AgGag Casts Doubt On Bill Requiring Quick Turnover of Animal Abuse Photos To Police

Tennessee’s proposed “Ag Gag” law suffered a setback Thursday when the state’s attorney general labeled it “constitutionally suspect” and said it could violate freedom of the press and the right against self-incrimination.

The bill, awaiting either Gov. Bill Haslam’s signature or veto, would force anyone who purposefully took pictures or video of livestock abuse to turn those over to law enforcement within 48 hours.

That limits the media, incriminates those who captured the video through trespassing and exposes police to copyright problems should the public ask for copies, Attorney General Robert Cooper wrote.

Haslam has until Wednesday to either sign or veto the bill, his spokesman confirmed, but the governor’s office offered no further comment. If he took no action at all, it would pass into law automatically, with those who broke it facing a $50 fine.

The bill’s author, Rep. Andy Holt, R-Dresden, said he didn’t see a constitutional problem and compared its provisions to forcing medical doctors to report suspected child abuse.

A hog farmer and relentless critic of the Humane Society of the United States, Holt said the only reason someone would want to videotape animal abuse and hang onto it would be for profit.

“If people are engaged in criminal activity, it will be abundantly apparent.  “No it will not” You don’t have to have two months to provide clarity to law enforcement,” Holt said. “Ask yourself this question: Should an animal have to suffer an abusive situation for two months?” “Those animals will suffer whether being videod or not, if they are already in an abusive situation; often the management don’t know their animals are being abused. To ensure a conviction, evidence has to be collected over a period of time, so people can’t say it was a “one off” act of violence…FFS people…open your eyes. Those who want Ag-Gag laws must want them for a reason!!”

A two-month undercover investigation by the Humane Society led to state and federal animal abuse charges last year against famed Tennessee Walking Horse trainer Jackie McConnell of Collierville. The group released stomach-turning video of McConnell beating a horse and of its legs being chemically burned to encourage the breed’s prized longer, higher gait.

Holt said his bill has nothing to do with that case. Instead, it would prevent video of legitimate animal husbandry being represented as inhumane and used for fund raising, he said.

Humane Society leaders held a news conference earlier Thursday at Gaylord Opryland Convention Center, where the group is holding its Animal Care Expo. They denounced Holt’s bill and called upon the Tennessee attorney general’s office to investigate the walking horse industry.

A letter from the group to Cooper cites a 76 percent positive rate on U.S. Department of Agriculture tests for foreign substances on horses’ legs at the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration last year in Shelbyville.

“We need to know what perversion looks like and not be a part of any activity to either celebrate it, encourage it or somehow honor it,” said Dr. Michael Blackwell, president of the online Humane Society University.

Mike Inman, the Celebration’s CEO, didn’t respond to messages left Thursday but has said that walking horse trainers found McConnell’s actions deplorable. He said the industry is striving for 100 percent compliance with the federal Horse Protection Act.

Written by Heidi Hall The Tennessean

News Like:-http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130510/NEWS0201/305100086/AG-casts-doubt-bill-requiring-quick-turnover-animal-abuse-photos-police?nclick_check=1

Animal-Death Profiteering State Lawmaker Suggests Animal Rights Activists Are Like Rapists

“What a fxxxxxg dick head!”

A Tennessee lawmaker sponsoring a new bill shutting down animal cruelty investigations suggested animal rights activists were engaging in “tape and rape” tactics, and were “intent on using animals the same way human-traffickers use 17 year old women.

” The representative in question, Andy Holt (R-Dresden), owns and operates a facility that raises pigs, cows, and goats for slaughter.

Holt’s outburst came in response to an email from Humane Society Public Policy

Andy Holt – suggested animal rights activists were engaging in “tape and rape” tactics

Coordinator Kayci McCloud, in which McCloud asked Holt to reconsider his support for Tennessee’s recently passed “ag-gag” law. Ag-gag laws contain a variety of provisions (varying from law to law) designed to make it impossible for undercover investigators to document animal cruelty or unsafe farming conditions on farms like Holt’s. “Well he obviously has something to hide!”

The Tennessee law Holt sponsored and pushed through the legislature accomplishes this end by forcing groups to turn over any documentary evidence of illegal activity on farms to the authorities within 48 hours, making it functionally impossible for them to put together a comprehensive case that could lead to arrests.

Holt responded viciously to McCloud’s inquiry, accusing the Humane Society of America — the country’s leading animal welfare organization, whose investigations have repeatedly led to pro-animal prosecutions and legislation — of functionally supporting the sexual abuse of animals:

I am extremely pleased that we were able to pass HB 1191 [the ag-gag law] today to help protect livestock in Tennessee from suffering months of needless investigation that propagandist groups of radical animal activists, like your fraudulent and reprehensibly disgusting organization of maligned animal abuse profiteering corporatists, who are intent on using animals the same way human-traffickers use 17 year old women. You work for a pathetic excuse for an organization and a pathetic group of sensationalists who seek to profit from animal abuse. I am glad, as an aside, that we have limited your preferred fund-raising methods here in the state of Tennessee; a method that I refer to as “tape and rape.” Best wishes for the failure of your organization and it’s [sic] true intent.

Holt’s outburst is unusual for reasons beyond the vicious smears: while ag-gag supporters typically sell the laws as a means to help animal rights investigations, Holt admits that the law’s true purpose is to limit the ability of pro-animal groups to expose cruelty. It’s also unclear how “suffering months of needless investigation,” which mostly means being videotaped, is worse for farm animals than being crammed into crates so tight that they are forced to stand in their own feces and acquire bleeding sores from attempting to move even slightly — a common fate for pigs in American factory farms.

In addition to his work in the state legislature, Holt owns and operates Holt Family Farms with his wife. Because Holt’s operation raises animals for slaughter (though they are not killed on premises), it’s exactly the sort of farm that might be subject to the type of investigation Holt is attempting to outlaw.

Human Society President Wayne Pacelle describes Holt Family Farms as an “industrial hog” farm. Holt, who recently took a vacation to Hawaii paid for by the American Farm Bureau Federation, is taking a lead role in the effort to legalize horse meat production in Tennessee.

Tennessee, which is ahead of the national curve with respect passing ag-gag laws, is also in the midst of a controversy about the endemic abuse of horses as part of the Tennessee Walking Horse show “tradition.”

News Link:-http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/04/29/1934461/animal-death-profiteering-state-lawmaker-suggests-animal-rights-activists-are-like-rapists/?mobile=nc