KATE BARNEKOW: All right, guys.
We're going to go
ahead and get started.
Please continue to get
food if you haven't
already, or just want more.
Very quickly, there are
sign-in sheets going around.
If you're already
on our email list,
slash found out about this
event through our email list,
you don't need to sign up again.
You're just making
more work for us.
But for those of you who don't
know me, my name is Kate.
I'm the outgoing Animal
Law Society president.
I want to thank our co-sponsors
for this event, which
are HLS Effective Altruism
and Food Law Society.
And this event is sponsored and
funded by the DOS Grant fund.
And I'm going to
introduce our speaker
for today, who is Chris Green.
He is the executive director
of our Animal Law and Policy
Program.
He is the former chair of the
American Bar Association's
Animal Law Committee,
and previously was
the director of legislative
affairs for the Animal Legal
Defense Fund.
Chris has been published
in the Animal Law Review,
won first prize at the
inaugural National Animal Law
competition, regularly testifies
at legislative hearings,
and has consulted on animal
legal issues for dozens
of major media outlets.
He's a graduate of
Harvard Law School
and the University
of Illinois, where
he created the college's first
environmental science degree.
Chris also spent several decades
working in fine arts, film,
and music industries,
and currently manages
an Illinois farm that has
remained in his family for 181
consecutive years.
And so please stick
around afterwards,
we'll have a Q and A. We
have the room until 1:20.
OK, that's it.
CHRIS GREEN: Cool, thanks.
Yeah, I'd like to again
thank all the co-sponsors,
the Food Law Society, the--
this sounds really loud.
I'm going to turn
this down a bit.
Microphone.
OK, is that better?
Can you all still hear me?
OK, great.
Yeah, I'd like to thank
the Harvard Animal Law
Society, the Food Law Society,
HLS Effective Altruism
and the DOS Grant fund.
And I'd also personally
like to thank Kate
for being such an awesome
leader this past year.
[APPLAUSE]
We're very, very excited
to see her graduate,
but very happy that she
will be immediately entering
the field upon graduation.
So yeah, congratulations
and thanks to Kate.
KATE BARNEKOW: [INAUDIBLE]
CHRIS GREEN: So as you
can see in the title,
I'm here to talk about
ag-gag whistleblower laws
and how they've evolved
over the years, and the role
of investigations generally.
So I'll kind of jump right in.
So some of you may
recognize this guy.
This is Upton Sinclair, who
wrote The Jungle in 1906.
And he was kind
of considered sort
of the first whistleblower.
And interestingly, he actually
didn't-- he went in and did his
work.
He was mainly trying
to focus on trying
to portray the harsh
conditions and exploited
lives of immigrants
in the United States.
But actually, the people
who-- when his book came out,
people became much
more concerned
about the exposure of
the health violations,
the unsanitary conditions, and
the treatment of the animals
in the meatpacking industry.
And it led to a great public
outcry, which itself kind of
led to some reforms happening,
including the Federal Meat
Inspection Act.
So here, way back in
1906, you have an example
of an undercover investigation
leading to legislative change.
And interestingly, Sinclair
said that, his famous quote
was that, "I aimed at
the public's heart,
and by accident I hit
it in the stomach".
Actually, I think he did both.
He hit them in the
stomach and made
them care about their own--
the stuff that they were
putting in their own bodies,
but they also ended up
caring really deeply
about the animals that were
involved in the process.
Here's a poll from a couple
of years ago by the ASPCA,
saying that 94%
of Americans agree
that animals raised
for food on farms
deserve to be free
from abuse and cruelty.
Sadly, ironically,
most farmed animals
have absolutely no protection,
no legislative protection,
during the majority
of their lives.
Farmed animals are categorically
exempted from the Federal
Animal Welfare Act, and
in the majority of states
farmed animals are either
categorically excluded
or the state statutes
exclude what are called
usual and customary practices.
Basically, if everybody's
doing it, it's OK.
So imagine if we had a similar
rule for the petrochemical
industry.
As long they're all polluting
in the same way, it's OK.
We'll just give them a pass.
And you see Ag has had
a longstanding disdain
for transparency.
This is from a textbook
called Contemporary Issues
in Animal Agriculture
that's still actually being
used in some places.
And the quote says, "One of
the best things modern animal
agriculture has going for it,
is that most people haven't
a clue how animals are
raised and processed.
For modern animal agriculture,
the less the consumer
knows about what's happening
before the meat hits the plate,
the better".
Pretty astounding.
This is from a professor of
Ag at Oregon State University,
whose name is
[INAUDIBLE] Cheeke.
So I had a video here I
was going to show you,
but since you all are
eating-- it's not that gory,
but it's still a
little off-putting,
so maybe during the Q&A I can
go back and show it to you.
But here's a still from that.
And you see this
cow, this dairy,
she's too sick or weak to
stand and move on her own,
so they basically tied a
chain around her midsection
and are moving her
around with a forklift
so they can get
her to slaughter.
Looks like something out of some
sort of like alien abduction
video or something like that.
Just super unnatural and
very harmful to the animals.
So this was one investigation
by one investigator at one dairy
by one group, Mercy for
Animals, in a little small town
called Greenleaf, Wisconsin.
But here it shows you
the massive impact
just one of those
investigations can have.
So four of the individuals
caught on video
doing all those harmful
things to the animals
were convicted on multiple
counts of animal cruelty.
Wiese Brothers
supplied someone else,
who then their milk ultimately
got used by DiGornio Pizza.
And they said flat
out they would not
accept any more cheese made with
milk from the Wiese Brothers
dairy, which had 4,500 cows and
this was by far their biggest
client.
And Nestlé, a lot of people just
associate with chocolate milk.
Nestlé is actually the world's
largest food company with over
$100 billion in annual revenues.
As a result of this, the
animal advocates went and said,
hey, we're just going
to keep beating you
over the head with this
and showing this video
and putting your
logo all over this,
unless you agree to make some
fundamental changes, which
they did.
So as a result of this
one investigation,
Nestlé required all of its
7,300 suppliers worldwide
to eliminate cow tail docking,
dehorning, gestation crates,
and battery cages, which led
to these changes happening
in hundreds of thousands
of farms worldwide.
All the result of
one investigator
going into one dairy one time.
Pretty amazing.
Pretty amazing impact.
But the cruelty that's
happening on these factory farms
isn't just an issue
of animal welfare.
One of the most,
probably the most,
famous undercover investigations
happened at the Hallmark meat
packing slaughterhouse
in California.
There was an undercover
investigation
by the Humane Society
of the United States
that showed workers
dragging, using forklifts
on downed cows that were
too weak or sick to walk
to slaughter, like stabbing
them-- doing anything
they could to get them to stand,
just so they could kill them.
The outcry as a result of this,
led to the single largest, not
just meat, but the
single largest food
recall in all of US history,
as a result of this one
investigation involving
143 million pounds of beef,
37 million of which was slated
to go into the school lunch
program.
So while that beef was
recalled, sadly by the time
it happened, almost
all that recalled
beef had already been consumed
by schoolchildren, most of it.
