[Vision2020] Bad News: Idaho appeals 'ag-gag' ruling to 9th Circuit

[Saundra Lund]

More fiscal irresponsibility from Idaho's GOP & TPers . . . I could be
mistaken, but hasn't Idaho been on the losing end of every Constitutional
challenge its brought in the last two or three decades???  It's a special
kind of stupid to keep wasting taxpayer money this way.

 

 

Saundra Lund

Moscow, ID

 

We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals. 
~ Immanuel Kant

 

 

Idaho appeals 'ag-gag' ruling to 9th Circuit
<http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/boise/2015/dec/11/idaho-appeals-ag-gag-rulin
g-9th-circuit/> 

Betsy Z. Russell

 

FRIDAY, DEC. 11, 2015, 2:33 P.M.

 

The state of Idaho has filed an appeal to the 9th Circuit of the U.S.
District Court decision overturning the state's "ag-gag law," the law passed
by the state Legislature making it a crime to surreptitiously videotape
agricultural operations. Idaho lawmakers approved the law in 2014 after the
state's $2.5 billion dairy industry complained that videos of cows being
abused at a southern Idaho dairy filmed in 2012 unfairly hurt their
business. The Los Angeles-based animal rights group Mercy For Animals
released the videos, which showed workers at Bettencourt Dairy beating,
stomping and otherwise abusing cows in 2012.

The court invalidated the law in August, holding that it violated First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It was the first federal court ruling on
an "ag-gag" law; eight states have passed them. Last week, the groups that
filed the lawsuit, led by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, filed a motion with
the court asking that the state pay more than $250,000 to cover their
attorney fees and costs.

Todd Dvorak, spokesman for Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, said the
office had no comment today on the notice of appeal, which was filed late
yesterday.

Ag groups including the Idaho Farm Bureau and Idaho Dairymen's Association
had been urging the state to appeal the ruling, according to the
<http://www.capitalpress.com/Idaho> Capital Press, an ag newspaper.

In the August ruling, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill found that the
law's "primary purpose is to protect agricultural facility owners by, in
effect, suppressing speech critical of animal-agriculture practices." He
ruled that evidence indicated the law was "intended to silence animal
welfare activists, or other whistleblowers who seek to publish speech
critical of the agricultural production industry."

 

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