{"id":759431,"date":"2020-01-24T07:48:40","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T12:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=759431"},"modified":"2020-01-24T09:49:57","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T14:49:57","slug":"victory-kansass-ag-gag-law-has-been-ruled-unconstitutional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=759431","title":{"rendered":"VICTORY: Kansas\u2019s Ag-Gag law has been ruled unconstitutional"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Kansas is the fourth state (after Utah, Idaho, and Iowa) to see their Ag-Gag law struck down. But laws in Alabama, North Carolina, Montana, North Dakota, and Arkansas remain standing.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n

KELSEY PIPER:<\/strong> ‘Kansas cannot bar people from conducting undercover investigations on factory farms, the a federal court in Kansas ruled Wednesday. For nearly 30 years \u2014 since 1990 \u2014 a Kansas state law made it illegal to take photographs or record video in a factory farm or slaughterhouse \u201cwith the intent to damage an enterprise conducted at the animal facility.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The law was the earliest example of what are now called \u201cag-gag\u201d laws, which criminalize undercover investigations, often by animal welfare groups, that reveal abuses on farms. Since Kansas\u2019s law was enacted, half a dozen states have passed such laws \u2014 and more have considered it. Legislators have been forthright about their motives: They\u2019re worried that evidence of what goes on on these farms will outrage Americans, so they want to ban it.<\/em><\/p>\n

So far, the courts aren\u2019t impressed. Last year, the federal court for the southern district of Iowa ruled that Iowa\u2019s ag-gag law was unconstitutional. On Wednesday, a federal judge in Kansas agreed. \u201cThe prohibition on taking pictures at an animal facility regulates speech for First Amendment purposes,\u201d the court concluded, dismissing arguments that prohibiting the taking of pictures did not constitute a restriction on speech.<\/em><\/p>\n

Even worse from a constitutional standpoint, the restriction on speech is not viewpoint-neutral, the court concluded: \u201cThe law plainly targets negative views about animal facilities and therefore discriminates based on viewpoint”… Ag-gag laws are rarely actually used to prosecute activists. But they\u2019ve nonetheless succeeded at their mission of squelching dissent. That, the federal judge in Kansas decided, is why the Animal Legal Defense Fund, which sued the state, had standing to sue…<\/em><\/p>\n

That makes Kansas the fourth state \u2014 after Utah, Idaho, and Iowa \u2014 to see their ag-gag law struck down. But laws in Alabama, North Carolina, Montana, North Dakota, and Arkansas remain standing, with new ones passed as recently at 2017 \u2014 the product of a powerful agriculture industry furious about the animal rights movement… Animal advocates have responded with caution. \u201cNone of the major animal protection groups have done anything in Iowa in the last seven years,\u201d Harvard\u2019s Chris Green said… The ag-gag laws worked. And when Iowa\u2019s law was overturned, animal activists went back to work in the state’<\/em>. SOURCE…<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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