So as a result of
this investigation,
in 2009 the Obama administration
permanently banned
all downer cows from
entering the food supply.
And ultimately,
there was a judgment
filed against the company for
nearly half a billion dollars,
which resulted in them
going out of business.
So again, pretty
substantial impact
from just one investigation.
You have the largest food
recall in US history,
and the company goes
out of business.
So why is the meat industry
so concerned about this?
Well, here's a report from
Kansas State University,
the title of which,
US meat demand.
The influence of animal
meat welfare media coverage.
And the breakout quote there as
you can see says, "As a whole,
media attention
to animal welfare
has significant negative
effects on US meat demand".
In the interest of
full disclosure,
my great-uncle Charlie was
the chair of both the Animal
Science and Dairy
Science departments
at Kansas State University
for several decades.
This is him, he's about a
year and a half years old,
on our farm, sitting next
to my beloved grandmother
who passed away in
2012 at the age of 97.
So I think this photo
is around 1913 or so.
So I've been managing this
farm for the last 20 years,
and saw first hand as a child
the conditions of the animals
and that's what kind of clued me
into this at a very young age.
And it's really
helpful, as I'm going in
and was doing the
legislative work.
So one of my main roles at ALDF
was going in and parachuting in
and trying to help quell
and kill these ag-gag bills
as they would pop up.
And so it really
helped to go in there
and actually have an
Ag background to be
able to say, look, it's allowing
these sort of bad actors
to continue doing this work that
gives everyone in agriculture
a bad name.
So, yeah.
I mean, this land
was cleared by my
great-great-great-grandfather
in 1834.
So I've spent a good
chunk of my life there.
So as a result, you have
all these big investigations
we've just talked about.
All these things happening.
So you think a more rational
industry might say, wow,
we're getting a
real big black eye
because a lot of our members
are blatantly breaking the law.
We should probably keep
them from breaking the law.
Wouldn't that seem like
a rational response?
Instead, the industry says,
no, what we really need to do
is keep anyone from filming
us breaking the law.
That's what we need to do.
We need to just stop being
caught breaking the law.
So that's where these
ag-gag laws came about.
And ag-gag is a term that was
coined by the food journalist
Mark Bittman, and it's basically
anti-whistleblower legislation
designed to criminalize the
documentation of cruelty
to animals.
So it's sort of the
perfect description.
So the first ag-gag laws
were passed way back
in the early '90s.
Kansas, Montana,
and North Dakota.
And there have
been some incidents
of sort of like
animal research labs,
I think one in
Madison, Wisconsin,
that were broken into and
some damage was caused.
So these are sort of
responses to that.
They were sort of like--
they had titles like the Animal
Research Facility Damage Act
and the Farm Animal
Research and Protection Act.
And it was basically
quasi-anti-trespassing laws
that were aimed at
preventing individuals
from just entering
these facilities
and doing quote
unquote "damage".
But included in
that damage, they
criminalized taking photographs
and making recordings.
So for the Kansas
law, for example,
you can see, make it a
crime to enter a facility,
take pictures or video recording
with the intent of causing harm
to the enterprise.
That's a key part.
Montana, similarly.
Make it a crime to
take photographs
by video or other means.
Again, this is interesting,
with the intent
to commit criminal defamation.
Now for some of those in the
room who might not understand
defamation law,
defense of defamation
is if what you're
saying is actually true.
So if you're going in and
physically recording things
are actually
happening, it's curious
how that might be framed as
defamation, because it actually
just happened.
And North Dakota made it a crime
to enter an animal facility
and the same sort
of thing, recording.
So where does it come from?
Well, so a little while
after these laws were passed,
there's something known as
the Federal Animal Enterprise
Protection Act and that created
the crime of animal enterprise
terrorism.
And so they had these
sentences and it
sort of basically reframed
animal advocates or activists
as terrorists.
And it was actually applied.
It was used to some folks who
released some minks from fur
farms, who were sentenced
to a couple years in prison
and $360,000 in fines.
And prosecuted several
other activists as well.
So what's interesting, is as
opposed to these early sort
of lab trasher kind
of fears of people
going and destroying
things, Will Potter
sums it up really well.
Will Potter, he's an
author and he's also now
a journalism professor at
the University of Michigan.
In his book, Green is
the New Red, he wrote,
"The biggest threat
facing Big Ag isn't
that activists are
breaking windows,
it's that they're
creating them".
And they're actually shining
a light on what is happening.
So you saw ag-gag sort
of rear its head again
from the early '90s
and early 2000s.
The ALEC, the American
Legislative Exchange Council.
How many in here are
familiar with ALEC?
OK, so they're basically like
this-- their own chairman--
they're kind of a
conservative corporate bill
mill that puts out a lot of
their own model legislation.
Their own chairman referred them
as a very, very conservative
organization.
They're the ones
responsible for things
like the Parental
Consent for Abortion
Act, the Stand Your
Ground law that
justified the shooting
of Trayvon Martin,
and a lot of other
things such as voter
ID laws and things like that.
So they went in and they kind
of updated the Animal Enterprise
Protection Act with the Animal
Enterprise Terrorism Act.
So they actually put
terrorism now right
smack dab in the title.
And it was kind of passed
through on procedures used
for non-controversial bills.
So really, really frustrating.
And signed into law by
George Bush in 2006.
So in the original model
act that I just showed you,
that ALEC had put together,
they created a felony
for entering a research
facility and recording
things with the intent,
again, to defame the facility.
However, as horrific
as many people
feel the Animal
Enterprise Terrorism Act,
ag-gag was considered too
extreme even for the Animal
Enterprise Terrorism Act.
So it was struck from the
final version that was passed.
But after a while,
a few years go
by, ALEC has this language
sitting around, like,
well, heck.
Maybe we should just
try this at the state
level, which is what they did.
So here's some of the
various elements of this,
what I call ag-gag 2.0.
The first ones
being in the '90s.
One is that it criminalizes
recording, using
video, audio, or other means,
even by long-term employees.
This provision is in
both the Utah and Idaho
laws that were passed.
And also criminalizes
obtaining a job
in an agricultural facility
using false pretenses
or with the intent to
disrupt operations.
Again, this is in Iowa,
Missouri, and Idaho,
all have this provision.
And this is one of
most insidious ones.
It requires quick reporting
of suspected abuse within 12
hours or a certain
period of time,
and turning over all
evidence of the person who
unearths this cruelty.
So that might sound--
again, why this is
so insidious, it's
often these are promoters
of pro-animal bills,
like, hey, we're just
trying to stop cruelty.
We just want someone to let us
know as soon as any cruelty is
happening.
So this group called the
Animal Agriculture Alliance,
who is a big proponent
of these ag-gag bills,
and they said that these
quick reporting provisions are
a big part of their
strategic focus
and they borrow language from
New York's terrorism concerns,
saying, if you see
something, say something.
It's just that simple.
We just want to find
out about the cruelty.
Well, it's not
really that simple.
Often you want to find-- you
demonstrate a pattern of abuse.
