Tennessee Lawmakers Explain HB 1191/SB 1248, The Animal Abuse Reporting Bill

Watch this video from Tennessee Farm Bureau to understand what Tennessee lawmakers were thinking when they passed the Animal Cruelty and Abuse bill that requires someone to report abuse within 48 hours and turn over unedited film footage to authorities.

Animal Cruelty and Abuse HB1191/SB1248

 

This bill passed the 108th Tennessee General Assembly and requires a person who records cruelty to animals as committed against livestock to report such violation and submit any unedited photographs or video to law enforcement

Contact Gov. Haslam and ask him to SIGN the Animal Abuse Reporting bill TODAY: (615) 741-2001; e-mail bill.haslam@tn.gov 

The Need To Report Abuse

Please contact Gov. Haslam and ask him to SIGN TN HB 1191/SB 1248, the Animal Abuse Reporting bill: (615) 741-2001; e-mail bill.haslam@tn.gov

I was checking last night to see if Governor Haslam had made a decision about TN HB 1191/SB 1248, the Animal Cruelty and Abuse bill that requires photo and video evidence of cruelty to be turned over to law enforcement within 48 hours. I couldn't get the Tennessean site to open so I tried their Twitter feed and the first story I saw was the following:

3 Robertson County school employees indicted
Apr. 23, 2013 9:40 PM | 0 Comments

Written by
Eric Miller
Robertson County Times

Three Robertson County Schools employees have been indicted by the Robertson County Grand Jury for “alleged failures regarding reporting practices to law enforcement officials and the Department of Children’s Services,” according to a release issued by Robertson County Schools on Tuesday night...

Yes, that's a little vague. I had to look the case up elsewhere. They're being charged with failure to report known or suspected child sexual abuse. So, school employees -- not just family members or other people who have a close connection with children -- can be charged with failure to report abuse in Tennessee, even suspected abuse, and everyone is okay with that. But, if we want to require someone working undercover on a farm to report animal abuse and turn over their film evidence within 48 hours, we're infringing on their First Amendment rights?

You know, nobody is stopping anyone from reporting or investigating farms. No one is preventing anyone from telling the media exactly what they find in their undercover investigations. TN HB 1191/SB 1248 just makes it a crime not to report animal abuse within 48 hours when someone finds it. That's very much like the law to report child abuse to authorities.

There's no cover-up of abuse or anything that happens on a farm. In fact, turning over photos or video to law enforcement gets the authorities involved much sooner. The film evidence can be used in court -- and the media can cover the case.

This law has been called an "anti-whistleblower" law but that's not true either. Whistleblowers are free to report anything they see and they're protected. They just have a duty to report abuse within 48 hours and this applies to someone working undercover, too.

As much as animal rights activists claim that animal abuse is being ignored by authorities, it's important to remember that they have their own agenda. They are not law enforcement and they are not unbiased when they go undercover on farms. If they actually find animal abuse on a farm, then the decision about how to proceed shouldn't be left up to them. Evidence needs to be turned over to lawful authorities so a legal investigation can take place.

What really matters is that we stop animal cruelty as quickly as possible whenever it is found -- not that someone takes weeks or months to look for a "pattern of abuse" while innocent animals suffer. TN HB 1191/SB 1248 requires people to turn their evidence over within 48 hours so law enforcement can act. There is no need to let an animal continue to be abused so an animal rights group looks for more sensational film footage so they can raise more money. Stop the abuse as quickly as possible. If you care about animals that's what you should want and that's what this bill does.

We require people to report abuse when it involves children in Tennessee. Now let's require them to report cruelty and abuse of farm animals quickly.

Teddy Roosevelt Would Not Approve of These Muckrakers

Jack McElroy, at Knoxnews.com, writes an interesting and well-intentioned editorial about the Animal Cruelty and Abuse bill, or the Ag-Gag bill as it's sometimes called -- TN HB 1191/SB 1248. The bill that's currently sitting on Governor Bill Haslam's desk awaiting his signature.

In McElroy's article, "Bill sneers at the First Amendment," he compares the animal rights brigade of today to the muckrakers of the past who went undercover in unsavory businesses and brought to light some of the ills of society in order to end evil practices. McElroy describes how these muckrakers were praised by Teddy Roosevelt. Then he goes on to cast aspersions on the Tennessee General Assembly for passing HB 1191/1248.

