NOTE: There is a hearing on this legislation on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 in the Judiciary Committee, Room 4202, at 8 a.m. or perhaps later (you can view what else is on the schedule here).
California has been a hotbed of both legal and illegal activity in the name of animal rights lately.
The largest beef recall in history began here, after an undercover investigation by an animal welfare group. Meanwhile, California universities have been the site of a protracted battle between animal experimenters and underground activists using threats and property destruction. And last week, the secretary of state announced that a proposal to eliminate some of the cruelest confinements in animal agriculture will go before voters in November.
These are disparate tactics, yet they all threaten animal businesses.
Enter Gene Mullin, a member of the California State Assembly and a Democrat, who has introduced AB 2296, the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, to stifle the First Amendment rights of animal advocates. The law would prohibit the posting of publicly available information on activist websites, restrict access to public meetings, and require heavy-handed penalties for non-violent civil disobedience.
All in the name of fighting “terrorism.â€
Background
In November, 2006, Congress passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a sweeping, overly broad law that was, ostensibly, introduced to target underground activists like the Animal Liberation Front. It was pushed through Congress, with little discussion or debate, by a coalition of corporations and industry groups including the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Pfizer and the Fur Commission. It wraps up a range of activity—from non-violent civil disobedience to property destruction—as “terrorism†if it targets an “animal enterprise,†and, most dangerous of all, it has made many activists fearful of continuing their work because they could be labeled a “terrorist.â€
The government has used the passage of the AETA to cozy up with these “animal enterprises†even more. In March, 2007, Ricardo Solano Jr., a lead attorney in the “animal enterprise terrorism†case of the SHAC 7, gave a keynote speech at the Animal Agriculture Alliance’s Stakeholders Summit. According to Dairy Herd Management Magazine, he told the executives present: “The fact of the matter is that there are extremist individuals and groups that will go through great lengths to put you out of business. The recent passage of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act sends a clear signal to animal-rights extremists that if their activities cross the line, the federal government will not stand idly by.â€
Nevertheless, the new law hasn’t been used. You might remember that, after the passage of the federal Animal Enterprise Protection Act in 1992, corporations immediately began pushing for more legislation, and more power. They got what they wanted with the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. But now that victory is simply being used as a political springboard for even more legislation, providing even more power.
Key provisions in the California bill:
Prohibits the publication of publicly-available information
The most significant section of the bill says that “no person, business, or association shall knowingly publicly post or publicly display on the Internet a home address, home telephone number, or image of any employee of an animal enterprise or other individuals residing at the same home address of the employee of an animal enterprise†if the posting is intended to do one of a few things.
It must either be intended to:
“Incite a third person to cause imminent great bodily harm to the person identified in the posting or display, or to a coresident of that person, where the third person is likely to commit this harm.â€
Or
“Threaten the person identified in the posting or display, or a coresident of that person, in a manner that places the person identified or the coresident in objectively reasonable fear for his or her personal safety.”
Here, lawmakers are trying to push the limits of what a long history of First Amendment law has established. They’re singling out a group of people solely based on their political beliefs, and restricting their speech because of those beliefs. If someone posted information about an executive at Wal-Mart, because of a labor dispute, that wouldn’t be prohibited. Or, perhaps a better comparison would be someone who posts information about an abortion doctor (a situation which, unlike animal rights campaigns, has led to murder).
Beyond that, though, these clauses are so ambiguous as to be meaningless. Or, in the hands of an ambitious prosecutor, so ambiguous as to be quite dangerous.
The biggest problem here is the use of amorphous term “reasonable fear.†The word “eco-terrorism†is batted around recklessly by industry groups, in a scare-mongering campaign that has included full-page ads in major newspapers and even stooping so low as to call a children’s movie “soft-core eco-terrorism for kids.†They are doing everything they can to create this fear through scare mongering: that’s the point. In light of this political climate, it’s impossible to discuss “reasonable fear,†because industry groups are throwing all their weight into making the unreasonable seem reasonable—into making the public afraid of non-violent activists, so they can push a political agenda.
Furthermore, lawmakers are twisting and redefining the idea of “incitement.†Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) established that incitement is more than mere advocacy, and it is more than simply providing information: it must tend to cause “imminent lawless action.†That’s a bit of a stretch with the Internet, unless someone were to post the information and then send a fiery email to someone saying, “Go do something illegal!†The reality, though, is that this hasn’t happened. Lawmakers are targeted websites for merely posting publicly available information in a political context.
Restricts access to public meetings
The bill “imposes a limitation on the public’s right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies†on the grounds that, among other points, some researchers have been the targets of property destruction and threats.
The bill also notes, as a justification for this restriction, that “The information used to target the victims of these crimes often is obtained by making a request for public records from a government agency.†It’s quite curious that lawmakers can make such a bold statement about the methods of underground activists responsible for the illegal actions in California, considering they have not been caught.
Catching the underground activists, though, is only part of the intention. More importantly, researchers and corporations could use this fear mongering to restrict publicly available information that is used by a wide variety of legal, mainstream groups in their campaigns.
Creates new crimes and disproportionate penalties
The bill spells out civil remedies for individuals whose public information is posted publicly, including suing for “damages to that individual in an amount up to a maximum of three times the actual damages, but in no case less than four thousand dollars ($4,000).â€
Lawmakers also went to great lengths to spin standard court procedures into fear-mongering tactics. For instance, the bill spells out that courts “shall take all action reasonably required†to protect animal enterprise employees, including restraining orders and bans on photography. And in court, employees may use a pseudonym out of fear of animal rights advocates. These are all tools available to the court in extreme situations, but lawmakers have gone out of their way to emphasize them here seemingly to enforce the “terrorist threat†posed by activists.
Perhaps most disturbing, though, are the disproportionate penalties.
One of the slaughterhouse workers in Chino, Calif., whose abuse of cows led to the beef recall, pleaded guilty recently to three misdemeanors. Undercover video showed Rafael Sanchez Herrera and others trying to force sick cows into the kill chutes by stabbing a cow in the eye with a stick, dragging sick cows with forklifts and shooting high-pressure hoses into their mouths. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail and a $100 fine.
Under this legislation, someone who uses non-violent civil disobedience outside of a slaughterhouse in protest of these abusive practices could receive the same amount of jail time, and a $5,000 fine.