There's a lot of
concern and controversy
in the animal
protection movement
right now over the
fact that in a lot
of these undercover
investigations,
the only people prosecuted
are the ones actually caught
on tape, who are usually really
low-paid, low-skilled workers,
many of them immigrants,
some of them undocumented.
And they're only doing what
they're being ordered to do
by their bosses and often
would be fired if they didn't.
So in those cases,
you would want
to demonstrate there's a
pattern-- the only way you're
going to ever be able to
prosecute or go after any
of the people higher up
the chain who are actually
directing this activity,
is if you can demonstrate
a pattern of abuse.
The Hallmark case I
mentioned earlier,
that 143 million pounds of
beef, that's a classic example.
So HSUS were in there
for a week or so.
They found all this
blatant lawbreaking.
They go to the USDA and is like,
oh my god, look at our footage.
You need to go in there and
do something about this.
The USDA is like, we
don't really see it.
OK.
Investigator goes back in.
Another week or two of
research, comes back
with all this footage,
like, oh my god, we're
finding even worse stuff now.
Look at this.
The USDA is like, we
just don't really see it.
Go back a third time,
same thing happens,
so HSUS goes public with it.
Again, what do you know?
Crazy public outcry.
Biggest recall in US history.
And so when you have 143 million
pounds of beef being recalled,
that's certainly
not the activity
of a couple of
bad apples, right?
That showed that
it was directed,
and that's exactly because
they've been in there so long
and had all this footage,
they could demonstrate that
and that's what led to the
company being shut down
in this half a billion
dollar judgment.
The example I like to
use is sort of like,
say there's a DEA
agent and they're
trying to shut down a
drug distribution ring.
And so you've got this DEA agent
who spends months undercover
infiltrating this ring.
It would be like requiring
them to sort of reveal
their identity the moment they
see like a $10 hand to hand
drug buy.
If that's all you're
going to ever see,
then you're never going to
get the cartel heads or some
of the people that
actually bring
the drugs into the country.
So my framing of this is like,
if you see something, say
something so we can
identify you, fire you,
make sure you don't
see anything else.
Because often the authorities
are connected, will have--
these are small
communities often,
and if someone were to
actually go to the authorities,
it would immediately
get back to the plant
that something like
this had happened,
which is exactly an instance
that I will give you
in a second.
So of these 2.0 bills,
the current tally
is that 45 of them have been
introduced across 25 states
since 2010, in the
last nine years.
Five of those states
enacted these bills.
Iowa, Montana, Utah, Idaho,
North Carolina, but the rest
were all defeated, which
is a pretty good record.
I think, simple math, I think
that's like 27 and three
if you look at the ones over
the past couple of years.
So anyway, pretty good record.
So now, there's some
other arithmetic
I'll get to in a little bit, but
the bottom line is currently,
as we stand today, there are
seven states that currently
have ag-gag laws.
And this gives you
a kind of sense.
The ones that are sort of in red
are where the current laws are.
The color coding there
is a little rough,
but it gives you a sense
of where they're located.
And ag-gag, these bills have
certainly been on the decline.
So I started ALDF in 2013, which
was sort of around the heyday.
So these bills really
peaked in 2012,
when 10 bills were introduced
and three of them passed.
And in the next couple of
years, when I was working on,
there were 26 ag-gag bills that
were introduced, yet only three
of those passed.
And one of those has since
been struck down, which
we'll talk about in a bit.
And since then, there's
only been four ag-gag bills
in the last four years, and
only two of those have passed.
And this just kind
of goes to show
you the power of coalitions.
We would go in
there, a broad range
of different organizations
that would all
realize that this isn't just
a matter of animal welfare,
it isn't just a matter
of worker safety,
it isn't just a matter of human
health, it's all of those.
You've got everyone from
Consumers Union to the ACLU
to Animal Legal Defense Fund,
the Center for Food Safety,
Human Rights Watch, even.
A really great kind of
progressive coalition
that would just parachute
in and kill these things.
And that reflected the way
the public felt about them.
If you look, 64%
of people polled
said they oppose
the criminalization
of undercover investigations.
And when you dive
in a little deeper,
it's pretty astounding that
that sentiment, that 64%,
is completely consistent
almost across all
these different demographics,
age, gender, region,
and political affiliation.
The lowest it ever
got to was 58%.
But that's pretty astounding.
In fact, I would kind
of challenge someone
to come up with
another issue that you
could find this sort of
consistent uniformity
on across the board of political
types, region, and gender,
and age.
And part of this
is that it's clear
that ag-gag laws sort
of breed mistrust.
As one researcher pointed out,
awareness of these ag-gag laws
sort of erodes trust in
farmers and increases
support for these animal
welfare organizations.
And this guy himself was
raised on an Iowa farm,
and had formerly worked
in the dairy industry.
And then there's this ancillary
negative media attention.
In addition to just the
gory videos that come out
themselves, people just
realize, wait a minute,
anti-whistleblowing
is just sort of
generally seen as
something-- we want
to go in the direction
of more transparency
and we want to encourage
whistleblowing, not
criminalize it.
The Daily Show had a
really funny bit on this,
and he's like talking to
the woman from the Animal
Agriculture Alliance.
He's like, wait a minute,
let me get this straight.
You're trying to--
because they were saying,
oh, this is going to
be bad for animals.
It's going to be bad for animal
welfare to have these laws.
So you're trying to protect the
animals from the people trying
to protect the animals?
She didn't really have
a good answer for that.
But then you actually start to
see some internal opposition
rising up.
Here, Beef magazine
did a survey,
and 60% of their
own readers surveyed
said that it was
not a good idea.
And here you get a former USDA
undersecretary for food safety
saying that the
industry needs to stop
defending these bad apples.
And it makes it look
like, ag-gag laws make
it look like, agriculture
has something to hide.
So as a result of this,
animal advocates and others
decided to challenge
ag-gag laws in the courts,
because they seem so blatantly
unconstitutional with the way
that they restrict First
Amendment and free speech.
So there's again
a broad coalition,
just as we saw with
the legislative battles
which I was involved in.
Here you have, with
the litigation,
you have a really broad-based
group of plaintiffs
in support for these.
But there was some controversy.
There were several
organizations--
because we had
been so successful
in the legislative realm and
had killed most of these bills
and they were really tapering
off as far as introductions.
I mean, Wisconsin worked
for about two years
on drafting an ag-gag
bill and it's obviously
one of the biggest dairy
states in the country.
I didn't see drafts of it, there
was all this scuttle around it,
and it never ever
got introduced,
which is pretty amazing.
I mean they'd spent a lot
of time and effort on that.
Some folks in the
animal community
were like, do we really
want to take the risk--
One the big arguments we had was
that these things are sort of
blatantly unconstitutional.
So better to sort of be
thought to be unconstitutional
and maybe have a judge
say that we're wrong
and that they are
constitutional,
and it would lead
to a whole plethora
of new ones being introduced.
Other folks felt that
while that may be true,
the main reason these things
are not being introduced more
is just because the public
opinion tide has turned.
So even if a judge finds
that they are technically
constitutional, it's
unlikely that we're going
to see a new flood of them.
And so that's why a smaller
group of animal protection
groups decided to go forth
and file these lawsuits.
