Inside D.C.

The Law Must Protect Farmers and Ranchers

For a lot of years, farmers and ranchers attacked by animal rights and other activist thugs – whether through outright lies in the media, break-ins on farms or physical disruption of our conventions and meetings – simply reported the crimes to the local police and waited for nothing to happen. These kinds of attacks did not register strongly enough on law enforcement radar – local, state or federal – to garner much attention. Unless someone tried to burn down or blow up your farm, the feds couldn’t/didn’t lift a finger.

No one seemed to care about the physical and psychological protection of farmers and ranchers and their families as they did about protecting the right to fight for “happy” farm animals. No one seemed to care about the vital service farmers and ranchers provide, i.e. feeding people affordably and safely, as much as they cared about celebrities, naked activists, insensitive/insulting media-hogging campaigns, stalls, “free range” or the virtues of organic/natural/vegetarian/vegan foods.

When agriculture fought back through enactment of federal and state laws criminalizing the kind of assaults I’ve just described, we were immediately branded – and continue to be vilified – by these same thugs, as well as by legal dilettantes and cable TV talking heads, as opposing the First Amendment, muzzling free speech and figuratively shredding the Constitution to protect our dastardly ways.

The first foray into legal protection was the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA), an amendment to the federal criminal code that for the first time made it a crime to break into and destroy biomedical research labs, farms and other sites of legitimate animal use. This was in 1990, there was a more than an adequate record of attacks, but the predicate was animals must be present at the facility. In 2006, an amendment to this section of the federal criminal code was enacted – the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) – necessary to extend the same federal protection to a broader array of legitimate animal users, including those who represent animal use. The animals-on-premises predicate disappeared.

Both pieces of legislation were vetted through the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) prior to any congressional action. Why? Because no one in agriculture or biomedical research – the two groups most active in passing the legislation – wished to be accused of ignoring First Amendment, whistleblower or other federal protections set in or established under federal law. These protections, after all, apply to us as well.

Now we have state legislative attempts in Iowa, Minnesota and Florida – and the Florida legislature has reintroduced the bill, bless ‘em – to enact laws protecting farmers and ranchers from anti-farming activists gaining employment on a farm under false pretenses, videotaping private property without permission, and then disseminating that video tape – edited in any way they wish, portraying that farm or ranch in any way they wish – all because they believe their right to hawk their cause is more important than the farmer’s right to protect his/her property. This is electronic vigilantism – self-righteous folks taking the law into their own hands – action we deplore in other contexts, so why not here?

Granted, bad legislative drafting and a reach too far in restricting illegal behaviors make these attempts self serving. The courts strike down bad laws — not the case in the AEPA/AETA so far — but the fundamental premise is still valid. Why is it OK for an animal rightist to commit fraud, theft and slander/libel, all in the name of his/her definition of animal nirvana – or the lack of it? And why are farmers and ranchers denied the protections so articulately protected by the legal whizzes among us with access to the media?

In the mid-1990s, it was my idea to create a model state bill aimed at any activist with the price of a full-page ad in USA Today or the New York Times who intended to lie to consumers about food production to further the cause or raise money. I figured if a company is legally prohibited from falsely claiming in its advertising what a product can or can’t do, why shouldn’t consumers be afforded the same protection from lies and distortions in activist propaganda? In all, 13 states passed a version of this model bill, legislation that basically told the activists: “Say whatever you like, but be prepared to prove what you say if challenged in the courts.” These laws were dubbed “veggie libel” laws by the media, and some of you remember the failed Oprah Winfrey suit in Texas over burgers, but the point remains: Does the Constitution protect your right to malign my livelihood – and me by extension – and break the law because I don’t comport with your personal beliefs?

I’m no lawyer, but to me, the answer must be “no.”