According to McElroy the bill "sneers at the First Amendment" -- which guarantees our freedom of speech, and flies in the face of the Tennessee Shield Law -- the law that protects reporters from having to turn over to authorities their sources or unpublished material except in extraordinary circumstances. He believes this law should apply to your run of the mill animal rights person who lies to get a job on a farm because anyone can call himself a journalist these days.

I think there are some problems with Mr. McElroy's analogy. Whether or not the people who lie to get jobs on farms have good intentions and want to see animal cruelty ended is up for debate, as far as I'm concerned. Animal rights activists are often uninformed about farm life. They don't always understand what they're seeing on a farm and when they film something they can present it in a way that makes it look cruel even when it's an accepted, even traditional farming practice -- like disbudding the horns from calves or notching the ears on young pigs. You can film lots of animals squealing and crying to make people think the animals are being mistreated but what's being done is for their own good. (Kind of like the way kids at a doctor's office cry.) But show that film to people who live in Nashville or Knoxville -- people who have not been on a farm in a couple of generations -- and they're going to think that farmers are cruel.

The Humane Society of the United States knows this. They don't care. They count on it, as do Mercy for Animals and other groups which have specialized in putting people on farms and filming undercover. Do you really want to know why it takes these groups so long to turn over their video to authorities? It's because the footage has to be carefully edited and doctored to make things look as bad as possible.

Do you really think they film for six weeks or longer because they want to stop animal cruelty? No. They do it because they need plenty of film so they can splice things together. They might have to film for weeks before they even find something that looks questionable. (Put a camera in your home for six weeks and I bet someone could make a film that would make you look bad, too.) Their purpose isn't about stopping animal cruelty. These groups are opposed to animal agriculture in all forms and want to put farms out of business, while raising as much money for their own organizations as possible.

HB 1191/1248 does not prevent these groups from filming. What it does is require them to turn over their photos or film every 48 hours to law enforcement. This reduces the amount of time they would have to edit and play with the evidence for their own purposes. I don't think these AR infiltrators fall under the Tennessee Shield Law because they aren't necessarily journalists. Not everyone who posts something on the Internet is a journalist, despite what Mr. McElroy seems to think.

This law would reduce the likelihood that the film you see from a farm in Tennessee is faked. Is that interfering with the First Amendment? Well, it does cut down on their First Amendment right to lie, I suppose. I guess lying is protected speech under certain circumstances. But there are already some limits on free speech. You can't yell, "Fire" in a crowded theatre, for instance, and cause a panic for no reason. I think in this case the public good has to be weighed. It's not in the public good for animal rights zealots to edit together video taken over weeks or months to lie about our food supply or how animals are treated. Sure, go ahead and film. Show the truth and turn over the photos and video every 48 hours. But stop the fake editing. This gets law enforcement involved at an early stage and we can stop animal abuse as quickly as possible. If there's a food safety issue, we can address it.

I think it's a stretch to say that the Animal Cruelty and Abuse bill infringes on the First Amendment. This law is really about the timely reporting of any animal abuse and that should be something we all want. But even if it does touch upon the First Amendment, in this case I think the public good requires that this bill become law for the simple fact that HSUS and other animal rights groups have been playing fast and loose with the video they've been taking on farms. Farms and farmers need some protection from over-zealous animal rights agents who lie to get jobs on the farm and then put together film in such a way to make farm practices look bad. HSUS has been exploiting this situation to raise lots of money and that's not good for any of us who love animals. Why else do you think HSUS is fighting so hard to get the governor to veto the bill? It will affect their cash flow. If more states start passing these laws, it means HSUS won't be able to attack farmers so freely.

Similar laws have already been passed in six states: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and Utah. In some of these states the laws go much farther than with the Tennessee bill, prohibiting someone from lying about their reason for getting a farm job, for instance.

Animal rights activists are not the kind of muckrakers that Teddy Roosevelt would have approved. It's a nice idea, but if you're going to rake muck, you're supposed to tell the truth and that's something animal rights activists don't do with faked videos.