And so this is Amy Meyer.
Terror-inducing terrorist
person there, as you can tell.
In 2013 she became
the first person
ever arrested and charged
under an ag-gag law.
So she was actually on a public
thoroughfare, on a street,
on a country road
behind a fence,
even, that she was taking
video with her cell phone.
Turns out that
slaughterhouse happened
to be owned by the town's mayor.
And so cops were
sent out and they,
even though she was standing on
a public street behind a fence,
she still was
arrested and charged.
Ironically, her actual
local state legislator
was one the most vocal
proponents of the ag-gag law
and said time and
time again, this
is only going to be used for
the hardcore animal rights
terrorists, it's never
going to be misapplied.
Here one of his own constituents
is the first person hit by it.
And here you can see the
distance she's filming from.
This was a downer cow
that is too sick, again,
too weak, too sick or
weak to walk on its own,
so it's being shoved
along with a forklift.
So the charges ultimately
were dismissed against Amy
after it was pretty
clearly demonstrated
that she was on the road
and not in fact trespassing.
Because Utah's ag-gag law
only criminalized recording
if you had misrepresented
yourself to gain access
to the facility.
So she wasn't even
at the facility.
But still, even
so, this just shows
how these laws can be
misapplied and sort
of the threat of
erroneous prosecution
still has an enormous chilling
effect on free speech.
So as a result, now
that you actually
had an example of
it being misapplied,
the Utah ag-gag law
was challenged in 2013.
You can see the various
array of groups here.
Animal Legal Defense
Fund took the lead,
followed by PeTA,
[INAUDIBLE],, Will Potter,
who I mentioned, the
journalist as well
because he felt that
it impinged his ability
to write about what was
going on factory farms.
So I'm not going to go super
deep into the specifics
of the lawsuit, the
constitutional challenges,
because really good
news to announce here,
the lead attorney on
all these ag-gag suits
is a guy named Justin
Marceau who's an HLS alum.
And he is a
professor, he actually
has the only endowed
chair in Animal Law
at the University of Denver.
Professor Stilt will be
on leave in the spring
to work on her book, Halal
Animals, and so as a result,
Justin is going to
come as a visitor
and teach our animal
law class in the spring.
So it's a really great
research, so hopefully he
will be able to come.
We're going to have him do a
talk more diving in much more
deeply into all the nuances of
the constitutional arguments.
But real quickly,
First Amendment
overbreadth and content of
viewpoint-based discrimination.
So an otherwise
permissible statute
might be invalid if
it's so overbroad
that it sweeps into other
core protected speech.
Content viewpoint.
So some of the quotes--
It's so great because
these legislators just
can't help themselves when
they're passing these laws.
They're just so angry that
they just say exactly--
they just reveal their actual
feelings, which is wonderful.
You don't even need
to get them to share.
So some of the quotes from when
the Utah law was being passed
says, that these are
quote "national propaganda
groups trying to change the
way agriculture is done".
Quote, "You have to look at what
someone is trying to accomplish
by taking a recording".
That clearly references
their disagreement
with the message
and their desire
to stop the effects
of such speech
that it has in contributing
to the public discourse.
So another element being
challenged as unconstitutional
was the 14th Amendment, it's due
process and equal protection.
So again, animus-based motive.
So again, some of the language
that these legislators
were using.
They were calling these animal
rights folks terrorists.
They said quote,
"We're going after,
quote, 'the vegetarian
people' who are trying
to kill the industry".
And my favorite
of all, they kept
referring to animal
protection advocates
as jackwagons, which none of us
was quite sure what it meant,
but it sounds like animus.
Sounds like animus
to me when I see it.
And one of the
last challenges was
under the Supremacy Clause,
a preemption under the False
Claims Act.
So the False Claims Act
is a federal provision
that protects the US government
from fraudulent claims.
In this instance,
specifically the sale of beef,
inducing them to
purchase beef that
has not been processed safely
and humanely according to law.
And so that was actually the
big claim in the Hallmark case
that led to that half a
billion dollar judgment
was all primarily under
the False Claims Act,
because they were selling that
beef into the school lunch
program.
So you've got the government
buying all this stuff thinking
that it's OK, when it's not.
So how this proceeded.
Judge Shelby is the one
hearing the case in Utah.
He's actually
quite conservative,
but interestingly, five months
after the lawsuit was filed,
he struck down Iowa's
anti-gay marriage law.
So we boded that as
a positive thing.
So the first--
I don't know how many of you
know how litigation proceeds,
but you've got a law.
It gets challenged.
The first step is that
the defendants always
file a motion to
dismiss, basically
saying this lawsuit
is so baseless we
don't need to go through the
hassle of holding a trial.
You can just dismiss it based
on-- because the other side
hasn't even stated a
claim that's valid.
So that's what happened.
Interestingly here,
Utah almost spent
most of their time challenging
procedural standing stuff.
They didn't really go into
the merits all that much
and didn't discuss the First
Amendment claims at all.
It's a sort of classic example
of bad government lawyering,
because if you
don't challenge it,
then you didn't challenge it.
So this is what's going--
so the judge dismissed
this and said,
no, we think this case is
certainly strong enough
to proceed, and
actually the language
he used on the
standing was fantastic.
I mean, it really gave
a super solid basis
from which to proceed
and that could
be applied in other places.
So while this is
all happening, Idaho
decides to pass an ag-gag law.
So being a little
naive going into this,
my conventional wisdom was
that litigation was always
like the fast-paced
rough and tumble.
I file the case, respond,
race to the courthouse,
blah, blah, blah.
And legislation was just
this glacially slow thing
that took forever to happen.
And in reality,
my experience was
that it's exactly the opposite.
So as you'll see when we
walk through some more
of these cases, you file a
case, it's like eight months
before you even get a hearing.
Then the other side has
like half a year to respond.
Then you'll actually
go through everything.
It'll take them like
three to four years
to work their way
through the courts.
In contrast, this
Idaho ag-gag law,
the bill was introduced
at 4:00 PM on a Friday.
I remember I was at a retreat.
Monday was a federal holiday,
and the hearing was scheduled,
the committee hearing was
scheduled for 8:00 AM Tuesday.
So you basically got
one business hour
from its introduction to it
being heard in committee.
And we're all over
the weekend having
to frantically buy tickets at
the Boise, Idaho and mobilize.
I mean, it's like really fast.
This thing flew through
the legislature.
So again, many of the same--
the Utah and Idaho
laws are quite similar.
So a lot of the same arguments.
But here it was
actually, the fines
were much more substantial.
So here, if you
violated this in Idaho,
you could be fined up to-- you
could face up to a year in jail
and up to $5,000 in fines.
The most infuriating thing
about this to many people,
by comparison the
maximum jail time
for a first offense
conviction of animal
cruelty is six months.
So you could face a year in jail
for violating the ag-gag law,
but under--
So in other words,
the statute punishes
those who expose animal
cruelty 100% more severely
than those who actually commit
the underlying animal cruelty.
That's pretty
telling about where
the mindset of the
legislators are.
So again, the first step in the
thing was a motion to dismiss.
