Abusing animals="trade secrets"
The North Carolina Senate passed
House Bill 405 last week. The benignly titled
"Civil Remedies for Interference With Property" was initially vetoed by crazy
constitutional-zealot Republican Governor Pat McCrory. His veto was just overridden by North Carolina's
House and Senate:
Dubbed an "ag-gag" measure by its critics, the bill gives businesses the right to sue employees who expose trade secrets or take pictures of their workplaces. Animal rights groups say the measure is aimed at curbing the kind of undercover investigations that have exposed abusive practices in factory farms and slaughterhouses.
"Whistleblowers are protected in this bill," Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, said on the floor of the Senate during a brief debate Wednesday afternoon.
McCrory agreed with the bill's twisted philosophy of trying to curb animal rights activists looking to get hired with the sole purpose of exposing cruelty and illegal practices—but even McCrory had a hard time fully espousing how wildly insane this bill is.
"While I support the purpose of this bill, I believe it does not adequately protect or give clear guidance to honest employees who uncover criminal activity," McCrory wrote in his veto message.
North Carolina Republicans argued that the bill could be tinkered with to make sure that whistleblowers were protected but did not seem to feel that they should actually fix that now. Regarding the law that they were about to pass:
"We need to vote for this because it has gotten out of control what some so-called employees have done to businesses," said Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret.
North Carolina joins seven other states with similar whistleblower laws on the books, according to the
ASPCA. The idea is that someone flying a
drone over a pig farm to show you how insane the lack of oversight is might bother people and
get honest-working folk and business owners in trouble. As the
New York Times pointed out two years ago when these ag-gag bills began appearing:
Each video — all shot in the last two years by undercover animal rights activists — drew a swift response: Federal prosecutors in Tennessee charged the horse trainer and other workers, who have pleaded guilty, with violating the Horse Protection Act. Local authorities in Wyoming charged nine farm employees with cruelty to animals. And the egg supplier, which operates in Iowa and other states, lost one of its biggest customers, McDonald’s, which said the video played a part in its decision.
Who helped to inspire these new laws? The American Legislative Exchange Council
(ALEC) comes to mind. Here's a choice section, pulled from an example of an ALEC draft, titled
"The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act (AETA)":
Section 5. {Terrorist Registry} There is hereby created the registry of animal and
ecological terrorists. A person who is convicted of or pleads guilty to an act that violates
any section of the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act shall be registered with the
Attorney General on a form prescribed by the Attorney General. The registry shall contain
the name, a current residence address, a recent photograph and signature of the
offender. The offender is required to provide written notice to the Attorney General
regarding any change in name or residence address within thirty (30) days of making the
change. The Attorney General shall create a website containing the information set forth
in this paragraph for each person who is convicted or pleads guilty to a violation of this
Act. Information regarding an offender shall remain on the website for no less than three
(3) years at which time the registrant may apply to the Attorney General for removal after
a hearing on the application for removal.
Yup. Terrorist registry. With Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden dead, we need to set our sights on this homegrown terrorism we all hear about on Fox News.