Please contact Governor Haslam today and ask him to SIGN the Animal Cruelty and Abuse bill (HB 1191/1248). E-mail him at
bill.haslam@tn.gov ; and call him at (615) 741-2001. Be sure you ask him to SIGN the bill!

Governor Haslam Needs To Hear From YOU!

Please call and e-mail Governor Haslam TODAY to ask him to SIGN TN HB 1191/SB 1248, the Animal Cruelty and Abuse bill that would require people to turn over film evidence of abuse within 48 hours.

HSUS, ASPCA, PETA, Mercy for Animals and other groups are all calling and asking the governor to veto this bill. Please contact the governor and ask him to SIGN it!

TAKE ACTION!

Use the NAIA capwiz. Just type in your name and address to send. It only takes a minute.

Call Governor Haslam and respectfully ask him to sign this bill. Here is the phone number for his Chief of Staff, Mark Cate:   1-615-585-0873 

Urge Governor Haslam to sign this bill into law today!


Legislative notebook: Singer urges Haslam veto on livestock abuse bill

    • By Tom Humphrey
    • Posted April 18, 2013 at 7:44 p.m.

Humphrey on the Hill

Tom Humphrey's blog on politics and legislative news in Tennessee

NASHVILLE — Country music singer Carrie Underwood is “begging” Gov. Bill Haslam to veto a bill requiring pictures or video of livestock abuse to be turned over the law enforcement authorities.

The bill (SB1248) was given final legislative approval by the House on a 50-43 vote Wednesday night, two days after it passed the Senate 22-9. That sends it to Haslam’s desk, though the formal transmittal process typically takes a day or two.

On Thursday, Underwood tweeted Haslam, with fans copied in:

“Please don’t sign the Ag Gag bill. Think about the welfare of the animals as well as the consumers. I’m begging you.”

Another Underwood tweet to fans: “Shame on TN lawmakers for passing the Ag Gag bill. If Gov. Bill Haslam signs this, he needs to expect me at his front door. Who’s with me?”

David Smith, spokesman for Haslam, said the governor did not respond to Underwood’s tweet. His office has received “a couple hundred emails and calls throughout the day” on the bill, Smith said.


(more)

HSUS "Undercover" Investigations -- Not So Good for Animals or People

HSUS has been doing a lot of raving about how HB 1191/SB 1248 would keep them from conducting undercover investigations in Tennessee. (It wouldn't.) You might think that HSUS has been conducting some incredible journalism and we should all be grateful to them, right? Well, not if you're a downer cow.

In a 2008 case in California, the HSUS inserted someone into a slaughterhouse for an investigation of "downer cows" -- cows that are "non-ambulatory" -- unable to walk. These cows have a higher risk of having mad cow disease so if they are being used for food there is a slight risk to public safety.

According to the New York Times:

Consider again the time frame: the Humane Society investigator began shooting film in early October. If what he saw was really a danger to the food supply, didn’t he and Mr. Pacelle have a responsibility to bring it to the federal government immediately? Instead, the undercover investigator stayed on site for another six weeks. Even then, the federal government didn’t learn of the video until it was leaked to The Post at the end of January — nearly two months later.
Mr. Pacelle claims that the San Bernadino district attorney’s office — to which he gave the tapes in late November, so that it could prosecute the abuse — asked him not to show the video to the U.S.D.A. until it had completed its investigation. But I read several news articles quoting San Bernadino officials contradicting that account...And even if that were true, why did he release the video to The Washington Post — well in advance of the completion of the district attorney’s investigation? Well, you know the answer to that one: he just couldn’t stand the thought of one more day passing without making a big splash.

Well, you do the math. Mr. Pacelle and HSUS do these undercover investigations -- and go on filming for weeks -- not because they care about animals but because they want to get as much media attention as possible. Because media attention translates into dollars for them. What does the suffering of a few cows matter when compared to filling the bank accounts of the Humane Society of the United States? So what if there's a remote possibility that someone in the U.S. could develop mad cow disease? That would just mean more money for HSUS because they would have more ways to attack the cattle industry.

Does anyone really believe it took six weeks of filming for someone to get enough video evidence in this case, and that animals had to continue to suffer all this time? Well, sometimes you have to film a lot of footage when you plan to edit it a certain way. The plant was closed down once the federal authorities finally got involved, but that was only after Pacelle and HSUS had been milking the case for media attention.