Judge Winmill
denied that motion.
And here is kind of the
exact opposite, where
in Utah, the motion to
dismiss spent all this time
in the state challenging the
procedural standing issues,
here in Idaho they
spent most their time
figuring the standing argument
address focused on the merits.
And really interestingly,
the reverse of Utah,
is that the court opinion
was super, super favorable.
Again, discussing the merits.
So in tandem, the two
of these standings
are this perfect roadmap
now going forward.
You've got a really
solid opinion
on this procedural stuff
and a really solid opinion
on the merits.
And their association
were denied.
He denied their
petition to intervene,
which again we also took
as a pretty good sign.
So as I said, you get
the lawsuit filed.
The first step is
for the defendants
to file a motion to dismiss.
If they survive that, the
pendulum can swing back so
much the other way that the
plaintiffs can say, well,
actually, rather than this
case being so baseless that you
don't need to hold
a trial, we agree
that you don't need
to hold the trial,
but you don't need to hold
the trial because our case is
so strong that you
can already decide it
based on the facts in evidence.
We don't even need to
bother holding a trial.
And so it's seen as
aggressive, but that's
exactly what
happened in this case
because the language in
Judge Winmill's opinion,
denying that motion to
dismiss was so strong.
So this is what the
plaintiffs push for.
And a great thing about this
is it puts the defense again,
as they should be,
on the defensive.
It makes them have
to sort of disprove
the judge's argued
previous ruling, which
is such an uphill battle
because the judge had already
put a bunch of thought into it.
So the hearing was
held on April 28,
so this actually happened
be the day after I
was back here
attending-- the class I
did my first year of
law school with here
had their, class of '95,
had their 20th reunion.
So I was here at that and
had to race to get on a plane
and fly to Idaho
for the hearing.
And boom, we won.
So a few months later
in August, Judge Winmill
struck down the
Idaho ag-gag law.
This was on August 3rd, which
is relevant for something
I'll tell you in a second.
So Judge Winmill's opinion again
had such fantastic language
in it.
He said, food production
is not a private matter
and that the activists'
undercover methods actually
advance core First Amendment
values by exposing misconduct
in the public eye and
facilitating dialogue
on issues of what he called
considerable public interest.
And he even, referring
back to Upton Sinclair
said, under Idaho law even Upton
Sinclair's conduct would expose
him to criminal prosecution.
So pretty great language.
So as I mentioned,
this was on August 3rd,
so I was just transitioning
from my job at ALDF.
I was starting here the
first week of September.
And I had started
a petition to get--
being one of Delta's charter
diamond members because I
fly so damn much.
South African
Airways had decided
to stop transporting hunting
trophies out of Africa,
and Delta was the
only airline that had
direct flights to South Africa.
So I said, well--
and they refused
to comment-- so I was
like, I should just
ask them to do the same thing.
Like, I'm one of
their best customers.
And I started the petition.
I got like 400,000
signatures online.
And then, the Cecil
the lion story broke.
And Cecil the lion, the
dentist who shot him,
remember where he's from?
AUDIENCE: Idaho.
CHRIS GREEN:
Minneapolis, which just
happens to be Delta's
third largest US hub.
So I was like, I bet you
he was a Delta customer.
So I got back in
touch with Delta
and said like, you guys
really dodged a bullet here.
Can you imagine the second line
of every one of the stories,
like Delta flies Cecil's
butchered poached body back
to the US despite being issued
a petition like four months ago
asking to stop that crap.
So anyway, so we got an email.
I think it's like one of the
only fist pumps I've ever
done in my life.
I was sitting there and got a
call like, check your email,
check your email,
check your email.
Delta is like, OK we give.
We're just giving
you a heads-up.
So this happens,
and within 24 hours
both United and American
Airlines decide to do the same.
So already pretty busy news day
for our media folks at ALDF,
and then Judge
Winmill's decision
comes down striking down
the first ever ag-gag laws.
So yeah, it was a pretty
good day for the animals.
But adding expense to
that embarrassment,
the thing with these
constitutional challenges
is that if you get found to
have violated the Constitution,
you have to pay for the
other side's attorney's fees.
So here you've got a
quarter of a million dollars
that not only the
state of Idaho have
to pay using taxpayer funds
to defend against these cases,
but they actually had to
pay all of the fees to the--
So great, right?
We won.
Awesome.
Cool.
Not so fast.
So Idaho appealed
the ag-gag law,
even though Idaho's
own attorney-general
recommended against doing so.
But the governor was under such
pressure from the Idaho dairy
industry that Governor Otter
ordered the AG to move forward,
regardless.
Sound familiar?
Anyone with attorney-generals
and executive branches
these days.
[LAUGHTER]
So it was rumored that
in order to fund this,
because he had already
spent all the money
they had allocated, that
Governor Otter actually
raided funds that were allocated
for unfilled state jobs
in order to finance the appeal.
And so the appeal then was
heard before the 9th Circuit.
And again, pretty good ruling.
So a little while later,
January of last year,
9th Circuit struck down
Idaho's ag-gag law.
And actually, a lot
of animal advocates
were really happy that
the Idaho ag-gag law
was appealed, because
now you've got
sort of enshrined in an
actual appellate opinion a lot
of the concepts there.
So here's some of the
things that they said.
The good parts.
And this thing is
a very key part.
This was something
that was really
kind of a new issue
for the Idaho case.
I said, the very
act of recording
is itself an inherently
expressive activity.
That's something that's
never been that clearly
delineated before.
Like, is recording
itself actually speech?
But the court went
on to say, yeah,
decisions about how you would
make recordings are themselves
expressive in the same way
that the written word is
or a musical score.
The court went on to say that
Idaho can't prohibit people
from gaining access to a farm
through misrepresentation,
particularly since the state
already criminalizes trespass.
And here's the language
that they used,
saying just how
overbroad it was.
That the overbreadth was,
they called it, staggering,
and said that it was
specifically targeted at speech
and investigative journalists.
Let me go back here.
I'll see if I have--
there's some great
language again in Idaho.
Well, I'll go back to it.
But the Idaho language
is same sort of thing.
That the language they
used on the animus side,
they refer to animal
protection advocates
as invading marauders
coming down from on high
to destroy agriculture
as we know it.
And it's like at the
time not exactly the way
I envision myself when I
wake up in the morning,
but I'll take it.
It sounded great.
But, yeah, it's pretty
funny how these folks just
can't help themselves
by using this language
and again, that really
gets to the fact it
was very clearly specifically
targeted at speech
and investigative journalists.
So again, pretty great.
We won.
Well, again, not 100%.
So there's a slight caveat.
So the 9th Circuit,
even though they
ruled that a majority of
what we were asking for,
they found that two
provisions of the Idaho law
still should stand.
One was using misrepresentation
to obtain records.
The other was using
misrepresentation
to gain employment if the
goal was causing harm.
And so that's a little vague,
but it's pretty narrow though,
because the Idaho law
requires specific intent
to inflict actual damages
beyond emotional distress.
And that's something
that would likely
be very difficult to prove what
someone's specific intent going
in was.
