Don't Ask, Don't Tell

In the past year, a number of state legislatures have proposed—and some passed—legislation that would ban covert filming on farms. These measures are intended to protect farmers from undercover exposes of unethical treatment of animals. However, banning these videos has the potential to cover up cases of unethical treatment of animals and let the problem go unnoticed.

The New York Times’s coverage of the legislation suggests that these bills, referred to by critics as “ag-gag bills,” are being written in response to recent videos which have recorded serious violations of animal protection laws. For example, in one recent video, farm workers are shown “soring”—treating the feet of Tennessee walking horses with harsh chemicals, such as gasoline, and then tying metal chains around their hooves to irritate the skin in an effort to exaggerate their desirable high gate. This is a blatant violation of the Horse Protection Act, and the horse trainer and workers were charged. Several other recent videos showing animal abuse and cruel living conditions have brought about legal charges, and in one case resulted in the loss of a major backer, McDonald’s,  for the farm in question. These cases show undercover exposés at their best—as a means of reporting legal violations, bringing them to the attention of the public and fulfilling the duty that regulation theoretically should. It seems hard to imagine how the proposed legislation could do anything other than silence attempts to report criminal practices to the authorities.

Some in favor of this legislation say that, though animal rights violations do exist, online videos often do more harm than good. Often videos cast farmers in an unfair light, and then the damage to the farmers’ reputations and businesses is permanent, as it’s almost impossible to revoke bad press. However, the concept of “unfair” treatment seems alarmingly vague. If videos make false claims, then current legislation regarding libel is already in place to ensure that business’ reputations are protected. If, however, the claims are not false, then the concept of “unfair” depiction seems a rather slippery slope, and its use as a justification for this legislation is slightly alarming: Shouldn’t the public have a right to comment on a business’ practices in a negative light if they are illegal, or even just potentially immoral? And by extension, if a company loses business due to animal abuse, then that should hardly be forbidden—businesses whose ideas or practices are opposed by buyers are designed to fail in a free-market system.

So as not to eliminate undercover videos altogether, some states have found a middle ground: to institute a time limit of between 24 and 48 hours in which individuals may submit recordings of violations to the authorities. At first glance, this seems reasonable. It allows undercover recordings to serve their regulatory function while removing the possibility of a smear campaign. However, when building a case against farms with cruel practices, it is almost impossible to construct a solid case worthy of being presented to the authorities without coverage of practices over a period of time. According to the Times, in the case of the horse trainer who was “soring” his horses, prosecutors “credited the Humane Society,” the organization that obtained the video, “with prompting the federal investigation and establishing ‘evidence instrumental to the case.’” The time limit included in some bills may prevent animal rights groups from collecting a compelling amount of evidence, instead forcing all evidence submitted to be more easily dismissed as a “one-time thing.”

In response to the claim that animal rights abuses will no longer be reported, some are more optimistic about regulation from other sources. Senator Joe Seng, who supported the Iowa bill (the first of this kind to be passed), said that the bill “strikes a balance” because it does not keep “someone who legitimately works [at the facility] from reporting animal abuse.” However, the bill expects that people will report those on whom they rely for a job, a likelihood which is dim at best. And in some states, this isn’t even an option. Greg Steuerwald, chairman of Indiana’s Judiciary committee, was quoted in the Times: “An employee who took a video on a livestock farm with his phone and gave it to someone else would ‘probably’ run afoul of the proposed law.”  Regulation of ethical treatment of animals in farming is not nearly as consistent or stringent as it should be, and this legislation is removing the unofficial system of regulation.

Though it goes without saying that every video has a different effect depending on its creators and the nature of the content, it is clear from several of the high-profile cases that exposé videos do a societal good. But online videos, however useful, are not the answer to the problem. The fact that we need them at all highlights the enormous gap between how much regulation is necessary and how much is actually being implemented. With proper regulation, the entire practice could be made less morally ambiguous, as it would not rely on sham work applications from prospective whistleblowers, and more evenly distributed and consistent in terms of access. If you don’t want people recording on farms, then the optimal solution isn’t to ban recording. It’s to make sure people don’t have to.

Lauren E. Goff ’16, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Matthews Hall.