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Federal judge strikes down Idaho law banning documentation of animal abuse

 
 
 
It is abhorrent that they could pass a law making against the law to document abuse.
 
No surprise, the corporations are more concerned with the threat to their business from public outrage than the cruelty their employees are perpetrating.

Similar laws have been passed in many other states against "terrorists" interfering with business with revelations about how it's conducted.
 
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Probably getting rid of stuff they remember when they were kids. Like this. 68 years ago my brother and I hid atop a bluff overlooking a slaughter house watching the goings on. Animals guided up ramps to the penultimate point hit with a sledge more or less between the eyes. It drops like a rock. Its hooked and hoisted, skinned, eviscerated, and and quartered in about thirty seconds, then moved down the line as workers wash up any mess just as the next animal drops through.

All this is developed with experience. Cows follow, fatal flaw. Its done quietly so cows don't begin to fidget. No smells are left. But damn it its cruel as hell. The price of meat.

Us? We enjoyed the show thought it was wonderful how it was done. Eyup. What becoming ethical and moral does,eh.
 
NobleSavage said:
seyorni said:
50% of posts here have been deleted. That must be a record. What's going on?
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I made a comment on fast's post and then noticed he deleted it. So I deleted mine.
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Although I didn't comment on Jimmy's post directly, I noticed that your thoughts and mine were very similar after I read the article (which had me a bit perplexed considering your thread title), and after figuring out I misread the title and thinking of another interpretation of Jimmy's post, I just gave up on trying to figure it all out.
 
I can see the point of the laws but they certainly go too far.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a middle ground that protects freedom of speech and yet addresses stuff taken out of context to paint a false picture.

Perhaps what is needed is a law saying that you can't use undercover audio/video without releasing the whole thing--you can use what you want in your documentary but you must at that time (on screen if video, immediately before/after if audio only) provide a URL to the original.
 
I edited mine just to fuck with everyone.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
I can see the point of the laws but they certainly go too far.
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There are already laws against trespassing.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a middle ground that protects freedom of speech and yet addresses stuff taken out of context to paint a false picture.
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Out of context? You must be referring to ACORN and Planned Parenthood.

Perhaps what is needed is a law saying that you can't use undercover audio/video without releasing the whole thing--you can use what you want in your documentary but you must at that time (on screen if video, immediately before/after if audio only) provide a URL to the original.
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Yeah, brilliant idea. Just make a law that requires footnotes.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
I can see the point of the laws but they certainly go too far.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a middle ground that protects freedom of speech and yet addresses stuff taken out of context to paint a false picture.

Perhaps what is needed is a law saying that you can't use undercover audio/video without releasing the whole thing--you can use what you want in your documentary but you must at that time (on screen if video, immediately before/after if audio only) provide a URL to the original.
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In what context would brutalizing an animal be OK, and how would hours of boring routine obviate an incident of cruelty caught on video?
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
There are already laws against trespassing.
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They do not cover a person secretly filming while on private property, and do not lead to recordings made while trespassing being forcibly removed from the internet.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a middle ground that protects freedom of speech and yet addresses stuff taken out of context to paint a false picture.
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Out of context? You must be referring to ACORN and Planned Parenthood.
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Are you really pretending that political activists do not edit their "evidence" to paint the worst (and often inaccurate) picture possible of their enemies?