So again, still
looks pretty good.
Well, again, before we
get too celebratory.
Ag-gag 3.0 happens.
You've got the first ones
passed in the early '90s.
Then you've got this wave
that happens around 2010.
Now, in 2015, states
like North Carolina.
North Carolina had
tried to-- in fact,
one of my first
year classmates who
was at the reunion
with me, Josh Stein,
is now the Attorney
General of North Carolina.
And we were talking
at length about this
as I was about to
fly to the hearing.
And North Carolina had tried
to pass a couple of ag-gag laws
like two or three
years in a row.
Always failed.
Could never get it through.
So then they say,
well, maybe the problem
is that it's clear that
we're targeting agriculture.
So they'd pass this broad
sweeping thing that is called--
I can't even imagine what the
acronym for this bill is--
but as you can
see, it's primarily
focused on property
owners and just
about keeping private
property rights intact
and preventing anyone from
trespassing on your property.
And so agriculture isn't
mentioned anywhere.
Interestingly though,
it's so broad,
and again rather than the all
the other previous ag-gag laws
where you've got the state
actually criminalizing
behavior, this actually
instead created a civil course
of action that would just
give business owners a vehicle
by which they could
sue the whistleblowers
for bad publicity that
resulted from the undercover
investigation.
So now again, here this
is pretty substantial.
So this would allow these
facilities to basically
receive a judgment from
these whistleblowers
of $5,000 for each
day that they were
gathering information
or recording
without authorization.
And so it's so broad though,
because it doesn't specifically
focus on agriculture, that this
would silence whistleblowers
not just in Ag facilities, but
at any workplace in the state.
So hospitals, day care
centers, veterans facilities,
nursing homes.
So as a result of
this breadth, it
was opposed by 94%
of Carolina voters
and a broad coalition of
groups as you saw before,
including the AARP,
the Wounded Warrior
Project, every major newspaper.
And one thing those groups
did was then target--
so actually, even with
that crazy opposition,
74% of voters being
opposed to it,
the legislature still passed it.
So now the focus became
on getting the governor
to veto it.
So a lot of the groups just
focused their attention
on North Carolina's
tourism industry
saying, if you're going
to pass a law like this,
we're just not going to
come spend our money there.
And so the groups
then pressured.
And again, success.
Pretty great.
You're getting a
Republican governor
in a Republican state vetoing
a bill being put forth by one
of its biggest industries.
So again, pop the champagne.
Not so fast.
North Carolina actually
felt [INAUDIBLE]..
The North Carolina legislature,
despite 74% of their own voters
being against it,
felt so strongly
about protecting their
industry that they actually
overrode the governor's
veto just five days later.
Pretty astounding.
So this sets a
problematic precedent
that it's proven successful
that you can get laws like this
through, again where
North Carolina could not
pass an ag-gag law for
three years straight,
and so we're concerned we're
going to see more of this.
One was tried in
Tennessee and failed.
And Arkansas followed with
an almost verbatim copy
of this bill, passed in 2017.
But all hope is not lost,
because similarly, groups
are suing over these laws and
a lawsuit was filed in 2016.
And pretty much the
same fundamental
claim that they're
making that making
it illegal to engage
in whistleblowing,
those First Amendment
protections apply just
as much to civil
prohibitions as they
do to criminal prohibitions.
The trigger for them
was just finding out
who you actually sued, because
until an individual would
sue one of these
whistleblowers, you don't really
know who your potential
defendants will be.
But they ultimately decided
just to sue the state
as a defendant.
So where this stands
now, same sort of back
to the choreographed dance.
Motion to dismiss gets filed.
But this time the judge actually
sided with the defendants
and tossed the case on standing,
but then advocates appealed
and the 4th Circuit overruled
and sent it back down.
So that's where it's now.
It's sitting there on a
motion for summary judgment.
And the feeling tends to
be that the state is just
trying to slow this
down and keep it
in place as long as they can,
knowing that it might go down.
But meanwhile, back in Utah,
the first ever lawsuit that was
filed-- we haven't
forgotten about them--
as a result of all the success
that animal advocates had
in the Idaho case which
was almost identical law
to the Utah one, they
go back and they file
for summary judgment again.
And again, great, the
judge does the same thing,
strikes down Utah's ag-gag
law as unconstitutional,
saying it violated
the free speech
rights of undercover
investigators and journalists.
So finally won on this one?
Actually, yes.
In 2017 in September,
Utah's state attorney
said in the court documents
that they were not
going to appeal that decision.
I think they felt that the
ruling was so strong that they
just saw the
writing on the wall,
and they saw what was happening
with the other appeal.
So now that you've
got two of these laws
having been struck down
as unconstitutional
in states like Idaho and
Utah, animal advocates
are like, OK, well,
let's actually
go after some of the
major ag-producing states.
So that's exactly what they did.
So Iowa, we've got
a couple of folks
from Iowa here in the room.
They were up next.
So in October
2017, that lawsuit,
that ag-gag law was challenged.
And so you'll remember,
Iowa's ag-gag law criminalized
quote "providing
false information
on an employment
application with the intent
to record images".
Again, intent is
sort of hard to show.
But again, some of
the language here.
These people just
can't help themselves.
So the sponsor of Iowa's
ag-gag bill at the time
said that she'd push the
bill quote, "to crack down
on activists who deliberately
cast agriculture operations
in a negative light".
And a sponsor in the
Senate said the intent
was to stop extremist vegans
committing subversive acts that
might bring down the industry.
Sounds sort of
content-based maybe, right?
So again, doing the little
dance and the choreography.
First step is motion to dismiss.
Here, the court
struck down the motion
to dismiss as the courts
had done in Utah and Idaho.
There's a lot of text here.
You don't need to read it.
But it was pretty
astounding for us
all to see the language
in the motion to dismiss.
They start off by
saying how important
undercover
investigations have been
throughout history,
especially in the context
of slaughterhouses.
They then go on to
specifically describe
some of the details of
undercover investigations that
have happened in Iowa, such as
the pig farm revealed instances
of workers beating
pigs with rods
and sticking clothes
pins into their eyes
and faces leading
to criminal charges.
And another undercover
investigation
at a kosher slaughterhouse,
which was Agriprocessors,
a very famous case.
One the only times that the
actual owner of an operation
has been sent to prison.
Just so happened to be President
Trump's first ever pardon
was to that But anyway.
But they talk about how
they revealed instances
of cows being slaughtered,
having their tracheas removed
from meat hooks while
fully conscious,
and cows remaining
conscious for minutes.
This is like the opening
paragraph of the judge's denial
of the motion to dismiss.
Bodes pretty well for how the
judge might rule on the merits,
right?
And that's exactly
what happened.
The issue was ruled--
just a couple of months
ago in January of
this year, court
struck down Iowa's ag-gag.
So that's three now
that have gone down.
And the court's
opinion in that case
distinguished-- this
is a really key part,
because the one part
of Idaho's law that
survived that 9th Circuit
appeal was the misrepresentation
for employment.
Here, the court distinguished
that 9th Circuit ruling
because that required
specific intent to cause harm,
which the Iowa law did not.
