Missouri House Passes "Ag Gag" Bill Designed to Stop Factory-Farm Investigations

Source: Riverfront Times Blogs

By Chad Garrison Wed., Apr. 18 2012 at 11:10 AM

The Missouri House of Representatives yesterday passed a bill designed to thwart undercover investigations into big agriculture.

The legislation (HB 1860) mirrors a similar bill signed into law this year in Iowa and creates the crime of "Agricultural Production Facility Fraud" for anyone who obtains access to a farm or animal processing center by "false pretenses...with the intent to commit an act not authorized by the owner."

Legislators in Iowa first considered an "Ag Gag" bill last year following the release of disturbing videos (see below) exposing conditions inside factory farms in Iowa and elsewhere in the United States. The original Iowa bill specifically would have criminalized undercover videotaping inside agricultural facilities, but the legislation was altered when Iowa's attorney general questioned its First Amendment restrictions. Instead Iowa lawmakers sought a work-around, making it a crime for people to misrepresent themselves into order to gain employment in the agricultural industry.

Missouri's bill sponsored by Casey Guernsey (R-Bethany), himself a cattle farmer, goes beyond the Iowa bill to include a provision aimed to stop image or sound recordings inside farms. The so-called crime of "Agricultural Production Facility Interference" makes it illegal to produce or distribute a record of an image or sound occurring at an operation without the consent of the owner of the facility. Violators could be subject to six months to four years in prison.
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Read more: http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2012/04/missouri_house_ag_gag_humane_society_us.php

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Our state legislators, hard at work, protecting Factory Farms from scrutiny. Disgusting.