Perhaps what is needed is a law saying that you can't use undercover audio/video without releasing the whole thing--you can use what you want in your documentary but you must at that time (on screen if video, immediately before/after if audio only) provide a URL to the original.
Click to expand...
Yeah, brilliant idea. Just make a law that requires footnotes.
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While perhaps impractical, it isn't a bad idea in principle. Removal of context is the most common way to misrepresent the facts and engage in slander. But it is almost impossible to prove that form of slander under current law. This would remove the need for subjective judgment about the effect of the context on the message by forcing the context to be readily available when requested by the property owner or person being recorded (regardless of whether their face is blurred). Current tech makes this extremely easy to do (in fact it is cheaper than editing out the context). That said, there is no basis to single out eco-activists. The law would have to apply to any and all video and audio recordings collected on private property without consent of the property owners. In fact, the more I think about it, it isn't that impractical because it only applies to those private property situations, and only to situations where the owner voices objection to the video shown. Wet already have legal "release" forms. This would just part of that. Without an owner signing a "release" for the person to show any version of the recording they choose, the person would have to at least link the whole recording within the edited one.
Such a requirement does nothing to curb free speech or the exposing of actually evil immoral practices, but it does protect against attempts to create objectively false impressions. What is the downside?
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Perhaps what is needed is a law saying that you can't use undercover audio/video without releasing the whole thing--you can use what you want in your documentary but you must at that time (on screen if video, immediately before/after if audio only) provide a URL to the original.
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So, what, if they show slaughterhouse employees kicking a cow in the head before stunning it, they have to make the footage available to show how the employees were justified in kicking the cow in the head?

Is that how the laws are written? You can't kick an animal in the head UNLESS you can prove you had a good reason to do so? And for that, you have a right to force someone else's film to include more film in the hopes they filmed your alibi?

Wouldn't the burden be better placed on the WORKERS to have to produce the material to justify their kick to the head? There's no telling when the undercover operator is going to turn the camera on.

And right now, if they feel that someone illicitly caught their excuse on camera, and has tapes to prove that the abuse was out of context, can't they just subpoena the records of the whole day's filming for their defense?
 
seyorni said:
Loren Pechtel said:
I can see the point of the laws but they certainly go too far.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a middle ground that protects freedom of speech and yet addresses stuff taken out of context to paint a false picture.

Perhaps what is needed is a law saying that you can't use undercover audio/video without releasing the whole thing--you can use what you want in your documentary but you must at that time (on screen if video, immediately before/after if audio only) provide a URL to the original.
Click to expand...
In what context would brutalizing an animal be OK, and how would hours of boring routine obviate an incident of cruelty caught on video?
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You sort answered your own question. The reason it would mean hours of boring routine is that the standard practices are not remotely as cruel as the cherry picked 30 seconds by 1 person on 1 farm out of 1000 hours across 100 farms.
That context avoids the often intended misrepresentation that these are standard practices and inherent to animal consumption (which is the message the activists often want to impart). There is also immediate context of anything that is shown. Things are going to go wrong occasionally that lead to more suffering than the standard practice entails. These activists likely select those moments and present them as the standard practice.

IOW, context reveals when claimed "cruelty" is actually just accidental misfortune, and when actual cruelty is a rare isolate incident that is usually avoided and not standard practice. If the cruelty is real and rampant than showing these extra hours won't be "boring", they will show the rampant cruelty, and such a regulation will do nothing to curb free speech or exposure of immoral or illegal acts. Thus, there is no reasonable objection, beyond potential practical implementation.

Perhaps one practical solution is that any recording made on private property cannot be shown without a "release" that does not allow the property owner to veto it but does require that they are given (before the people leave) a complete digital copy of everything recorded and that any public showing of any edited version must link to any alternate edited version of the owners choosing (which could be the whole unedited thing or their own edited version).
 
Loren Pechtel said:
I'm having a hard time thinking of a middle ground that protects freedom of speech and yet addresses stuff taken out of context to paint a false picture.
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We have a way of dealing with stuff presented out of context. It's called free speech.
 
NobleSavage said:
What is the argument of the other side?
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we're going to kill it and eat it, so what rational justification is there for giving any fucks whatsoever about how they're treated before being killed and eaten?

personally i could not be bribed into caring less what is done to an animal before it's slaughtered - every time some piece pops up about pigs that can't turn around or beakless chickens or whatever and everyone is clutching their pearls and going "think of the animals!" it just befuddles me.
i don't get treating food animals "humanely" any more than i'd get treating vegetables humanely.

the one caveat to this being if there was a discernible link between fear/pain and tastiness - then i'd be all about doing whatever the thing was that made it taste better, but that's really just a consumer choice.
 
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