The misrepresentation part.
And the court found,
so I'm not going
to go too deeply into the
test that apply but a big one
that early determinants how
likely you are to succeed
is whether the
court's going to apply
strict scrutiny or
intermediate scrutiny.
But here the court
said, we don't even
need to get into
specifics of this
because under either standard
this is so egregious,
it's blatantly unconstitutional.
And then went on to say how
the defendants couldn't even
articulate why or how--
their pretext goes
like, oh, we're
not trying to go after
animal activists.
We're just trying to
protect biosecurity.
Despite all the language
when it passes, saying,
we want to go after
the animal advocates.
And couldn't even make a cogent
argument of why this would even
apply to biosecurity.
So as a result of
this, open season.
Like within a week of
this ruling coming down,
Mercy for Animals is
like, all right, great.
We want to hire some undercover
investigators to go to Iowa.
And this is actually a still
from a video taken by Mercy
For Animals
investigators in Iowa
where this cow is too
weak or sick to stand up
and so they're basically like
waterboarding it and spraying
this firehose up her nose trying
to make it so onerous for her
that she'll just summon the
power and will to get away
from it so that she
can be slaughtered.
So again, is it time
to celebrate yet?
We won again.
Has everyone seen
the news, right?
Not so fast.
Iowa was the first state to
actually turn around and pass
a replacement bill after one
of these was struck down.
So just signed last
month, a few weeks ago,
March 15th, the
new law basically
tries to use the provision
of Idaho's ag-gag statute
that survived the 9th
Circuit challenge,
and basically replicate
that and create
a crime of agricultural
production facility trespass.
And here's the language of that,
again focusing on the intent
to cause physical or
economic harm, which again
is sort of difficult to prove.
So as I was literally
coming over here,
I got some messages from Justin
Marceau talking about this.
I didn't have time to
put them in my slides,
but he basically, their
position, they're like,
this is likely to be
challenged almost immediately.
And their position is that
the underlying intent for this
is still to target
protected speech.
That no matter how
you gussy it up,
that's actually what
they're going after,
and that they believe that
it's unlikely to stand.
So stay tuned.
We'll see.
But it's not slowing
anybody down.
In December of this year yet
a fourth ag-gag challenge
was filed in Kansas, which
is the oldest ag-gag law.
So pulling this all
together, again,
drawing the reason
that it's sort of fun
and interesting to get in all
the nuances and all the rough
and tumble, like
this being filed
and people challenging this and
being-- but bringing it back,
there's still a very
fundamental core public policy
issue at stake here.
So Ezra Klein put
it really well.
"We should be allowed to
see how our food is made.
We should be able to bear
seeing how our food is made.
And if the conditions in which
we raise animals for slaughter
are so awful they
can't be seen, then
maybe those should be
reformed, not hidden
by the force of the state".
So with that, I will let
folks who need to go to class
go to class, and then we can
take some questions afterwards.
Thanks so much.
[APPLAUSE]
Man, 77 slides in
about 45 minutes.
That's a pretty good record.
[LAUGHTER]
KATE BARNEKOW: Anyone
have questions?
OK, please wait for--
CHRIS GREEN: And
if you could please
wait till the
microphone comes to you,
because we're recording this.
We want to make sure your
question gets on the recording.
And Kate will be coming
around with the mic.
AUDIENCE: Nestlé's action
concerning meat production
or dairy production, whichever.
All right, given Nestlé's
abominable practices in other
areas, was Nestlé's action
nothing but hot air for public
image, or did they actually
do anything to enforce it?
CHRIS GREEN: No.
My understanding is that the
moves are pretty significant.
In fact, I'm pretty sure Nestlé
is involved-- there's a new--
I think it's called like
the Grocery Manufacturers
Association, which is a large
trade group that include
a lot of large food companies.
And they had a big splintering
and there's a new group with
Unilever and I'm pretty sure
Nestlé and a few others that
are kind of the Sustainable
Producers Coalition
or something like that.
And they're actually
really out front,
really pushing hard on issues
of climate and other things.
So I think they get it.
I think they see that this
is where the consumers are.
And they're trying to sort of
meet them where they find them.
That's my understanding.
I could be wrong.
But again, these companies are
so-- you've got a $101 billion
company.
There's always going to be
some things that are good
and some things
that are bad, but we
try to incentivize them
to do the good things
and celebrate them when they do.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
Thank you so much for this.
I don't know how
specific you want
to get if it's just a
question and answer,
but I'm just curious if
there's like a good Sparknotes
summary on how groups
like PeTA and ALDF
were able to get standing?
Was it just that they were
themselves directly harmed
by the policies?
CHRIS GREEN: Yeah, in
many of those cases,
so they actually had, as I
said, a plaintiff as well.
So you've got Amy Meyer
in the first case.
I think I think a big part
of it is, as I've just--
my travel bill alone those
couple of years at ALDF
of me having to fly
all over creation
trying to play whack-a-mole
and pulls these out.
I think it's the sort of--
I can't remember
what the term is--
organizational
standing where you
can show that an organization
is diverting resources away
from its core mission in
order to address these things,
that usually gives standing.
Kate probably knows
better than me, though.
Where's Delphi when we need her?
AUDIENCE: Thank
you for the talk.
I have a similar case
that's a nursing home.
When you go into a nursing home
and you see all those issues.
Sometimes you witness
incidents which
is unsafe to patients
and to your parents
or to your relatives.
Then you say-- unsafe
issues to other patients
as well further as time goes on.
And you say, unsafe issue
to staff member violence.
So very unfortunate
in the nursing home
early ministry did the opposite.
Give you a trespass warning.
So they trick you,
let you in, then
they call the police
to arrest you.
So it's trespass
warning, so it puts you
in a criminal patterning.
CHRIS GREEN: Yeah.
That's what was so interesting
about the Idaho law
and compared with the
North Carolina law.
So in Idaho, they
very specifically
said that they
only were targeting
agricultural facilities.
That any one of
those others were--
you could still go
into nursing homes.
You could still go
into other places
and do this sort
of whistleblowing.
So that actually
worked in our favor
because it showed that they
were very specifically going
after a particular viewpoint.
Whereas in North Carolina,
it was everything.
Any sort of private enterprise
or private business,
any sort of whistleblowing,
even by long-term employees,
you couldn't go
after them civilly.
I'm going back trying to find
the Idaho information here.
KATE BARNEKOW: [INAUDIBLE]
CHRIS GREEN: Yeah, I'll
just jump to this here.
Oh no, that's not going to work.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
AUDIENCE: So thank you for this.
It seems like there's a lot
of different battles going on.
So there's the
battle in the courts,
there's the battle to
pass all this legislation
at the lawmaking level, and then
there's this narrative battle.
So you have these parties
trying to control the narrative,
and the undercover
investigations they really
disrupt whatever narrative
that the industry is
trying to put out there, and
in a really powerful way.
Which the aggressiveness
of the legislation sort
of belies how effective
these investigations are.
And my question is, because
the industry is trying
to control the
narrative here and it's
getting very desperate
about it and so something
that sort of goes
against their attempt
to control the narrative is the
very thing that they're doing
is kind of revealing that.
