老澳门开奖结果

Today the 老澳门开奖结果 of Idaho will be participating in a court argument that is crucial for the future of corporate whistleblowers鈥� rights and their ability to photograph wrongdoing. The argument, before the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle, is to consider the constitutionality of a so-called 鈥淎g-Gag鈥� law enacted in 2014 by the state of Idaho.

The other day I spoke with 老澳门开奖结果 of Idaho Legal Director Richard Eppink, and he explained what鈥檚 at stake:

A number of states have passed these 鈥淎g Gag laws.鈥� Idaho鈥檚 version makes it a crime to use a misrepresentation to gain access to, or employment at, an 鈥渁gricultural production facility鈥濃�攑laces like factory farms and slaugterhouses, but also encompassing a bunch of other places by the way they define this. It鈥檚 aimed primarily at journalists and undercover investigators.

Idaho鈥檚 Ag Gag statute also makes it a crime to take video or audio recordings in these places without the owner鈥檚 permission. So, workers who want to document unsafe working conditions, investigators who want to document animal cruelty, people who are just visiting a farm and want to document what they see鈥攁nything like that would be punishable in Idaho by up to a year in jail. And you鈥檇 have to pay twice the "damages" that were caused to the agricultural production facility as a result of your recording. This is specifically targeted at organizations like Mercy for Animals and the Animal Legal Defense Fund, which have exposed animal cruelty and put it on the Internet.

Eppink told me that the 老澳门开奖结果 of Idaho lobbied against this law when it was in the legislature in 2014. They were joined by a wide spectrum of allies, including animal rights and welfare organizations, labor unions, and reporters鈥� groups. Also opposing the law were immigrant rights groups; in Idaho, as in most places, a lot of the agricultural work is done by immigrants, many of them undocumented, who are exposed to some of the most dangerous working conditions. This law would prevent them from being able document those conditions.

Nevertheless, the Idaho legislature passed, and the governor signed, the law. Aftewards, Eppink told me,

the Animal Legal Defense Fund contacted us to see if we鈥檇 be interested in joining them in a , which we decided to do. It鈥檚 a facial challenge to the law both on First Amendment speech grounds and equal protection grounds, and has a diverse group of plaintiffs from the same groups that lobbied against the bill.

We won the first round when the federal district court on both . The state appealed to the 9th Circuit, and now we鈥檙e defending that victory on appeal. Justin Marceau, a Denver law professor who works with the Animal Legal Defense Fund, will be arguing in Seattle on Friday and I will be there with him.

I asked Eppink: what about the argument that. while Americans have a First Amendment right to take photographs of things in plain view in public spaces, it鈥檚 also true that (as we describe in our Know Your Rights guide for photographers) private property owners have the right to set rules about the taking of photos and videos on their property? His response:

Certainly all of us have a right to control what happens on our private property. But remember that we鈥檙e not talking about the privacy of the home here鈥攚e鈥檙e talking about a heavily regulated industry that affects all of us: food production. And most of us don鈥檛 have the state government coming in and jailing people and making them pay twice the business loss caused by bad publicity from release of a video of behaviors the public finds abhorrent. In the past we鈥檝e always left damage settlements to private disputes between individuals. Certainly I can call the police if somebody is trespassing, but it鈥檚 another thing entirely to add criminal penalties when property owners say 鈥淣ot only were they trespassing, officer, but they took a video that I don鈥檛 like!鈥�

Overall this argument is significant for us all because it has implications that go far beyond agriculture. As Eppink put it:

This law strikes at the core assumption that I think many of us had up to this point, which is that undercover journalists鈥攑eople like Upton Sinclair who wrote The Jungle鈥攈ave been serving an important role in exposing to the public what鈥檚 happening in their food production systems and other industries that we enjoy the benefits of.

And all of us working against this law understand that agriculture is being used as the test case for this type of law, and that if it succeeds in withstanding constitutional challenge, and the courts say 鈥測es you can criminally punish anyone for taking video,鈥� then we鈥檒l almost certainly see this law spread to other industries like mining and even banking.

In other words, the risk is that we鈥檒l set up a society where businesses and corporations can have cameras on us everywhere we go, but we can鈥檛 document what鈥檚 happening in these places. It will be the property owners who by and large have the power of the camera to present their side of the story using video without the rest of us being able to present ours.

The 9th Circuit is expected to hand down its ruling later this year.