HSUS has a history of sending one of their activists in to companies, to get these undercover videos. While I don't by any means condone animal abuse, ever, I also don't condone these activists methods.
I have to question the tactics of HSUS, when they send someone in under false pretenses (isn't illegal to lie on an application), who is supposedly witnessing this abuse, and does nothing about it when they see it, and then they wait, sometimes months, before reporting it.
Why would the "employee" not be held responsible for watching, and not reporting it immediately? Are they exempt, because they lied on their resume?
In addition, there is the issue of defining abuse - just like with children. There is clear cut abuse, that no one can deny - the calves in Texas, the cows in California - but then there are practices that some may consider abusive - like branding, or lifting a pigs tail or pulling their ear to get them moving, or prodding a steer forward.
So when HSUS, or other groups like them, go in and make these videos, they are playing a role that is subject to opinion, as opposed to laws that are already in place. They make accusations, and send out releases and videos, and the company is condemned in the public eye, and often costs millions of dollars.
Several states have introduced legislation that would, in different ways, make it illegal for these "covert operations" to continue.
Disappointingly, Florida just shot theirs down this week.
An Iowa bill currently on the table would make it illegal to take a job or gain access to an animal facility under false pretenses.
In addition, the bill, known as the “ag gag bill,” if passed would become the nation’s toughest legislation against animal rights activists who use what they call "covert operations" to take videos and photos of alleged animal cruelty.
Other states with similar pending legislation include Indiana, Nebraska, New York and Minnesota.
Iowa’s bill passed the House last year, but stalled in the Senate after the attorney general’s office pointed out potential legal challenges the bill would create. Based on freedom of speech, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that films exposing animal cruelty are legal.
Iowa’s Senate rewrote the bill in late 2011, eliminating the false pretenses language that prohibited animal activists from lying to employers. The rewritten language makes it a crime to enter or remain at an agricultural operation or to have a recording device without express permission from the owner.
According to HSUS, the Florida bill brought up discussion of first amendment rights, food safety, animal welfare and workers’ rights. But what about employer rights?
Sen. Tyson Larson filed the Nebraska bill. It would require people who suspect animal abuse or neglect to report their suspicion to authorities within 12 hours, instead of the current two-day window allowed in Nebraska. They also would have to surrender all video, photo and audio evidence immediately to investigators, instead of using them to promote their cause.
The videos released on the swine farms, according to veterinarians, do not show abuse, but rather normal injuries and sores association with animal behavior. My daughter's 4-H pigs typically look like they have been abused, when in fact, sometimes they git into fights - and even draw blood. I know, it's one of the crazy animal behaviors - that sets us apart from the animal world...right?
In 2007, an HSUS activist worked in the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company for approximately six weeks, obtaining video that, four months later, would run rampant through media outlets and create the largest meat recall in history.
According to testimony from HSUS President and CEO Wayne Pacelle, “HSUS conducted a thorough investigation that took several months, with our investigator undercover at the plant for six weeks during October and November 2007, and then the investigation continuing after he left the site as we analyzed documents and compiled further evidence. These are long-term investigations, and we don’t parachute in and know everything there is to know in a single day. If we are going to accuse a company of wrongdoing, with broader implications for the public, we want to make sure we collect as much evidence to support our claims as possible, and we want to be sure to present a fair and accurate picture of what went on at the plant.”
While animal activists are typically the ones with the hidden cameras, the media also has a track record of sending in their own undercover spies.
In 1994, CBS was in court in South Dakota on charges that a video the network filmed secretly inside a meatpacking plant in Rapid City was illegal. The packing plant tried to stop the video from being aired, but an emergency order by a Supreme Court justice allowed it to run.
Circuit Judge Jeff W. Davis barred the network from using the footage during a “48 Hours” segment, titled “Bum Steer.” Concluding that the First Amendment did not apply because the network obtained the videotape through “calculated misdeeds,” Davis ruled that Federal Beef would suffer “irreparable harm” if the tape were broadcast. In an appeal hours before “Bum Steer” was to go on the air, CBS got permission from a Supreme Court judge to use the disputed videotape.
Current state photo shooting, audio recording and video tapping laws vary.
Something is wrong with this world when a crime is committed, and is not reported for days, or even months. And when we can't recognize the difference between animal rights and animal welfare. The first, until my dog can speak English, is not even possible.
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