In this case the USDA forced the company to recall 143 million pounds of meat -- the largest beef recall in U.S. history. But because it took so long for HSUS to turn over their video and inform the government about the problems at the plant, most of that meat had already been eaten by the time the recall was issued. So, if there had been something wrong with the meat, the recall wouldn't have done any good.

This is not how we want undercover investigations to be conducted in Tennessee but this is how HSUS conducts their investigations and why they want Gov. Haslam to veto HB 1191/SB 1248. They sit on evidence for weeks and months while abuse continues, even when it threatens public safety. The Animal Cruelty and Abuse bill would require someone to turn over photos or video of abuse of livestock in an investigation within 48 hours to law enforcement authorities.

Please contact Gov. Haslam NOW and ask him to sign this Livestock Cruelty and Abuse Bill into law!  (615) 741-2001  or email him: bill.haslam@tn.gov

Contact Governor Haslam TODAY!

This message is from NAIA, the National Animal Interest Alliance. It's great of them to get involved. This should be the Take Action link for the capwiz: 

TAKE ACTION



You just have to put in your information to send the letter to the governor. It only takes a minute. Please contact the governor. HSUS is still trying to defeat this bill by having him veto it.

Please Call Governor Haslam's Office!        
 
Please call Govenor Haslam! Ask him to sign HB1191.         

TAKE ACTION!



This Animal Cruelty and Abuse Bill protects animal owners.

HB 1191 the Animal Cruelty and Abuse bill is now on Governor Haslam's desk awaiting his signature. Please contact the Governor's office and urge him to sign this bill which provides protection to responsible farmers, ranchers and other livestock producers.

The bill amends TCA Title 39 and Title 44. The bill requires a person who records cruelty to animals as committed against livestock to report such violation and submit any unedited photographs or video recordings to law enforcement authorities within 24 hours of the photographs or video recording creation.

Please call the Governor's Office to urge him to sign this important bill.
 
Here is the phone number for his Chief of Staff, Mark Cate:  1-615-585-0873 

Please also click on the Take Action button on the upper right which links to an email address for the Governor and send him a respectful message urging him to sign this important bill.

Protect Your Animals! Join NAIA Trust today. 

TN House Approves Animal Abuse Reporting Bill; Goes To Governor

House barely approves animal abuse reporting bill

Associated Press

Originally published 08:32 p.m., April 17, 2013
Updated 09:04 p.m., April 17, 2013

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A bill seeking to require anyone recording or taking photos of livestock abuse to turn images over to law enforcement within 48 hours was approved in the House on Wednesday with the bare vote minimum needed.
The chamber voted 50-43 to approve the measure sponsored by Rep. Andy Holt, R-Dresden, after defeating several proposed amendments and an extensive debate that at times featured lawmakers making animal noises.
Bills must gain at least 50 votes in the 99-member chamber to pass. The measure now heads to Gov. Bill Haslam, who said earlier this week that he didn't know enough about the measure to say whether he would sign it into law.
Animal protection activists like the Humane Society of the United States have said the bill would have a chilling effect on whistleblowers and prevent undercover operations from establishing a pattern of abuse.
In 2011, the Humane Society secretly filmed video inside a Tennessee Walking Horse stable showing trainers applying caustic substances to the horses' legs and beating them to make them stand.
Trainer Jackie McConnell, whose stable was in Senate sponsor Dolores Gresham's West Tennessee district, pleaded guilty in federal court in September.
The Senate version passed 22-9 on Tuesday.
Rep. Vance Dennis, R-Savannah, objected to the bill during the Wednesday debate, calling it unenforceable and "Orwellian."
"If you walk down the street and see someone commit a murder and you don't report it, that's not a crime," he said, "but under your bill, if you see and record animal abuse and don't report it, that is a crime."
Among the failed amendments proposed on Wednesday was one that would have broadened it to require anyone observing animal abuse to report it and not limiting the reporting requirements to a person intentionally recording or photographing the abuse.
Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mt. Juliet, tried to amend the bill to specify that news reporters would be protected from prosecution.
"We don't punish the people who gather the information on the crime, we punish the people who commit the crime," Lynn said.