Factory farms and secrecy

[Guest guest]

Factory Farms Fancy Secrecy

Bill Berkowitz, WorkingForChange.com

July 17, 2002

 

In a news cycle dominated by the permanent " war on terrorism " and the crisis in

the Middle East, this story is an exception. It comes to you from the Midwest --

Illinois to be exact. It's a story about factory farms and how corporate

interests are getting more and more concerned that you may find out how they go

about their business.

 

 

If corporate lobbyists continue to have their way with the Illinois state

legislature, it may become as difficult to find out the skinny on factory

farming as it has been to ferret out the truth of the Jenin refugee camp

invasion or discover how many innocent civilians have been killed by the U.S.

bombing in Afghanistan. The public's right to know is under attack both at home

and abroad.

 

 

Factory farming is a business that often leaves a major mess in its wake. If you

are an activist concerned with these issues, you can try lobbying for stricter

regulations to protect the " farmed " animals and the environment from

contamination. However, owners of these operations do not want the outside world

to find out what's going on. A few weeks back, the Illinois House took one step

toward that goal, by passing House Bill 5793. By a 118-0 vote, legislators

passed a bill making it illegal to photograph or videotape the animals on

factory farms without the consent of their owner.

 

 

Although the Chicago Tribune reports that the bill is " temporarily stalled " in

the state Senate, where it failed to make it out of committee in time for

consideration this spring, Don Rolla is still concerned. " The bad news, " said

Rolla, the executive director of Illinois Humane PAC, " is that the idea seems

likely to come back either tacked onto other legislation in coming weeks or on

its own next fall. "

 

 

House Bill 5793 " makes it a crime to be on a farm (or other 'animal facility')

and photograph or videotape pigs or any other animals without the consent of the

owner if one's intent is to 'damage the enterprise,' " reports the Tribune. The

term " animal facilities " is defined as anywhere an animal is " kept, housed,

handled, exhibited, bred, raised, or offered for sale or purchase. " The Peoria

Journal Star claims that " the bill would prohibit state inspectors from taking

pictures to document their investigations of these farms. "

 

 

The Journal Star reports that " The stated need for the law, according to a

legislative analysis, is to protect the food supply from terrorists.... The more

plausible reason is that opponents of factory farms have been fond of using

pictures of pigs raised body to body, or lagoons filled with sewage, to bolster

their case. "

 

 

The Journal Star: " Beyond that, the law will discourage whistleblowers who may

be employed on a livestock farm, or otherwise there legally, from photographing

abuses. Such pictures have been used before to go after violators. Opponents say

people likely will be deterred from filming farms from the public right-of-way,

for fear that a broad reading could subject them to criminal penalties. "

 

 

Industry intimidation

 

 

Over the past several years, animal rights and family farm activists have

documented how animals are being treated on factory farms via photos and

videotape. This does not please the pork industry, which has used " unusual

tactics to intimidate its critics, " writes Christopher D. Cook in the September

1999 issue of The Progressive magazine.

 

 

In North Carolina according to Cook, Steve Wing, an epidemiologist at the

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, headed a study that found " daily

whiffs of hog factory waste appear to cause sinus problems, excessive coughing,

headaches, nausea, and diarrhea. " North Carolina's booming $1.8 billion pork

industry began " pressuring Wing and his assistant Susanne Wolf to identify the

community -- and, by association, the people -- that participated in the

research. " The North Carolina Pork Council hired the Hunton & Williams law firm

" to secure the researchers records-including documents that could be used to

identify study participants who were guaranteed confidentiality. "

 

 

" If you want to document waste spillage, animal abuse or inhumane conditions on

a farm, there's no better way to do it than with photographs, " Diane Hatz, until

recently head of the factory-farm project for the New York-based Global Resource

Action Center for the Environment (GRACE), told the Chicago Tribune. " By trying

to take away visuals, this legislation is trying to take away a large portion of

our ammunition. "

 

 

Don Rolla: " As part of Humane PAC's efforts to pass legislation to bring an end

to the millions of animals suffering in factory farms, I have gathered a number

of shocking videos and photos that were taken in undercover efforts. The

conditions and the cruelty they show are horrible, and the images in these

photos and videos are important for us to have available to show the public.

Such videos and photos are the only way to document what we all know takes place

on a daily basis! This would impede undercover investigations of inhumane

conditions. "

 

 

A Missouri bill, HB 1794 -- Animal Research and Production Facilities -- has

similar intentions and is currently under consideration in the state

legislature. The bill " prohibits any person from photographing, videotaping, or

otherwise obtaining images from within an animal facility without the written

consent of the facility. A person violating this provision of the bill is guilty

of a class D felony. "

 

 

On the face of it, the Illinois bill introduced in February by state Rep. Mary

K. O'Brien (D-Coal City) " seems only to remind everyone that laws proscribing

burglary, trespassing, sabotage and so on apply also to farms, " reports the

Tribune. " I have no problem with that, " said Karen Hudson, a grain farmer in

Peoria County who is heading up GRACE's anti-factory-farm project in Illinois.

" I'm not a radical type who believes in vandalism. "

 

 

However, Hudson worries about the small print that has likely gone unnoticed by

Illinois House members. She claims that " the 1,100-word bill is a Trojan Horse

because of a 16-word clause making unauthorized farm photography punishable by

up to 6 months in jail. " That reference, she says, " appears on page 3 in Section

10, Subsection C, paragraph 4 -- an aside buried so deep into the tedious

legalese that it's a good bet most lawmakers didn't even see it. "

 

 

Kevin Semlow, a lobbyist for the Illinois Farm Bureau, which supports the bill,

told the Chicago Tribune that the legislation aims to prevent economic

espionage. " A lot of these facilities do high-tech biological research, " Semlow

said " We've had problems with people making videos of copyrighted technologies,

such as the way feed systems work for livestock. "

 

 

What's really going on in Illinois and Missouri is an attempt by the

agribusiness giants running America's factory farms to pull the blinds and

prevent the dirty truths about their operations from getting to consumers. Most

Americans are dead set against cruelty to animals on factory farms and the

concomitant devastation of the environment, even if it were to save them a few

cents at the market.

 

 

Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His

WorkingForChange column Conservative Watch documents the strategies, players,

institutions, victories and defeats of the American Right.