Or like you say in
the presentation,
it makes it look like they
really have a lot to hide.
And so I'm wondering if
any part of the industry
has realized how bad
this makes them look?
How counter-productive this is?
And gone the other way of being
more transparent and saying,
oh, hey, we're going
to open the doors.
Has anyone taken that tactic?
CHRIS GREEN: Some have.
Some have announced
that they're going
to be putting in cameras
in their own places
that can be accessed.
A few have.
And very interestingly,
so I don't
know how many of you are
familiar with Timothy
Pachirat's book,
Every Twelve Seconds.
He's a political science PhD.
He was working at Yale.
As part of his research
he went to work
undercover at a slaughterhouse.
And he wrote this
book that just talks
about how the physical design--
the subtitle is The
Politics of Sight.
And how the physical layout
of the slaughterhouse
itself mirrors the way that
we deal with it societally.
The way the cows went
behind his double wall
so no one actually saw the
moment that the cow had
its throat cut.
And that the
responsibility for that
was sort of dissipated
amongst enough people
that no one really
felt individually
responsible for
killing the animal.
And that there was two sides.
There is the pre-hide side
and the post-hide side,
which is where most
the contamination
is likely to come
from for the meat.
They're called dirty and clean.
So there is a dirty
men's bathroom,
a clean men's bathroom.
Those folks weren't even allowed
to have lunch with each other.
There's this whole divide.
So his whole thing was just that
again you hear the common idiom
that if slaughterhouses
had glass walls,
everyone would be vegetarian.
Well, he sort of has
rethought a lot of that.
And I know something he's
working on currently, not
for public consumption
necessarily,
but I'll just say that
there is a place in Indiana
next to where I have a home
in Illinois that basically
is sort of like a factory
farm amusement park.
It's a large-scale
farming operation
that has all these
billboards and has something
like 600,000 visitors a year.
And by hyper exposing
everything they're doing,
it sort of normalizes
it a little bit.
So that's something I think
some folks are looking
to introduce and make sort of--
And it ends in a lot of,
I think another thing
that's mentioned
in like Germany,
I think, you can
look at a camera
and pick the pig that
you want slaughtered
and then you will order
the meat and you'll
get these packages that have
the picture of the pig's
face on the thing.
So there is some concern
that it's not just a matter
of keeping things hidden.
That if you actually
make them hyper visible,
that it may have a similar
normalizing or dissipating
effect sort of like lying in the
federal government has lately.
Once everyone starts
doing it, it just
ceases to become something
that's a problem.
Yeah.
Thanks for the question.
AUDIENCE: I'm wondering about
the kind of financial side.
It seems like these
companies take a big hit
when they're exposed.
And like you point out,
one way to avoid that
would be just not to engage
in these kind of practices.
So are there studies
showing that that would just
be so expensive for
them that this still
makes financial sense?
Or are they just kind
of being stubborn?
Like what's the deal there?
CHRIS GREEN: It's
all about money.
You hit the nail on the head.
But it's not the way you
would think that they're
worried it's so expensive,
it's all about just
trying to squeeze
as much productivity
as you can out of every second.
So line speeds are a huge issue.
When you've got these
line speeds where you're
expecting these workers--
And you say these companies,
but these companies
are really stratified.
So yeah maybe the
people at the top,
these execs at Nestlé are
getting this black eye from all
this stuff, think it's
horrible, but there's 50 links
in the chain between them
and the actual people who are
handling the animals
on the ground.
And all those managers
have these sort
of numbers to meet
for their bosses
and there's pretty much--
animals are in these
horrific conditions.
They don't want to
be super compliant
and march to their deaths
or do whatever they.
So you've got these people at
the bottom level who are just
being yelled at by all
of their supervisors
to hurry up and faster,
faster, faster, faster.
And when you're barely
making a living wage
and you've got all this pressure
on you and all of a sudden,
this sow decides she doesn't
want to comply and goes
and do what she
wants to go and do,
you're going to
get angry at her,
because she's actually getting
you in trouble with you bosses.
And so it makes--
I don't know how many of you
were at our Animal Law Week,
we had an actual undercover
investigator named
Pete come describe
this exact thing of how
otherwise decent people
that he worked among
would do these really horrible
things because they're
worried about their income.
They're worried about
losing their job.
They're worried
about putting food
on the table for their family.
And if some animal
disrupts that and gets
in the way of them
meeting their quota,
they're going to react
negatively and usually
that often results in
violence on the animal.
So yeah, that might really
infuriate an exec at Nestlé,
but all you can do is hope that
some of these operations learn
from example, and like Wiese
Brothers and these other ones
that are going out of business
because they're doing this
stuff.
Any other questions?
Hold on one second.
We've got to wait
for the microphone.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
I had a couple of questions.
But one of the
things that hit me
was when you were talking
about this line speed.
Wenonah-- what is her name?
I forget now, but she
runs Food and Water Watch
and she wrote a book
called Foodopoly.
And in it, she said that
Clinton was the one who actually
increased the line speed--
CHRIS GREEN: It's
across the board.
AUDIENCE: He decreased--
CHRIS GREEN: I mean
you're doing it now--
AUDIENCE: The meat
inspection and what
they do is they push
the meat through faster.
CHRIS GREEN: It's not
through anyone individually.
It's something that
industry is pushing
for every second of every day.
Right now, just in the
past couple of months,
there's been a lot of waivers.
There's this issue.
There's this system now
where different facilities,
especially pork facilities
and chicken facilities,
can get waivers even from
the existing line speeds
that they don't have
to comply with them.
So it's not any
one administration.
They all are pretty
much equally as bad
when it comes to the
treatment of farmed animals.
AUDIENCE: Oh OK.
And then they hit the meat
with irradiation and trisodium
chloride to actually
make up for the fact
that you didn't
get all the tumors
or you didn't
inspect it properly.
Well, my real
question, what I was
going to originally ask was, is
this a part of the Green Scare?
And if it is, what
really just struck
me was that a lot of the
maximum security prisons
are in, I think one of them
is in Terre Haute, Indiana,
and they're in like places
like Indiana and Illinois
and things like that.
And I know people who've
been part of the Green Scare
who've been--
the Green Scare was
environmentalists
and at one point
it was considered
one of the most dangerous
threats to this country.
CHRIS GREEN: Animal activists
are always considered way worse
than environmentalists.
Literally, the FBI
said multiple times
that the single biggest
terrorist threat the US faces
is from animal rights
activists, not from others.
AUDIENCE: Can they wind up
in a maximum security prison?
That's 23-hour lockdown.
CHRIS GREEN: Yeah, I'm not sure.
AUDIENCE: I know that one
environmentalist, he did,
because he was speaking
with his lawyer.
OK.
Thank you.
CHRIS GREEN: Any
other questions?
KATE BARNEKOW: Please join me
in thanking Chris for this talk.
And we'll have our last event
of the year for Animal Law
Society a week from today.
I'm not sure what room.
But we have a panel on
legislation for farmed animals,
instead of against them.
