Photo Credit: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
August 9, 2013
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Amy Meyer wanted to see for herself where her food was coming from. But in the state of Utah, she discovered,
that was against the law.
On February 8,
Meyer drove to
Dale Smith Meatpacking Company in Draper City, Utah, and took a look
from the side of the road. She gasped as she peered through the barbed
wire fence and saw what appeared to be a sick cow being treated like
rubble as it was carried in a tractor. So she did what many people would
do in this day and age. She got out her smartphone to begin recording.
For this, Meyer was arrested and prosecuted under Utah's new "ag-gag" law.
It
turns out that similar laws are now in place not just in Utah, but also
in Kansas, Arkansas, Iowa, and Missouri. And many other states are
considering similar legislation.
The goal of these laws, it would appear, is to keep consumers from seeing where modern meat really comes from. Considering that
94 percent of the American public believes
that animals raised for food should be free from abuse and cruelty, the
modern meat industry has some good reasons to fear the public finding
out that Old MacDonald's farm isn't so happy these days.
Charges against Meyer were subsequently
dropped,
but Utah's law is still on the books. And now Amy Meyer is joining with
award-winning author Will Potter and a team of organizations in
filing a lawsuit challenging her state's controversial law in the courts.
Soon
thereafter, in Kansas on June 28th, a photographer working for a
publication not generally seen as promoting a radical agenda,
National Geographic, was
arrested and briefly jailed after taking aerial pictures of a feedlot for a series on food issues to be published some time next year.
George
Steinmetz has taken award-winning photos in many dangerous situations,
including a series depicting post-Gaddafi Libya. But it was his
photographs of U.S. feedlots, taken from a paraglider in an area with
hundreds of thousands of cattle, that got him put behind bars.
Kansas has its own "ag-gag bill," called the "
Farm Animal and Field Crop and Research Facilities Protection Act." This law makes it illegal to "enter an animal facility to take pictures by photograph, video camera or by any other means."
Apparently, the feedlot executives may have
considered paragliding to
be a form of illegal entry, and they wanted Steinmetz to feel the force
of the law. Industry officials said they believe his actions represent a
"
food security issue."
Steinmetz had also parked and taken off
from private property, so "trespassing" is central to the charge he now
faces. But do you really think he'd have been arrested for parking
there had he merely stopped to read a book?
The spread of ag-gag
bills is alarming for many reasons. Aside from exposing specific
incidents of animal abuse, undercover videos have also
drawn attention to
industry practices such as housing chickens in cramped battery cages
that hasten the sickening of birds and the spread of salmonella.
Elizabeth Holmes, an attorney with the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, comments:
"The
reason these are public health issues, and not just animal rights
issues, is that those unsanitary conditions provide breeding grounds
(for disease)."
Holmes has a point. Keeping animals alive in
wretched conditions requires the use of massive amounts of
pharmaceutical drugs. Nearly
80 percent of
the antibiotics used in the United States are given to animals, not
people. The antibiotic overuse that allows meat producers to keep
animals in filth and misery is spawning drug-resistant superbugs.
Earlier this year, an
Environmental Working Group study found
antibiotic resistant "super bugs" on 81 percent of the ground turkey
and 55 percent of the ground beef in America's supermarkets.
With antibiotic resistant bacteria costing us more than
$55 billion and killing
tens of thousands of people each year, you could even argue that today's factory farms have become a form of biological weapons factory.
But
don't we have meat inspectors who monitor animal treatment? Isn't it
their job to insure that the laws against excessive animal cruelty to
animals, however weak they may be, are enforced? Aren't they being paid
to look out for the public interest?
Unfortunately, thanks to the
weight of agribusiness interests, even USDA meat inspectors don't always
feel free to protect animals or public health.
After 29 years as a USDA meat inspector, Jim Schrier was
recently stationed at
a Tyson Foods slaughter facility in Iowa where he reported clear humane
handling violations to his supervisor. That's what he was supposed to
do -- report the violations to his superior in the chain of command. But
when Schrier presented his concerns, the supervisor reportedly
became very angry,
and a week later required Jim to work at another facility 120 miles
away. Then the USDA reassigned Jim permanently to a plant in another
state.
In what looks an awful lot like a form of whistleblower
retaliation, after 29 years of service, Schrier must now choose between
his job, and his family.
When Jim's wife, Tammy,
launched a petition on change.org exposing
this story and calling for Jim Schrier to get his old job back, some of
the first signers were other employees who had worked at the same plant
and who corroborated Schrier's findings. Instead of being punished,
they said, he should be rewarded and the whole plant should be
inspected.
The significance of all this is huge. The
first amendment to the United States constitution states:
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." There
are serious questions about whether ag-gag bills, and retaliation
against whistleblowers like Jim Schrier, are even constitutional. But
whatever the courts decide, we are already paying a terrible price for
the climate of repression they institutionalize.
Shutting up
people like Amy Meyer, George Steinmetz, and Jim Schrier makes it hard
for any of us to know where our food comes from. Shutting them up also
allows the meat industry to get away with treating animals terribly, and
with jeopardizing public health by breeding antibiotic resistant
bacteria. But there's more.
Tyrants of all stripes thrive in the darkness. As Thomas Jefferson once said,
"A properly functioning democracy depends on an informed electorate."
If
journalists and whistleblowers aren't allowed to speak the truth, we're
going to have an awfully hard time retaining any semblance of a
functioning democracy.
This story first appeared on the Huffington Post.
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