Heads Up! Animal "Liberation" / Elimination Bills Everywhere!

By Teresa Platt, FCUSA Executive Director

Farmers know it must be spring when they see new life all around them, while folks in the cities look for the first vegan protestors stripping for synthetics. Another sure sign of spring is a new crop of animal "liberation" /elimination legislation popping up around the country.

One easy way to track the mischief your elected rep is up to is to search your state legislature's website. Another way to track animal-related legislation is to visit the Humane Society of the United States' (HSUS) website and check the Legislation and Laws section. Search for "animal", "cattle" or whatever in the Bill Finder and legislation will pop up. You can also search by state here.

Bring anything that concerns you to the attention of FCUSA, breeders' organizations, your local Farm Bureau, and others working for conservation and animal welfare.

For 2005, we see quite a few bills addressing animal transportation and feed handling - apparently legislative fallout from the BSE issue. We urge those involved in feed mills to review these bills carefully for implications for your business.

Beyond real issues, such as controlling diseases like transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE's), an example of recently introduced nonsense legislation is Indiana's SB562, which makes it illegal to kill a domesticated animal and even calls such killing "murder". Since almost every domesticated animal ends up being euthanized, this bill could make mass murderers out of shelter employees, vets, medical researchers, pet lovers, or any other animal owners. Of course, HSUS supports this bill.

Like Indiana, various other states have introduced legislation on killing methods. New York has bills focusing on the use of electricity (NY A19, S2495), while Rhode Island is considering banning the use of carbon monoxide (HB5545).

Oddly enough, HSUS supports the Rhode Island bill while supporting bills in North Carolina (HB685, SB529) which would mandate the use of carbon monoxide gas for euthanasia.

And if that seems contradictory, how about PeTA's position? While promoting "controlled atmosphere killing" (a.k.a. controlled atmosphere euthanasia) for chickens, PeTA opposes it for mink and other animals. Anyone who works with animals knows by now that the advancement of the nonsense philosophy of animal rights means not making sense.

HSUS Fights Eco-terror Bills

In scrolling though all the HSUS campaigns now in full swing, we spot an interesting one well outside its role of "protecting" animals. Hidden among alerts to ban wildlife management, eliminate animal ag, establish euthanasia as "murder", and limit animal ownership, is a new campaign started Mar. 29. HSUS's "Animal Protection is Not Terrorism" campaign opposes five bills in New York, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Ohio focusing on domestic terrorism.(1)

Regarding Pennsylvania's HB213, HSUS states: "The HSUS opposes violence and intimidation and believes these activities are not consistent with our mission of animal protection, but the bill is too broad and speech activities should not be criminalized."

Sounds sensible. We can agree with this line of thinking and hope the bill is modified to protect free speech, in all its forms, while cracking down on eco-terrorists using breaking and entering, threats, arson and violence as weapons on their crime sprees.

But HSUS offers this statement in opposition to Arizona bills HB2295, SB1333 and SB1166 against terrorism: "Makes it illegal to enter an animal research facility with the intent to take pictures or video for the purpose of committing a crime or defaming the facility."

HSUS opposes these bills because it wants to protect those who trespass on animal research facilities for the purpose of committing a crime or defaming the facility? Yikes. That can't possibly be its statement of opposition, can it?

"The Humane Society of the United States opposes using violence in the name of protecting animals but considers the bills too broad," HSUS lobbyist Julie Janovsky(2) said in an Associated Press article. She went on to explain that such bills "would outlaw videotaping without permission at farms and labs" and was elsewhere quoted as stating, "At the root they are trying to prohibit investigations into animal cruelty."(3)

Of course, any investigation into animal cruelty by appointed government officers could not be stopped by eco-terrorism legislation, and nor should it. These are legitimate undertakings paid for with tax dollars because society wants them. But such legislation would impact HSUS and its ilk seeking to trespass in search of fodder for their propaganda films.(4) Their "investigators" have no legal mandate and most certainly no right to trespass. The fact that HSUS thinks they do is worthy of investigation in itself.

