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The Intercept reporter Lee Fang obtained emails through an Idaho public records request exposing dairy lobbyist involvement in crafting "Ag-gag" legislation. "Ag-gag" describes a class of agricultural industry anti-whistleblower legislation that now exists in several states, usually prohibiting photography and audio/visual recording:
State Sen. Jim Patrick, R-Twin Falls, said he sponsored the bill in response to an activist-filmed undercover video that showed cows at an Idaho plant being beaten by workers, dragged by the neck with chains, and forced to live in pens covered in fæces, which activists said made the cows slip, fall and injure themselves. The facility, Bettencourt Dairies, is a major supplier for Burger King and Kraft. The workers who were filmed were fired.
Introducing the bill, Patrick compared the activists behind the Bettencourt video to marauding invaders who burned crops to starve their enemies. "This is clear back in the sixth century B.C.," Patrick said, according to Al Jazeera America. "This is the way you combat your enemies." Patrick's bill was introduced on February 10, 2014, sailed through committee within days, and was signed by Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter on February 28. The legislation calls for a year in jail and fines up to $5,000 for covertly recording abuses on farms or for those who lie on employment applications about ties to animal rights groups or news organizations.
But the groundwork was laid by Dan Steenson, a registered lobbyist (pdf) for the Idaho Dairymen's Association, a trade group for the industry. Steenson testified in support of the ag-gag bill, clearly disclosing his relationship with the trade group. Emails, however, show that he also helped draft the bill. On January 30, before Sen. Patrick's bill was formally introduced, Steenson emailed Bob Naerebout, another Dairymen lobbyist, and Brian Kane, the Assistant Chief Deputy of the state attorney general's office, with a copy of the legislation. "The attached draft incorporates the suggestions you gave us this morning," Steenson wrote, thanking Kane for his help in reviewing the bill. Kane responded with "one minor addition" to the legislation, which he described to Steenson as "your draft." The draft text of the legislation emailed by Steenson closely mirrors the bill (pdf) signed into law.
Original Submission
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @06:17PM
> Clearly it's on a large agenda against food safety.
If that's what you think then you don't understand corruption and will fail at fighting it.
Food safety or the lack thereof isn't even on the minds of the people pushing these bills.
There is only one thing they care about - profits. Any impact on food safety is negligence, not maliciousness.
"Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories."
-- Sun Tzu
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Cowherd on Saturday May 30 2015, @06:48PM
It's worse than that. They've hijacked the term "food safety" to malign people who expose the goings-on.
"We are a farm that makes food - terrorists from > want to damage our food security by taking footage and showing it out of context".
I wish I were exaggerating, but this is exactly what happened - not just in Idaho but in a handful of other states as well.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @07:01PM
> It's worse than that. They've hijacked the term "food safety" to malign people who expose the goings-on.
This is utterly normal. I mean it isn't nice or anything but it is the way these things go.
The powerful hijack the language of the protesters in order to give themselves (false) legitimacy.
For example, back in the 70s it was trendy among anti-racists to say things like "I don't see color." Now that's been hijacked by the racists. It was Stephen Colbert's go-to line to skewer them, he'd say "I don't see race, I only know that I'm white because people tell me so."
In some ways it is an acknowledgement that the protests are starting work because nobody would bother trying to co-opt language that didn't have some power behind it.