherance of the Department's proposed National Animal

Identification System (NAIS). Many aspects of the Standards and Plan

appear to create insurmountable legal, fiscal, and logistical problems.

The comments below address five categories of problems:

 

1. Constitutional infirmities of the proposed program;

2. An enormous economic cost to animal owners, the States, the

Department, and, ultimately, to American taxpayers and consumers for a

program likely to be ineffectual;

3. Weaknesses in the stated rationales for the program;

4. A lack of consideration of alternative, far cheaper and more easily

administered measures which would more effectively protect animal health

and food security; and

5. A lack of notice and an opportunity to be heard for medium-scale,

small-scale, and home farmers, and for other citizens owning livestock

solely for their own use or pleasure, in the Department's process thus far.

 

1. The Standards and Plan Violate Many Provisions of the Constitution.

 

First Amendment Violations - Many Christians (as well as persons of

other religious beliefs) cannot comply with the Department's proposed

program because it violates their First Amendment right to free

exercise. For example, the Old Order Amish believe they are prohibited

from registering their farms or animals in the proposed program due to,

inter alia, Scriptural prohibitions.

 

The way of life of these devout Christians requires them to use horses

for transportation, support themselves by simple methods of dairy

farming (most ship milk to cheese producers, since their faith prohibits

the use of the technologies required for modern fluid milk production),

and raise animals for the family's own food.

 

The proposed NAIS would place the Amish and other people of faith in an

untenable position of violating one or another requirement of their most

important beliefs. Further, it is not unlikely that enactment of the

NAIS as presently proposed would force the Amish and other devout people

to seek migration to another nation. It would greatly injure the status

of our country among the community of nations if the Department's

actions were to result in the forced migration of such simple, devout,

and peaceful people.

 

Fourth Amendment Violations - The Department proposes surveillance of

every property where even a single animal of any livestock species is

kept; and to require, at a minimum, the radio-frequency identification

tagging of every animal. (Standards, pp. 3-4, 6, 17-18.)

 

Perhaps the Department had in mind as its model large commercial

facilities where thousands, or in many cases tens of thousands, of

animals are housed or processed. However, aside from large livestock

businesses, there are also tens of millions of individual American

citizens who own a pet horse, keep a half-dozen laying hens, or raise

one steer, pig, or lamb for their own food.

 

In these instances, the "premises" that the Department plans to subject

to GPS satellite surveillance (Standards, p. 10) and distance

radio-frequency reading (Standards, p. 27) are the homes of these tens

of millions of citizens. The government is not permitted to use

sense-enhancing technologies to invade the privacy of citizens' homes.

Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001). The sanctity of the home is

entitled to privacy protection in circumstances where an industrial

complex is not. See Dow Chemical v. United States, 476 U.S. 227, 238 (1986).

 

Therefore, the Department should abandon its present proposals, insofar

as they entail enormously intrusive surveillance against unsuspecting

innocent citizens who have done nothing more than to own an animal (a

common form of personal property under the American system of law).

 

[Continued... http://www.organicconsumers.org/ofgu/ID060202.cfm]