In 2003, HSUS spent over $800,000 expanding its capacity to show video over the web.(5) It needs footage and it needs it bad. And it needs to trespass to get it, and is blunt and open about saying so. It's utilizing one of its lobbyists to make sure it doesn't lose this battle to enter your property without your permission.

If these eco-terrorism bills stop criminals from violent behavior at research facilities and on private property, we're for them. In our opinion, if such bills catch, as bycatch, animal rightists breaking and entering, and trespassing, while seeking footage for propaganda films, that's just a side benefit.

HSUS, FFA Merger Yields Change ... for the Worse?

Since HSUS is under new leadership, and since it recently merged with the more aggressive Fund for Animals, some minor changes in position are unsurprising. But we are surprised HSUS would post such a strong and blatant statement in support of breaking and entering, criminal actions and defamation, and hire a lobbyist to work publicly to defend such actions.

Does its new president, Wayne Pacelle, hold a lighter view of eco-terrorism? It is well known that before joining HSUS in 1994, he worked for the Fund for Animals which made a name for itself when it secured funding for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, one of the first groups to have a policy supporting law-breaking overseas and eco-terror tactics.(6)

In 2000, HSUS raised eyebrows when it hired oft-arrested Animal Liberation Front spokesman J.P. Goodwin and renamed him John Goodwin.(7) In 2005, HSUS hired Miyun Park and Paul Shapiro of Compassion Over Killing to its staff. Compassion Over Killing openly admits trespassing on farms, taking video and editing it into propaganda films.

So it appears HSUS's stated opposition to the eco-terrorism bills is, quite frankly, frank. It is saying that it supports trespassing "with the intent to take pictures or video for the purpose of committing a crime or defaming the facility." Trespassing and defamation are just part and parcel of what HSUS calls its "investigations", which its staff have no legal mandate to conduct. Trespassing is a criminal act, and any images stolen from private property without the owner's permission are simply that, stolen goods and evidence of a crime, illegal for HSUS or anyone to receive, use or profit from. Any attempt to establish the crimes of trespass and invasion of privacy as an "investigation" is simply an attempt to pull the wool over our eyes.

It's spring and, at HSUS, it looks like we are watching the birth of a monster. Researchers, farmers and champions of private property rights, beware.

Notes:

1) NY A6801, AZ SB1166, AZ HB2295, AZ SB1333, PA HB213, OH SB9.

2) Calling her "a Senior State Legislative Specialist", HSUS pays Janovsky to lobby against eco-terror bills. Janovsky is registered in Maryland as a lobbyist for HSUS and its Wildlife Land Trust.

3) Terrorism bill would stiffen penalties for animal rights threats, by Carrie Spencer, AP, Mar. 29, 2005.

4) For a history of video abuse see Saving society from animal 'snuff' films', FCUSA commentary.

5) For info on HSUS's expenses expanding its website's ability to incorporate images, see http://www.guidestar.org/Documents/2003/530/225/2003-530225390-1-9.pdf. See page 7, $881,471 to a company called "Exciting New Technologies," and more at http://nptimes.com/dme/Jan04/dme_2.html. All this raises the question, are images obtained via trespass stolen images? Is Exciting New Technologies is in the position of receiving stolen property?

6) www.seashepherd.org/links.html. "It was Cleveland Amory and the Fund for Animals that provided Sea Shepherd with the support to obtain its first conservation ship. The two organizations have been partners ever since."

7) See HSUS and the making of a conflict industrialist, FCUSA commentary, Aug. 12, 2001. See also In their own words: shocking quotes from the mouths of HSUS.

For further information contact: Teresa Platt, Executive Director, Fur Commission USA, PMB 506, 826 Orange Avenue, Coronado, CA 92118-2698 USA, (619) 575-0139, (619) 575-5578/fax, furfarmers@aol.com, www.furcommission.com.

To take a cyber-tour of a fur farm, visit Fur Commission USA's Fur on Film at http://www.furcommission.com/video/index.htm

© 1998-2005 Fur Commission USA

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